From the Editor: It’s not the Komagata Maru, it’s the Guru Nanak Jahaz
The Guru Nanak Jahaz, also known as the Komagata Maru, at the Burrard Inlet during its two-month captivity. (Vancouver Public Library)
On May 23, 1914, a ship arrived at the Burrard Inlet. After more than a month at sea, the SS Komagata Maru had finally reached Vancouver.
The ship carried 376 passengers — all of them Punjabi and nearly all men, with the exception of two women and four children. There were at least 337 Sikhs, 27 Muslims, and 12 Hindus.
As most lessons go, we would not be taught a vital piece of Canadian history had everything gone to plan.
The Komagata Maru should be better known as the Guru Nanak Jahaz — it’s what the passengers called the ship. The name comes from Sikhi and the Punjabi language — reflective of the passengers on board. Guru Nanak Dev Ji is the founder and first guru of Sikhism. Jahaz means ship in Punjabi.
The Guru Nanak Jahaz anchored, but none of the passengers were allowed ashore. Except for 20 returning residents and a few special cases, the passengers had to wait on a ship they had been travelling on for nearly two months.
Anti-Asian lobbies already existed in Canada to oppose Chinese and Japanese immigration, and that grew to include South Asians, too. Before the Guru Nanak Jahaz arrived, there were some South Asians, mostly Punjabi men, on the West Coast.
South Asians, specifically Punjabis and Sikhs, have had a long history in B.C. From politics to activism, my community is embedded within Canadian history — but our existence in this country wasn’t always welcome.
Though all British “subjects” in the British Empire should have been able to travel freely between colonies, that practice was not reality.
In 1908, Canada created two policies to keep Indian immigrants out. The first is that anyone travelling to this country had to do so by continuous journey from their home country.
Under strict instructions from the Canadian and Indian governments, passenger agents would not sell Indians tickets straight to Canada. The Guru Nanak Jahaz set sail from Hong Kong, where there was a Punjabi population hoping to travel across the Pacific to Canada.
The second regulation allowed Canadian immigration officers to turn back any Asians who arrived with less than $200 — $5,580 today. This did not apply to Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were kept out by other measures.
These two regulations were deliberately evasive, so British officials in India could deny the existence of any Canadian laws that specifically barred Indian immigration.
After two months in Canadian waters, the remaining 355 passengers of the Guru Nanak Jahaz were forced to return on July 23. The ship made a stop in Japan, before continuing on to Budge Budge near Kolkata, with 321 people arriving on Sept. 29.
Twenty passengers were killed by British Indian police upon arrival, who tried to force them onto a specially commissioned train bound for Punjab.
Following the Guru Nanak Jahaz’s departure from the Burrard Inlet, tensions continued to rise in Vancouver.
Mewa Singh, a Sikh man living in Vancouver, was convicted and executed in New Westminster in 1915 for the murder of a Canadian immigration inspector, William C. Hopkinson.
Hopkinson, who was born in India to a British sergeant and a Punjabi woman, had a history of infiltration and a network of spies within the Punjabi Sikh community in Vancouver.
The Canadian government has used infiltration to “tame” and control many communities — namely Indigenous Peoples. It’s a quiet-kept secret weapon Canada has used to inflict harm.
I don’t want to be fed a different version of my history. The Guru Nanak Jahaz, not the Komagata Maru, is a huge part of largely South Asian — but specifically Punjabi and Sikh — history in Canada.
It’s not a monument to be graffitied, but a reminder of what Canada is capable of.
My family immigrated to Canada in 1990 — decades after the Guru Nanak Jahaz arrived and was forced to leave. Yet, I still consider it part of my history because violence against my community continues today. Racism and attacks against South Asians, exacerbated by online sentiments, are on the rise.
The Guru Nanak Jahaz is not a tale of the past, only to be remembered every May 23. The Jahaz is a sinking reminder of what happens when power goes unchecked.
