History
Will Canada Apologize To Sikh-Canadians For Historic Wrong?
RUPINDER KAUR
The story of the Komagata Maru is not new - in fact, on May 23, 2012, we’ll be marking its 98th anniversary.
Growing up in a small Canadian city, my parents did everything they could to keep my siblings and I connected to our language, faith, culture and history. And bedtime was a chance to hear stories. Sometimes the stories had a happy ending, sometimes they didn’t.
Here’s one story that has stuck with me over the years:
On May 23, 1914, a Japanese ship called the Komagata Maru carrying 376 passengers - almost all Sikhs from Punjab - from the Britis Raj on the subcontinent tried to dock in a Vancouver port. It was denied because of racist legislation called the “Continuous Journey” law, hastily put in place by Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden.
The law required passengers to make a single, continuous, uninterrupted passage to Canada from their country of origin for eligibility for the ship to dock and for the passengers to disembark. The fact did not escape the legislators that the requirement would pose no problem for those coming from England and Europe, but would exclude everyone from Asia, for example: there were no ships then capable of doing a direct voyage from Calcutta, the embarking point for those coming from the Soth-Asian subcontinent.
For two months, the Komagata Maru anchored offshore while Canadian authorities drove the passengers to the brink of starvation and desperation. Finally, Prime Minister Borden intervened by calling on the Canadian Navy and local militia and prepared for a violent confrontation.
In the end, the ship was forced to return to Calcutta on July 23 with fuel and restocked supplies.
Upon its return, when the ship docked in Budge Budge, 19 of the passengers were shot dead by British troops, in an attempt to prevent them from returning to Punjab and alerting the populace about they had been mistreated in Canada evenm though they too were British subjects. Those who survived the massacre were charged with treason and imprisoned, their properties expropriated.
It’s a tragic story with an unhappy ending.
However, Canadian politicians are trying to address this historical wrong that has passed unrecognized for too long.
In January 2007, then-NDP Leader Jack Layton demanded that the Government of Canada officially apologize to the Sikh-Canadian community. In his address in Parliament, Mr. Layton said “one of our greatest strengths as Canadians is our ability to face the past and learn from it. This is the time to exercise that strength.”
An NDP motion was put forward in Parliament on May 18, 2007, and required unanimous consent by all parties. Sadly, it was blocked by Conservative MPs. Personally, I was disappointed to see the Conservatives deny justice to the community.
The Conservatives have proven they have a heart when it comes to saying sorry inside Parliament to communities such as the Chinese because of the head tax and the Japanese and Italians over their unjust internment during the World War. Now it’s time to apologize in the House of Commons to our community who were affected by the Komagata Maru tragedy.
In 2008, current Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a trip to Surrey, British Columbia, and offered an attempt at an apology. However, it was made at an annual Punjabi festival and was immediately rejected by 10,000+ people in attendance. The community spoke loud and clear - given the enormity of the wrong, an apology shouldn’t be made on a stage in a public park, it should be on the floor of the Commons.
On May 18, 2012, NDP MP Jasbir Singh Sandhu (Surrey North) introduced a new motion in Parliament calling on the Prime Minister to re-deliver the country's apology to the community inside the House of Commons.
All MPs will vote on this motion on Monday, May 28.
This is another opportunity for the government to correct this historical injustice and offer a chance for healing and reconciliation. This is an opportunity to create national awareness so that this kind of tragedy never happens again. For the past 98 years, the Komagata Maru has been an unhealed scar in the community and a dark and shameful chapter in Canadian history.
Although the actual story of the Komagata Maru did not have a happy ending, we can certainly ensure that the moral of the story is that when a wrong happens, the right thing to do is admit the wrong, apologize and make necessary amends.
May 24, 2012
Conversation about this article
1: Baldev Singh (Bradford, United Kingdom), May 24, 2012, 1:00 PM.
Whether or not Canada's government has the decency to do the right things, we as community must do everything to honour the memory of the sacrifices by ensuring that the history is written accurately and is part of text books, history books, films, museums, libraries, etc.
2: Tirlochen Kaur Sehmi (United Kingdom), May 24, 2012, 3:16 PM.
I read about this in my younger years and about one of the people wo was hounded by these Governments. His name was Gurdit Singh and I believe he wrote a book about his experiences. I was very young then but read the book as my father was reading it - wish I had asked questions then or maybe kept the book!
3: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), May 24, 2012, 10:52 PM.
Nope, won't happen. Many Canadians who oppose the apology for the Komagata Maru are still ignorantly parading around the idea that the Canadian government turned around a boat full of illegal immigrants. There has been no attempt to remedy the historical ignorance that as citizens of the British Empire, Sikhs and Indians enjoyed the rights to travel anywhere across the empire. They had more of a legal right to settle in Canada as opposed to the eastern Europeans who were given free land across the prairies.
4: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), May 24, 2012, 10:56 PM.
I would like to add that the reason why the Japanese, Chinese and Italians were given apologies not only has to do with the enormity of the wrongs which were inflicted against these communities, but also because these three groups are seen as being "genuinely" Canadian. Even though Sikhs have been in Canada for over 100 years the population still assumes that we are a "new" migrant community hence not "genuinely" Canadian. I guarantee that if an apology does happen it will coincide with a demographic shift in this country, something which will happen in a few decades.
5: Irvinder Singh Babra (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), May 25, 2012, 12:05 AM.
Canadian governments in Ottawa and British Columia should apologize for the Komagata Maru tragedy. Will it be enough for the criminal acts by the governments, including the massacres in Budge Budge? The port in Budge Budge near Calcutta has all the names of the passengers inscribed, including their leader, Baba Gurdit Singh of Sarhali village near Shahbazpur (coincidentally, my village near Amritsar). We have to admire their guts and strengths, who ventured forth against all odds.
6: H.S. Vachoa (U.S.A.), May 25, 2012, 11:41 AM.
I agree that Canada should apologize. However, I also think we need to do more to educate the world about this incident and our history in Canada, to make it loud and clear that we are as Canadian as any other. There should have been a movie about it already.
7: Ari Singh (Sofia, Bulgaria), May 27, 2012, 6:02 AM.
Even after the Komagata Maru incident, Sikhs still enlisted in the British army and gave their lives! When are we going to learn?