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Komagata Maru and
the Media
Pratik Kanjilal
 Our disrespect for history is legendary. Events that shaped the
lives of millions are routinely forgotten, surfacing only
occasionally like an itch in a phantom limb. For instance, this
week, Amitav Ghosh’s new novel
Sea of Poppies reminds us of the role of the British opium trade in
our social history. Much will now be written on this wonderful book
about the voyage of the Ibis, so let me draw your attention to
another forgotten voyage that Ghosh touched on briefly in his first
novel, The Circle of Reason. It has not found place in any other
creative work, though it is the subject of Deepa Mehta’s forthcoming
film.
History records this dramatic event in
Vancouver harbour in May 1914 as the ‘Komagata Maru incident’. Now
that Canada is a model multicultural State,we have forgotten how
racist it once was. In 1914, alarmed by the influx of Indian
immigrants, the government introduced an apparently even-handed law
that did not explicitly bar them entry, but made it impossible for
them to enter. It required immigrants to arrive by ‘continuous
journey’, carrying $200. There was no direct sea route from India
and $200 was an impossible sum for most Indians.
n
April 1914, Gurdit Singh, a Hong Kong Sikh, challenged the
exclusionist law. He chartered the Japanese steamship Komagata Maru
and sailed for
Vancouver
with 376 Punjabi immigrants, almost all Sikhs. Refused permission to
land, they held out for two months in
English Bay. The Ghadar Party got involved and pitched battles with
the police made headlines worldwide. Finally, the ship was
redirected to
Calcutta
but was detained at Budge Budge, where the authorities packed the
protestors into a special train to
Punjab.
They resisted, the police opened fire and 20 were killed. The Sikhs
regard them as martyrs but other Indians have forgotten their story,
a landmark in the global movement, the first challenge to White
Canada, against racism. Amazing, because the incident also lit the
fuse that would ignite
Punjab
five years later at Jallianwalla Bagh, and begin the end of the Raj.
However, it’s now a hot issue in
Canada. Sensitised by the award-winning documentary Continuous
Journey by Ali Kazimi of York University, last month Canadian
legislatures apologised for the shabby treatment of South Asians.
Later this year, Deepa Mehta is expected to release Exclusion,
starring Amitabh Bachchan (as Gurdit Singh), John Abraham, Manisha
Koirala and Seema Biswas. But like The Circle of Reason, this will
be an expat high culture product. Our local pop culture-wallahs seem
disinterested. Curious, because a pop, post-colonial angst-ridden
movie on this forgotten incident would click with the audiences that
turned Lagaan and Chak De India into smash hits. (The author
publishes The Little Magazine, a highly regarded literary magazine
in
India that gives pride of place to regional literature.)
25
June, 2008
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