TORONTO: In May of 1914 over 400 citizens of India370 Sikhs, 24 Hindus and 12 Muslims arrived by a chartered Japanese ship “Komagata Mary” at Vancouver. They were forced to starve on board the ship without food and water for 60 days and were deported to India at gun point. This was racial discrimination and injustice. Mr. Veerendra Adhiyaand his wife Mrs.Kusumji Adhiya (popularly known as Mister and Mrs. Ideal by their popular Hindi television show “Bharat Darshan” and radio show “Sangeet Bharati” campaigned for one year to get an apology for this injustice. They collected 7000 signatures on a petition and sent them to the Prime Minister of Canada on May 18, 1993. Honorable Gerry Weiner Minister of Multiculturism and Citizenship apologized to our community. He also promised to have heroes of “Komagata Maru” recognized in the 1/4 “National Builders Hall Museum” in Ottawa.
It took them 78 years, but Indians in Canada finally want to set the record straight. A seminal event in the Indian independence struggle, the docking of Komagata Maru at Vancouver in 1914 has long been treated with circumspect silence by textbooks in Canada.
In a country which flaunts its human rights record, this skeleton in its cupboard is an uncomfortable truth. And the increasingly irate Indians think it’s time the wrong is righted. The apology is not their only demand. Says Adhiya, 65, who picked up the campaign in 1990; “I would be happier if there was a memorial to recognize the achievement of the Indian community in Vancouver,” But he also wants a financial settlement for the opportunity denied to Indians, in an obvious reference to a similar package given to Japanese Canadians who were interned during the Second World War.
Says Adhiya: “Unless we speak up against what wrongs happened the Canadian Government will continue to treat us like dirt.” Prominent lawyer Sher Singh, who has also been campaigning for recognition of the event, agrees: “The landing of the Komagata Maru was a turning point in world history and Canada should recognize it” Singh, who is the co-producer of a play on the incident with one of Canada’s most celebrated playwrights, Sharon Pollock, also wants the organizer of the enterprise, Gurdit Singh, to be recognized as a national hero. Mainstream historians, too, such as Hugh Johnston at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, have long suggested acknowledge ment of Singh’s role in Canadian history.
More recently, Vancouver based Sikh historian Kesar Singh’s book, Canadian Sikhs and the Komagata Maru Massacre, aptly sums up the simmering rage within the Sikhs. Says Singh: “The community has still not forgiven the Canadians for deporting the Sikhs to India, where 20 of them were killed by the Indian police.” Published in 1989, the book also records in detail the long series of racist insults hurled at early Sikh settlers.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 20, 1993
