The Komagato Maru Incident

1914: the ss Komagata maru

SOCIAL STUDIES 9 – 1750 – 1919

Big Idea s:

•Emerging idea s a nd ideologies profoundly influence societies a nd events.
•Dispa rities in pow er a lter the ba la nce of rela tionships betw een individua ls a nd betw een
societies.

Content: Students a re ex pected to know the follow ing:

•imperia lism a nd colonia lism
•globa l demogra phic shifts, including pa tterns of migra tion a nd popula tion grow th
•discrimina tory policies a nd injustices in Ca na da

ADDITIONAL INTRODUCTORY INFORMATION

Asia is the largest continent on Earth.
It covers 9% of the Earth's total
surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has
the longest coastline, at 62,800 kilometers
(39,022 mi). Asia is generally defined as
comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia.1

In the late 19thand early 20thcenturies people
from several parts of Asia, most notably
China, Japan and India, emigrated from their
homelands to Canada (or tried to).

1https://tinyurl.com/yc6jr6hp

Multiple Select

From which parts of Asia did people begin to notably emigrate to Canada?

• China

• Thailand

• India

• Japan

Multiple Choice

During which time period did this take place?

• 10th & 11th

• 12th & 13th

• 16th & 17th

• 18th & 19th

South Asia consists
of the countries
labeled on this map
(some say that
Afghanistan is
part of central Asia).

NOTE: People from
India are called
‘Indians’, in the same
way that people from
Canada are called
‘Canadians’.
This appellation
distinguishes them
from Canada’s
indigenous peoples.

Pakistan

Sri Lanka

India

Bangladesh

Nepal

Bhutan

Afghanistan

This portion
is also India,
connected to
the main part
by a very
narrow neck
of land.

Maldives

Multiple Select

Which of these countries are part of South Asia

• Pakistan

• Australia

• India

• Egypt

Multiple Select

Which of these countries were part of the British part of the British Empire in 1914?

• Canada

• Pakistan

• India

• Afgahnistan

But in 1914 India
was much larger –
in fact, it was
labeled on maps
of the day
as an empire.

But it was all
controlled by the
British; it was a
colony of the
British Empire,
in fact.

Multiple Choice

What is the name of the ship which is involved in the incident we will be writing about?

• Kemagetu Mooro

• Keymageto Maru

• Komagato Maru

• Kamageto Meru

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

A series of events happened over more than a decade, culminating in
the arrival of the Komagata Maru in Vancouver Harbour in May 1914.

1904 - the first South Asian migrants to Canada
arrived in Vancouver. Attracted by high Canadian
wages (by Indian standards), they soon found
work. Immigration increased quickly thereafter
and totaled 5,209 by the end of 1908. All of these
immigrants were men who had temporarily left
their families to find employment in Canada;
virtually all of them remained in British Columbia.1

1907 - Seeing in them the same racial threat it saw
in Japanese Canadians and Chinese immigrants,
South Asians were disenfranchised, which denied
them the federal vote and access to political office,
jury duty, the professions, public-service jobs
and labour on public works.2

This iconic photo, Sikhs in Canada,
was taken in 1908 by Vancouver street
photographer Phillip Tim. (Phillip Tim)

1,2 https://tinyurl.com/bdfsm8me

Multiple Choice

In what year did the first South Asian migrants arrive in Canada?

• 1902

• 1903

• 1904

• 1905

Multiple Choice

What attracted them to Canada

• New Houses

• A promise of a plot of land

• A colder climate

• High High wages

Multiple Choice

Who was it that mainly emigrated?

• Men

• Women

• Familes

Multiple Choice

In 1907 because the Canadians saw the South Asians as a threat, they 'disenfranchised' them. What does this mean?

• They sent them back to South Asia

• They did not allow them to vote

• They did not allow them to open a business

• They did not allow them to practice their religion

Where did all the ill-feeling towards these immigrants come from?
At the heart of this shunning attitude was pure and simple xenophobia:

‘During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the belief in progress and in white superiority
was taken for granted throughout the Western world. Many English-speaking Canadians
believed that Anglo-Saxon peoples…were the apex of biological evolution and that Canada's
greatness depended on its Anglo-Saxon heritage. Their assessment of a group's desirability
therefore varied almost directly with the degree its members conformed to British culture
and physical type. British and American immigrants were regarded as the most desirable,
followed by northern and western Europeans, central and eastern Europeans and then by
Jews and southern Europeans.’3

3https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/prejudice-and-discrimination

Multiple Choice

What does the word Xenophobia mean?

• An extreme dislike of travelling to new places

• An extreme dislike of foreigners, their customs and religions

• An extreme dislike of change in society

• An extreme dislike of poor people

[Nowhere in this description do we see
anything about Asians; they did not fit into
the British-Canadian paradigm at all,
even though Indians swore allegiance to
the same sovereign on England’s throne.]

1908 - the federal government enacted a
regulation that specified that immigrants
had to travel to Canada with continuous
ticketing arrangements from their country
of origin. There were no such possible
arrangements between India and Canada
and, as was its intent, the continuous-journey
provision consequently precluded further
South Asian immigration.4A second provision
required Indian Immigrants to possess $200
upon arriving in Canada – eight times the
amount required of White immigrants.5

4,6https://tinyurl.com/3c8mnncn

5https://tinyurl.com/2z9382eu

These two regulations were
deliberately deceptive so that British
imperial officials in India could deny
the existence of any laws in Canada
that barred Indian immigration.6

Multiple Select

What additions did the Candian Government make to their immigration laws in 1908?

• That immgrants mjust prove that they were escaping from extreme danger

• That immigrants must make the journey in one go

• That immigrants must have at least $200

• That immigrants must pass an English test before being allowed in

1914 - The immigration ban was directly challenged in 1914, when the freighter Komagata
Maru sailed from Hong Kong to Canada with 376 prospective South Asian immigrants.

May 23 - The ship anchored just outside Vancouver, BC – all the passengers were
British subjects, the same as all White Canadians at the time, and therefore entitled to enter
Canada. By the time the ship docked, the travelers had been at sea since April 4.

June (exact date unknown) - 20 passengers, returning residents and
‘a very few special cases’, were allowed to leave the ship.7

May 23/June/July 23 - the passengers were isolated on board, unable to communicate with
the South Asian community on shore. Conditions on the ship, including access to food and water,
grew desperate. The local South Asian community rose to the passengers’ defense, formed
a committee, raised large amounts of money and hired a lawyer to challenge the restrictive immi-
gration laws. A test case put before the courts lost in its final appeal, and the passengers were
issued deportation orders. When they refused to leave until provisions for the return trip were
supplied, and fought attempts by officials to board their ship, the government sent in the
heavily-armed warship HMCS Rainbow. The Komagata Maru passengers stood their ground,
singing patriotic songs and reading from Sikh scripture. Finally, thanks in part to efforts by
the local South Asian community to negotiate an agreement, the government provided
food and water for the ship, and it left Vancouver’s harbour for the return trip to India.8

7https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/komagata-maru

8https://tinyurl.com/2run2vv2

Multiple Choice

What did the immigrants on board the Komagatu Maru have in common with all, whit Canadians at that time?

• They were both open to new religions and cultures immigrating to Canada

• They were both subjects of the British Empire and therefore entitled to live in Canada

• They were both united in their hatred of Canada's indiginous people

Multiple Choice

How long were the passengers of the Komagato Maru kept on the ship in dreadful conditions?

• 1 month

• 2 months

• 3 months

• 4 months

But the story didn’t end there –

Sept. 26 – as the Komagata Maru approached Calcutta, India a European gunboat signaled the ship
to stop. The ship was put under guard and all the passengers were held as prisoners.9

Sept. 29 - the Komagata Maru reached the town of Budge Budge, 27 kilometers from Calcutta;
the passengers were forced to come ashore. The port officials called additional police and military
to enforce order amongst them. This resulted in riots where the police used brutal force, shooting
the innocent people, and of the 321 passengers on the ship at Budge Budge, 62 left for Punjab, 20
passengers died, one drowned, 9 were hospitalized, 202 jailed and 28 remained unaccounted for.10

9,10 https://www.southasiancanadianheritage.ca/

koma-gata-maru/history/

11 https://tinyurl.com/2fbukt8f

There are several views on why the riot and
subsequent killings occurred; one was that the
British suspected a conspiracy by political
activists. But the passengers just wanted to
come home safely. “It was a panicky British
government that mistook innocent travelers to
be seditious rebels,” says Salil Misra, a history
teacher at Ambedkar University Delhi.11

Multiple Choice

When the ship re-docked in India in September, the British Police accused the passengers of a rebellion against the British Empire. They used brutal force to subdue and arrest the passengers. How many were killed?

• 5

• 10

• 15

• 20

21stcentury developments in the story

2002: Alliance MP Gurmant Grewal presented a petition in the House of Commons calling
on the Liberal government to issue an apology. [2006: Conservatives form the next govt.]

2007: NDP put forward a motion calling on the government to apologize but it was voted
down by the Conservatives.

May 2008: Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla, one of the first Sikh women elected to the House of
Commons, introduced a similar motion and it passed later that month.

May 2008: The B.C. legislature passed its own resolution apologizing.

August 2008: PM Stephen Harper issued an apology at a major BC S. Asian festival; it was
rejected by several big organizations for not being presented in the House of Commons.

2012: The NDP put forward a new motion calling for an apology in the House of
Commons. The motion was voted down by the Conservatives.

2015: Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau repeated his 2008 pledge that, if elected, his
government would issue a formal apology in the House of Commons.

May 18, 2016: PM Trudeau issued the apology in the House of Commons.

Multiple Choice

When did the Primeminister of Canada, Justin Trudeau finally apologise for the treatment of the immigrants on board The Komagato Maru?

• May 18, 2012

• May 18, 2020

• May 18, 2014

• May 18, 2016

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY

https://tinyurl.com/2u8s5jva

https://tinyurl.com/2jh39zsk

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/komagata-maru-live-apology-1.3587827

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-apologizes-for-1914-komagata-maru-incident-1.2907211

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZyvg_87e6o

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/komagata-maru

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/immigration-policy

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/prejudice-and-discrimination

https://tinyurl.com/2z9382eu

https://tinyurl.com/y4nu8p5c

https://tinyurl.com/k8a4w6k2

http://komagatamarujourney.ca/intro

https://www.southasiancanadianheritage.ca/koma-gata-maru/history/