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The Voyage Of The Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge To Canada's Colour Bar?

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The Voyage Of The Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge To Canada's Colour Bar?
Komagata Maru, the Japanese steamship left Hong Kong for Vancouver on May 23,1914. The ship carried 376 Indian immigrants who set sail for Canada with the intent of finding a better living condition and opportunities. The passengers consisted of 340 Sikhs, 12 Hindus and 24 Muslims and all of them were British subjects since India was under British control. Upon arriving at Vancouver, the immigrants were denied entrance by the Canadian government due to the exclusion act that was already being held as a method to keep out the Asian immigrants from entering Canada.
The first Sikhs had come to Canada in 1904 with high expectation of earning “wages ten and fifteen time as high” (Johnston, 1995, p.2) than they could earn back in their homeland. …show more content…
The book was published by UBC Press in 1995 and since then it has been a landmark for Komagata Maru’s studies. The electronic copy of the book can be found at komagatamarujourney.ca and this website holds a great collections of information which are connected to the Komagata Maru incident such as rare government documents, newspaper articles, academic texts and videos. The website aims to express the original story of Komagata Maru from different perspectives including the Canadian Indian voices which help us learn history at “a nuanced and multilayered look” (Komagatamaru: Continuing The Journey, 2012). The website itself was launched by Simon Fraser University Library in March of 2012 with the help of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada to fulfill three main objectives which …show more content…
Their rights to enter Canada legitimately were denied by the Canadian government and they were trapped in the ship for two months before eventually being forced to return to India. The Komagata Maru incident is a significant part of Canadian history because it shows how the Canadian government disliked Asian immigrants from entering their soil in the 1910s, their rights were violated by the Asian Exclusion Act which does not allow the majority of the immigrants to enter
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