Of Immigrants Past and PresentVijaya Ramaswamy THE VOYAGE OF THE KOMAGATA MARU: THE SIKH CHALLENGE TO CANADA'S COLOUR BAR By Hugh Johnston Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1979, pp. 162, Rs. 55.00 SIKHS IN ENGLAND: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MIGRANT COMMUNITY By A.W. Helweg Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1979, pp. 175, Rs. 55.00 VOLUME IV NUMBER 5-6 March-April/May-June 1980 The
voyage of the Komagata Maru has its roots in the present as well as in the
past. It had its links with the Ghadr party, the most powerful terrorist organization
outside India engaged in the anti-imperialist struggle. But its relevance is
no less to the immediate question of the Indian immigrants everywhere and their
prospects and problems. Both aspects have been interwoven into this account of
the Sikh Challenge to Canada's colour bar. Helweg's book takes up the theme of
emigration and immigrants within a narrow spatial framework over a long period
from 1947 to 1948.
On the 4th of April 1914 165 Sikhs led by a businessman,
Gurdit Singh embarked on the Komagata Maru renamed Guru Nanak Jahaz from Hong
Kong with British Colombia as their destination. The voyage of the Komagata
Maru was far from being the first of its kind. The first Sikhs had arrived in
Canada in March 1904. By 1906, there were 2,000 Sikhs in Vancouver and by 1908
their number had swelled to 6,000, working in the saw mills, in the railways
and in the cement factories. The Canadian authorities did not view these
immigrants with tolerance. The first of the immigration laws aimed at the Indians
were passed in 1908. The members of the Indian community were treated as
non-citizens and refused the right to vote. The chief instrument of official
harassment was Hopkinson. He was employed as an Immigration Inspector and
Interpreter for the Canadian Government, but for his service in providing
information of Indian activities, he drew, apart from an annual salary from the
Canadian government, a stipend and expenses from the India office, and a
retainer from the American Immigration service. Hopkinson was backed by his
superior Malcolm R.J. Reid, the Vancouver Immigration Agent, a minion of the
local Conservative M.P., H.H. Stevens, who was a rabid Indian hater. This
powerful combination of official forces failed to check the disembarking of
the passengers of Panama Maru in October 1913 and they chafed against the
Indian victory in the law courts.
The Sikhs led by certain educated members of their
community like Taraknath Das, Guran Ditta, Har Dayal Bagh Singh and Rahim,
soon came to view the discriminatory policy in Canada as part of an overall
imperialist-racist attitude faced by Indians in Natal, Transvaal, Australia and
New Zealand. Around 1913 were founded revolutionary organizations—Madame
Cama's Abhinav Bharat Society in Paris ... Table of Contents >> |