Baba Gurdit Singh - Legacy

Legacy

Though he himself was a well-to-do fisherman in Singapore, Gurdit Singh chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, in 1914 to go to Canada, with the aim of helping his compatriots whose journeys to Canada were being blocked. The government of Canada had put restrictions on the entry of Indians.

The ship, renamed as Guru Nanak Jahaj, had a total of 376 passengers out of whom 351 were Sikhs and 21 Punjabi Muslims. The ship sailed from Hong Kong to Vancouver on April 3, 1914. The obstructions put up by the alien authorities and the hardships faced by its passengers turned them into staunch nationalists. The ship reached Vancouver on May 22, 1914 and it was not allowed to anchor and was attacked by the police at night. The attack was repulsed by the passengers and it created a great stir among the Indians in Canada. This is known as the Komagata Maru incident.

An agreement was reached and the ship sailed back to India. It reached Calcutta on September 29, 1914. However, the passengers were not allowed to enter Calcutta; they were rather ordered to board a Punjab-bound train especially arranged for the purpose. They refused to do so and many of the passengers were killed, a great many escaped.

Gurdit Singh was aware of the problems that Punjabis were facing in getting to Canada due to exclusion laws. He was apparently also aware of the January, 1914, regulations when he chartered the Komagata Maru, with the purported goal of challenging the continuous journey regulation and opening the door for immigration from India to Canada. He believed he could circumvent this law by hiring a boat to sail from Calcutta to Vancouver.

At the same time, in January, 1914, he publicly espoused the Ghadarite cause while in Hong Kong. The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Indians of the United States and Canada in June, 1913 with the aim to liberate India from British rule. It was also known as the Hindi Association of the Pacific Coast.