Hey everyone, today I’ll be telling you about an untold story, a part of the dark history of British Columbia, the Tomagata Maru incident.
Today I’ll try summarizing and reflecting on the past, and telling you this story through a historian’s view, and these are the four main points we’ll be going over today:
- – What happened in the Komagata Maru incident, and the story behind it.
- – Why was the apology important to BC’s south Asian community?
- – What is the legacy of Komgata Maru, and why it’s relevant to us today?
- – What aspect of this incident should we memorialize as a part of our collective public memory?
What happened, and why?
In 1914, a ship with 376 passengers set sail from India. There were 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus on the ship; all British subjects. A lot of the passengers were retired soldiers of the British empire, and they dreamed of coming to Canada after retirement.
Unfortunately, Canada was very racist and unfriendly with the coloured people. The government at that time intended to make Canada a “white country”, and created some extremely discriminatory laws. In this case, the Continuous journey law.
The continuous journey law required people to have a continuous, nonstop journey when traveling to Canada. It was impossible to go straight from India to Canada, the law was indirectly stopping the south Asians from coming. They had to create a law like this to stop the south Asian immigrations, but because the Indians were all British subjects, the government was not allowed to directly stop them from coming. They sailed from sea to sea for 2 months. It was a seething purgatory, considering there were only 2 bathrooms on the ship, and horrible living condition.
After they arrived at Vancouver’s harbor, they were rejected from landing. They were detained for two more months on sea, with little food and little water. The Canadian government tried to make them give up and go back by letting them starve. The Sikh/Hindu community fundraised 60000 dollars for them to by food and water so they could survive. They went on the court house, but lost because they didn’t come to Canada directly from India. When they went back to India, some of the passengers were shot by the British officers for being “trouble makers”.
Through this indecent, we can directly see the unjustifiable actions that were taken by the Canadian government; discrimination against the south Asians because of their skin color. The formal apology to the south Asian community is an important milestone to stop racism in Canada, and reflect on the mistakes that were made in the past.
“I reaffirm that the national life of Canada will not permit any large degree of immigration from Asia. I intend to stand up absolutely on all occasions on this one great principle a of a white country and a white British Columbia.”
— H.H. Stevens, Vancouver City Alderman, 1914
You might be asking yourself, why did they travel two months knowing that they were not welcomed? Well, the legacy of Komagata Maru was to challenge injustice, and racism. Komagata Maru wasn’t just a ship, it carried the hopes of the passengers of desiring to live better lives. Unfortunately, because of their skin color, they were limited, and treated unfairly by society at that time. Through the Komagata Maru Incident, we learned that we need to fight back against injustice, such as racism which is still very relevant to us today. We need to reflect on the past, and make sure the same mistakes don’t happen again.
Even thought the formal apology had been made in 2016, we still need to keep our history alive, and memorialize their legacies. We should be learning about these stories at school, and have memorials for those who risked their lives for their future generations.
sources:
Reflecting on the Komagata Maru apology
Komagata Maru: Why the apology matters, more than a century later