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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
One hundred years ago, Gurdit Singh Sirhali chartered the Japanese steamship Komagata Maru and brought 376 Indian passengers to Canada in a direct challenge to Canada's immigration colour bar. The ship's forced departure from Vancouver harbour on July 23, 1914 ended an extraordinary two-month standoff between the passengers, determined to enter Canada, and a Canadian government determined to enforce its anti-Asian exclusion policies, come what may. The ship's departure, however, was not the end of this saga—the passengers faced unimaginable hardships on the return voyage only to be met by the iron fist of British authorities upon their arrival in India.
1 . General references used in the writing of this essay are appended at the end.
2 . On this topic see Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the Question of Racial Equality (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Jeremy Martins, “A Transnational History of
Immigration Restriction: Natal and New South Wales, 1896-97,” in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 34, 3 (September 2006), 323-344.
3 . See Erika Lee, “Hemispheric Orientalism and the 1907 Pacific Coast Race Riots,” Amerasia Journal 33:2 (2007), 19-47 and John Price, “‘Orienting’ the Empire: Mackenzie King and the Aftermath of the 1907 Race Riots,” B.C. Studies, 156 (Winter 2007/08), 53-81.
4 . Criminal Investigation Office, “Indian Agitation in America,” 17 December 1912, British Library, L/P&J/12/1), 7
5 . J.A. Cote to the Governor General's Secretary, 8 August 1913 (British Library, L/P&J/ 12/1), 1.
6 . Handwritten note, O.H. Dumbell to Undersecretary of State, 9 May 1913 and approved on 13 May 1913 despite Viceroy of India's objections. Lala Har Dayal was arrested in the spring of 1914 and fled the US.
7 . Seema Sohi, “Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in the Transnational Western US-Canadian Borderlands,” Journal of American History, 98 No. 2 (September 2011), 430-431.
8 . On Ghadar see Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2011) and Hugh J.M. Johnston, “The Komagata Maru and the Ghadr Party,” B.C. Studies, 178 (Summer 2013), 9-31.
9 . R.O. Montgomery to H.F. Bishop, Postmaster, Victoria, 23 July, 1915 (British Library, L/PJ/6/1395/3292).
10 . F.G.A. Butler to Lord Stamfordham, 12 June, 1914 (British National Archives, CO 42/979).
11 . Governor General to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 10 June, 1914 (British Naitonal Archives, CO 42/979).
12 . Stamfordham to Butler, 14 June, 1914 (BNA, CO 42/979).
13 . William Hopkinson brought stenographers to these meetings and so we have a verbatim transcript of the June 21 meeting. See “Minutes of a Hindu Mass Meeting,” (BNA, CO 42/980), 1-13 as well of a meeting the two days later, see “Minutes of a Public Meeting” (BNA, CO 42/980), 1-23.
14 . Taraknath Das to Rahim, nd (British Library, L/PJ/6/1341/5372 1914).
15 . Re The Immigration Act and Munshi Singh, British Columbia Court of Appeal 20 B.C.R. 243, 29 W.L.R. 45.
16 . Hugh Johnston, The Voyage of the Komagata Maru, 142-143.
17 . A number of murders occurred in the South Asian community in Vancouver in the aftermath including the murder of the agent William Hopkinson by Mewa Singh who was subsequently tried and executed. He remains a martyr for many in the South Asian communities.
18 . Reg Whitaker, Gregory S. Kealey, Andrew Parnaby, Secret Service: Political Policing in Canada from the Fenians to Fortress America (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2012), 55.
19 . Japanese authorities, in intercepting large volumes of mail to and from Indians, “have acted illegally and are naturally anxious that the fact should not become known.” W. Conyngham Greene to British Ambassador, Washington and to A.J. Balfour, 16 April 1917 (British Library, L/PJ/6/1559/5784 1918).
20 . On the conspiracy trials see Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia, Chapter 3.
21 . On the limits of this anti-imperialism particularly in regard to indigeneity see Renisa Mawani, “Specters of Indigeneity in BritishIndian Migration, 1914,” Law and Society Review, 46, 2 (2012), 369-403.
22 . Prime Minister to Prime Minister of United Kingdom, November 23, 1918 ( Documents on Canadian External Relations, Vol. 2, The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 ), p. 3.
23 . Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, Introduction.
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