By Sardar Saran Singh

In the last decade of the 19th Century and the first decade of the 20th Century many patriotic Sikhs who had been active in the Indian independence movement left their homes and hearths in Punjab to seek their fortunes in the far flung British empire in the Malaysian peninsula and the Island of Singapore. Some voyaged across the Pacific to find refuge in Canada’s western most province of British Columbia and the west coast of the USA particularly San Joaquin Valley of California and Oregon State, These East Indian Settlers though mostly Sikhs were locally described by the generic term Hindu distinguish them from the Red Indians. Being British subjects they were technically entitled to admission to the Canadian dominion territories. However in so far as many of the prospective immigrants could be regarded as political refuges from British India and the intelligence reports had preceded them, the Canadian government was reluctant to admit them regardless of the enormous potential of untapped territory. The Dominion of Canada accordingly passed what was apparently an innocuous legislation viz the continuous Passage Law, that could nevertheless be invoked to keep ‘out unwanted immigrants, since the law required such persons to arrive into Canada, on through tickets directly from his home country. There was simply no direct shipping service between India and Canada. Even the families of Sikhs already settled and working in British Columbia could be prevented from entering Canada under the new immigration law.

In early 1914 a group of enterprising Sikhs led by Baba Gurdit Singh of Sarhali district Amritsar an affluent contractor and Timber merchant in Singapore chartered a Japanese steamer KOMAGATA MARU renamed it GURU NANAK JAHAZ and resolved to put the Canadian law to test. Among the 376 passengers 340 were Sikhs, 12 Hindu and 24 Muslims. Since the British Indian government would not permit them to embark from any of the Indian ports, they boarded the ship at Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Komagata Maru arrived at Vancouver harbor on May 23, 1914. The Canadian government allowed no more than 22 passengers to disembark on being satisfied that they were residents of Canada. The rest were charged with the violation of the Continuous Passage Law. The ship was held in quarantine condoned off by patrol boats and denied replenishment of victuals. The Victoria Times said: “British Columbians cannot, for economic reasons, allow Indians to enter because they will be swamped by a people whose standards are vastly different from ours, and whose presence in large numbers would cause most dangerous disturbances…….”. Again:””The Komagata Maru has obtained a bill of health at the quarantine station, but is still being held there and is awaiting instruction from Ottawa. Boat loads of local Hindus (i.e. Sikhs) have been prohibited from approaching the Vessel.” After a futile two month long legal wrangle that aroused high emotion both among the white Canadians and resident Indian settlers of British Columbia, the Komagata Maru with 354 starving but determined passengers aboard was forced to leave Canadian waters under threat of assault by the naval frigate HMCS Rain bow, on July 23, 1914. On September 26, 1914 Guru ‘Nanak Jahaz reached Calcutta and was piloted down the Hooghly to Budge Budge harbor for disembarkation of the helpless passengers. With the World War-I (1914-1918) in progress, the authorities in Calcutta had been armed with extraordinary powers. The British Indian police confronted the passengers insisting on subjecting them to an intensive search. No arms were found. They were then ordered to disembark and go directly to their villages in Punjab, which the Sikhs refused arguing that they had the right to land on the Indian soil and be free to move. Most had been reduced to penury in this voyage of misery and frustration. The order to depart Calcutta was the last straw.

They formed themselves into a procession at Budge Budge and with Guru Granth Sahib borne on a palanquin proceeded towards Calcutta singing hymns. They were however forced back by the police, whereby a scuffle followed. The “nervous” police faced with the determined of unarmed group opened fire. According to official records 21 Sikhs were gunned down. But the Sikhs claimed to have suffered the loss of 67 men. Others were arrested hand cuffed and put in a Punjab bound train. En route Several including Baba Gurdit Singh escaped. The latter evaded arrest for seven years, eventually surrendering voluntarily in November 1921.

Under orders of the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, and enquiry was ordered into the BudgeBudge tragedy. The commission was directed to enquire into the circumstances connected with the voyage of the Komagata Maru to. British Columbia, its return is British India. The “riot” at Budge-Budge and the subsequent arrest of those concerned. Referring to the terms of reference of the commission of enquiry, the Indian social Reformer a contemporary journal commented:” In our opinion the terms are unduly and unnecessarily wide. The circumstances connected with the voyage of Komagata Maru to British Columbia and its return British India would form an eminently interesting subject of study taken by itself, but they seem at any rate, to the layman, to have little or not connection with the riot at Budge Budge.” To mix up the two things in the way they are mixed up in the official communique was to complicate the issue. In the meantime. The following letter appeared in the TRIBUNE of Lahore dated October 22, 1914: You published in your issue of the 16th a letter which I addressed to the Civil & Military Gazette. As the public in India knows a good deal about the Budge Budge affair by now and will be in a position to know more very shortly, I will not anticipate matters… I will only add that we arrived in Diamond Harbour on the 26th September and for three days all the passengers and their belongings were thoroughly examined and subjected to a careful search by some officers and men of the CID among them being Sardar Sahib Sukha Singh and Mr. Nanak Chand of Montgomery, accompanied by Mr. Humphreys and Mr. Petrie… Nothing untoward happened during the search or soon after it. It was after we arrived at Budge Budge that the trouble began.

BHAN SINGH Jullunder: 20th Oct. 1914One of the passengers of Komagata Maru.”

The Bengal government communique stated that “the men became suddenly very excited and without ‘warning a hot revolver fire was opened on the police and officers, while others charged them with staves, and even one or two swords. “Sir F. Hallinday in his evidence before the coroner mentioned 30 or 40 pistols and revolvers, lathes and a Winchester Repeater, as among the ‘weapons with which the passengers were armed. The ENGLISH MAN’S (Predecessor of the STATESMAN 2) representative reported that “the Sikhs were all well-armed and modern rifles, sabres and swords…..”.

These grounds had been typically, prepared to justify firing and killing of the Sikhs. It was ignored, for instance, that the ships passengers had been quarantined in Vancouver, stranded abroad in Japan and were almost on the brink of starvation and too poor to pay for their return passage to India. Under the circumstances the government of India, convinced of their helplessness, brought them to India at its own expenses. How and where could they have purchased the costly weapons of “military pattern”. Bearing in mind that in Canada they could not land nor could their friends see them in the ship.

The British government was bent upon internationalizing the voyage of the Komagata Maru in order to justify the BudgeBudge tragedy. This is also borne out by certain remarks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the course of an article contributed to the DAILY CHRONICLE captioned “The Great German Plot”. Doyle wrote:” I was in Canada in June (1914) and the country was much disturbed by the fact that a shipload of Hindus (sic) had arrived at Vancouver and had endeavored to land in the face of the anti-Asiatic immigration laws. It struck me at the time as a most extraordinary incident, for these Indians were not the usual Bengali pedlars, but were Sikhs of a proud and martial race. What could be their object in endeavoring to land in Canada?…..”

Doyle seemed to have written peremptorily and at least in ignorance of the face that prior to the voyage hundreds of Sikhs had already settled in Canada a decade or two before the chartering of Komagata Maru. So far from being novices or suspects, the Canadian’s complaint was that the Sikhs had thrived so well as to endanger “The economic wellbeing of their white fellow settlers.”

Records are not traceable to show whether the enquiry was completed and what its findings were or whether the turmoil of World War I effectively smothered the story of British repression at Budge Budge, rendering it unnecessary to fix responsibility for the tragedy.

The Sequel:

Subsequently hundreds of Ghadrites and many leaders of the Ghadr (rebellion) movement including the legendary Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna were arrested and imprisoned or confined to their villages. Rash Behari Bose in Bengal and Lala Lajpat Rai and Bhai Parman and took up the thread. In what is knows as the first Lahore conspiracy case 65 men were charged with “sedition, treason and waging war against the king.” On Sept. 15 1915, the revolutionaries were lined up in Lahore Central Jail to hear the verdict. 24 were sentenced to death and confiscation of property; 26 to transportation for life and ten to various terms of imprisonment; five were acquitted only to be rearrested and imprisoned. The law provided for an appeal for mercy. Only one of the 24 condemned men a non Sikh pleaded for mercy. However, the Viceroy suomoto commuted the sentence of all but seven to that of transportation to the Andamans. On November 19, 1915 the seven men were excuted, among them Sardar kartar Singh Sarabha, Bakhshish Singh and Pandit Kanshi Ram, Others including Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna Baba Wasakha Singh, Bhai Parmanand, Baba Prithvi Singh Azad, Pandit Jagat Ram and others were sent to the cellular Jail at Port Blair to serve their sentence.

Article extracted from this publication >>  October 27, 1989