Komagata Maru Monument Unveiled

[Reposted from Darpan Magazine]
A monument was recently unveiled to honour the Komagata Maru freighter and its would-be immigrants acknowledging Canada’s past discrimination when 376 South Asian passengers were not allowed to land, and were escorted out of Vancouver’s Coal Harbour.

Municipal, provincial and federal politicians attended the unveiling ceremony of the Komagata Maru monument, located along the seawall near the Convention Centre West in Vancouver. Members of the Khalsa Diwan Society, who operate Vancouver’s Ross Street temple, were also in attendance, and this group worked with the Vancouver Park Board to design the monument, funded by the federal government.

“In a day like today, where Canada really embraces multiculturalism in a different way, it’s startling for people to think that 98 years ago it could have been so different,” Niki Sharma, Vancouver park board commissioner, told the media. “We’re a country built on immigrants so the policies of the past really help us to realize how important it is to not go back there again.

Sharma went on to say “Having parents myself that are from India strikes a chord with me, because if things hadn’t changed, my future here would have been a lot different.”

The federal government provided $82,500 to create and design the monument, which includes the names of all the passengers who were denied entry; in addition $104,000 in federal funds was given to the Ross Street temple to develop a museum.

According to Sohan Singh Deo, president of the Khalsa Diwan Society, “today’s Canada is a much more accepting and multicultural country than the state that barred immigrants based on the colour of their skin,” as per media reports.

The Komagata Maru, a freighter chartered by Singaporean Gurdit Singh, arrived in Vancouver on May 23, 1914 with 376 British subjects from India aboard. The freighter violated a 1908 Canadian law that required continuous passage, as its point of origin was in Hong Kong.

As Canada’s immigration laws were strict, the passengers were not allowed to land despite being British subjects, which would have enabled them to settle anywhere in Canada. However, the public and political policies and sentiments in 1908 were overtly racist and the freighter and its passengers sat in the city’s harbour for weeks until the Komagata Maru was escorted by the navy out of Vancouver on July 23, 1914.

Upon returning to India, police fired upon the freighter’s passengers killing and injuring dozens of individuals, as they believed the group were anti-British.

July 2012 | By Darpan Magazine

Image Courtesy of Vancity Buzz