July 23, 2017
Ship defying discriminatory Canadian immigration law turned back. The first East Indians to enter Canada suffered hardship and racism sharpened by a concerted effort to keep them out. In 1910, the Canadian Parliament enacted the “continuous journey provision” of the Immigration Act, specifying that only immigrants who had traveled from their place of origin to Canada on one non-stop boat trip, could enter the country as new immigrants. Clearly, this was possible from Europe but not India; the legislation was designed specifically to exclude immigrants from India. In 1914, Gurdit Singh chartered a boat, the Komagata Maru, to challenge the discriminatory laws. Among the 376 passengers were 340 Sikhs, 12 Hindus and 24 Muslims from India. The ship departed from Hong Kong and stopped in Japan before entering Vancouver’s harbour on May 23, 1914. Authorities detained the ship for two months as legal wranglings took place. In the end, they allowed only 24 aboard to stay. A military escort forced the ship and the rest of its occupants to return home on July 23, 1914.
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