An Abandoned Tragedy
The prose -- "An Abandoned Tragedy"
Just
like all other happenings, the incident of Komagata
Maru has its own story to narrate too. There is a long tale behind the
monument in Budge Budge.
Chronicles
say that the occurrence involved a Japanese steamship named Komagata Maru that sailed from Hong Kong, Sanghai, China to Yokohama, Japan and then to Vancouver, British Columbia and
Canada in 1914. The vessel carried 376 passengers consisting of 340 Sikhs, 24
Muslims and 12 Hindus from Punjab and British India. Of them, 24 were admitted
to Canada, but the 352 other passengers were not allowed to land there, and the
ship was forced to return to India. This was actually a plea to keep out
immigrants, but only of the Asian origin.
At that
time, many smaller states, especially in India, were for most practical
purposes administered by the imperial government, but the sovereignty rested in
their rulers and not in the British Crown, and all such persons were considered
to have been born outside the dominion and allegiance of the Crown, so were
known as British Protected Persons.
In the
meantime, the Canadian Government felt pressurized in accepting massive numbers
of immigrants, almost all of whom came from Europe, and therefore passed an
order-in-council on 8 January, 1908. However, this practically applied only to
the ships that began their voyage from India.
A
well-to-do fisherman in Singapore named Gurdit Singh Sandhu was aware of the
problems that the Punjabis faced while immigrating to Canada due to certain
exclusion laws. In order to assist his compatriots, he intended to outwit these
regulations by hiring a boat to sail from Calcutta to Vancouver. His purported
goal was to challenge the continuous rule and to open the door for immigration
from India to Canada.
While
chartering the ship named Komagata Maru
in January, 1914 with the knowledge of the laws imposed, he publicly espoused the
Ghadarite cause in Hong Kong. The Ghadar Party, also known as the Hindi
Association of the Pacific Coast, was an organization founded by Indians of the
USA and Canada in June, 1913 with the aim to liberate India from the British
bondage.
At that
time, the Government of Britain, which held the Canada Immigration portfolio,
was anxious about the Indians spreading rebellion on the eve of the First World
War.
Thereafter,
the ship got scheduled to leave in March, but Singh was arrested for selling tickets
for an illegal voyage. After his release, the ship departed on 4 April with 165
passengers. More people joined. On 3 May, it sailed into Burrard Inlet near
Vancouver with its complement of 376 passengers.
Finally,
Komagata Maru arrived in Canadian
waters, but it was not allowed to disembark, as the then Canadian Prime
Minister Robert Borden with the aid of a conservative MP named H. H. Stevens
and others organized a public meeting urging the government to refuse the proposals
of docking the vessel. Even though there were lots of protestations on part of
the Indian people, the ship had to depart to Asia on 23 July.
Arriving
in Calcutta on 27 September, Komagata Maru was stopped by a British gunboat. The
passengers were placed under guards.
On its
return to India, the British Raj found the men as self-confessed lawbreakers
and dangerous political agitators. When the ship docked at Budge Budge, the
police arrested Baba Gurdit Singh and his 20 other fellow men. He resisted the
arrest and a general riot followed. The fired shots ruthlessly killed 19 of the
passengers. Some managed to run away, but the remaining people were imprisoned
for the duration of the First World War. This incident became known as the
Budge Budge Riot.
In this
regard, Baba Gurdit Singh, after absconding somehow, was urged by Mahatma Gandhi
to give himself up as a true patriot. He duly did so and was put in prison for
five years. This entire thing is much noteworthy even now-a-days.
To
narrate the significance of the Komagata
Maru incident, some lights must be thrown to the fact that the Indian
groups cited it to highlight discrepancies in Canadian immigration laws. Furthermore,
the inflamed passions in the wake of this happening were widely cultivated by
the Indian revolutionary organization named the Ghadar Party to rally support
for its aims. In several meetings ranging from California in 1914 to the Indian
diaspora, prominent Ghadarites, including Barkatullah, Tarak Nath Das and Sohan
Singh, used the occurrence as a rallying point to recruit members for the
Ghadar Movement.
To revere
the tragedy, the Indian Government established memorial to the Komagata Maru martyrs near Budge Budge.
Unfortunately, the place is deserted even now lacking visitors. Jawaharlal
Nehru, the then Indian Prime Minister, inaugurated it that is locally known as
the Punjabi Monument and is modelled as a kirpan
(dagger) rising up to the sky.
In
Canada, a plaque commemorating the anniversary of 75 years of the Komagata Maru was placed in the Sikh gurdwara (temple) in Vancouver on 23
July, 1989. Moreover, a monument in remembrance of the incident was unveiled on
23 July, 2012, near the steps of the seawall leading up to the Vancouver
Convention Centre West Building in Coal Harbour. Apart from that, the first
phase of the Komagata Maru Museum was
opened in June, 2012 at Ross Street Temple.
What is
more, the tragic incident motivated many people to write creative pieces, in
order to propagate its historic significance from home to home and from heart
to heart. That is to say, the plays like The
Komagata Maru Incident by Sharon Pollock, Komagata Maru by Ajmer Rode etc. are focused upon this
heartbreaking tragedy.
Yes,
the tragedy can never be blotted out from the memory, not just because of its
historic value but even due to the emotions that it arouses in each and every
heart that tries to delve into its deepest layers of pity and fear. What is
more pathetic is that such a historic and heart-rending spot stays abandoned
even on present dates. Why? The answer lies in the fact that the administration
is indifferent.
What a wonderful writing!
ReplyDeleteThank you abundantly.
DeleteVery good
ReplyDeleteThank you so much.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful
ReplyDeleteThank you so much.
DeleteFantastic
ReplyDeleteThank you so much.
DeleteVery nice
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Delete