Ghadar On The High Seas

Webpage by Lúcio Mascarenhas, Bombay.
http://www.geocities.com/livrant/komagata-maru.html
Article by Baljit Malik in Resurgent Punjab, supplement of the Indian Express, April 1999 to mark the third centennary of the foundation of the Khalsa
SEPTEMBER 1914 was bidding adieu. A "riot" took place on the last three days of the month at Budge-Budge, an industrial port 27 k.m. upstream from Calcutta. It was officially termed a "riot" and the event left an indelible mark on Sikh and Indian heritage. Those massacred were the passengers of a chartered Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru.

The story begins in a Punjab that was in turmoil. Famines and plague had taken four million lives; land taxes were high and indeptedness rampant among small farm-holders. Murders over land disputes were common and there was much addiction to opium and alcohol.

The Sikhs were in a belligerent mood, angry with the British administration and ready to respond with the politics of terrorism, assasination and revolution. The Raj, however, was at the pinnacle of its glory. The British had transferred their seat of power from Calcutta to Delhi, and, in the tradition of their predecessors, the Mughals, announced the building of a new capital. A few years earlier, under the most imperial of viceroys, Lord Curzon, the British seemed determined and indeed capable of ruling forever.

In 1911, their Imperial Majesties George V and Queen Mary visited India and indulged in the extravagance and splendour of the historic Delhi Durbar. But behind the pomp and show of power lay outward calm, yet an inwardly seething feeling of revenge and rebellion. The British called it sedition. This nascent revolutionary fervour spread the cult of the bomb rapidly to other parts of India from Bengal. And the Raj came under attack from a growing wave of violent upheavals. In 1910, Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy, was signled out for assassination. And a few years later, on the high seas of the Pacific, an international chapter in Sikh, Punjab and Indian history was being written.

The year was 1914 when the Komagata Maru set sail from Hong Kong for Vancouver on Saturday, April 41. The voyage was to finally bring 376 people (340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims and 12 Hindus) to the shores of British Columbia, Canada.

Europe was on the brink of World War I. When Britain was bracing itself to meet the German challenge, the passengers on board the former coal ship, now named Guru Nanak Jahaz, were taking to the high seas to assert their rights as citizens of the British Empire. Queen Victoria had promised equality to all citizens of the Empire, irrespective of caste, creed and race2. Her promise was now being tested by those very people, mainly Sikhs, who had first been taken to Canada in 1897 for her diamond jubilee celebrations. They likened the Prairies to the Punjab, and thus began an eastward flow. By 1908, there were already 4,000 "beards" in Canada, mainly in Alberta and British Columbia. Sikh immigration was also encouraged by the Canadian Pacific Railway after the Canadian government had worn off its interest in cheap Chinese labor.

The man who made the Komagata voyage possible was Gurdit Singh, a Sikh businessman settled in Singapore. He set off determined to challenge Canada's newly-enacted immigration rules, which required an unbroken voyage on a single ship. Not an easy proposition, there being no regular passenger service between India and Canada at that time. Each prospective immigrant was required to have $200 on landing and a through ticket on a single ship from his country of origin.

Gurdit Singh chartered the ship, arranged the finance, collected the passengers and stoked their zeal to meet the most impossible conditions, undaunted by Canada's color bar. When the ship sailed into Canadian waters, she was refused entry into the port and had to anchor off Vancouver Bay for two months. The passengers were denied water and food, harassed by immigration officials and threatened by naval gunboats. But the Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus remained united, boosting their morale with the spirit of Ghadar (revolution) and by singing religious hymns3.

The Canadian and British authorities were keen on stemming emigration to North America, where Indian immigrants had established the Ghadar Party to finance, supply and suppport the "terrorist" movement in India. As a network of secret revolutionary societies spread from Punjab and Bengal to Indian communities overseas, an intelligence organization grew apace to track down the conspirators.

William Charles Hopkinson, an Indian-born Englishman on secondment from the Indian Police, was a dedicated secret service officer stationed in Vancouver to monitor the activities of the Ghadarites. When the Komagata Maru anchored off Vancouver in the early hours of Saturday, May 23, 1914, Hopkinson ws there with Canadian officials. And so began a battle of nerves between the ship and shore committee of the Sikhs on one side, and Hopkinson and Canadian immigration officials on the other.

But the ship was eventually forced to return to Calcutta. Their ardour hardly dimmed, the voyagers determined to join the movement against foreign rule. In Yokohama, they picked up 200 automatic pistols and 2,000 rounds of ammunition which was sent through a courier from California. These were later abandoned but a small amount stored in the ship's water tank.

The Raj was equally determined to prevent the infiltration of the Komagata Maru Ghadarites into the volatile atmosphere of the Punjab. On their disembarkation at Budge-Budge, troops fired on the passengers and an undermined number were killed. The British troops, it's said, "fired from close range 177 rounds of .303 bore. There were heavy casualties."4

The horrendous experience of the passengers and the heartless intransigence of the colonial authorities boiled the blood of the Punjabis. A spirit of rebellion spread across northern India, culminating in 1919 in the massacre of over 300 innocent men, women and children at Amritsar's Jallianwala Bagh.

Hopkinson's intelligence-gathering established the connection between the Ghadarites of Vancouver and California with the "terrorists" in India. He informed the Indian authorities that since the return of the Komagata, the Ghadarites were planning a mass return to India to take part in a violent uprising. Ironically, his own role was now reversed from keeping Indians out of North America to preventing their departure for India5.

In the eyes of the revolutionaries, Hopkinson and his informers were marked men. A few weeks after the Komagata left Vancouver, a spate of killings took place. On October 21, 1914, Hopkinson was gunned down in the corridor of the provincial courthouse in Vancouver.

The inspiring saga of the Guru Nanak Jahaz, a story of adventure, revolution, assassination and counter-intelligence wrapped in inter-religious unity, was reflected in an exchange between an English officer and Baba Gurdit Singh.

The ship was approaching Calcutta in choppy seas. The officer came on board and without even greeting the Baba, asked him: "Who has put this flag on the ship?"

"The ship's managing committee," Gurdit Singh replied.

"What is written on it?"

"The ship belongs to Indians. The words written on the flag are: Sat Sri Akal, Allah-o-Akbar and Vande Mataram," replied Gurdit Singh. 6

Notes by Lúcio Mascarenhas

1. According to the Wikipedia article, Komagata Maru, the ship DID NOT make a direct journey to Canada, but "sailed from Hong Kong to Shanghai, China, Yokohama, Japan, and then to British Columbia, Canada.... Hong Kong became the departure point. The ship was scheduled to leave in March, but Gurdit Singh was arrested for selling tickets for an illegal voyage. He was later released on bail and given permission by the Governor of Hong Kong to set sail, and the ship left Hong Kong on April 4 with 165 passengers. More passengers joined at Shanghai April 8, Moje arrived in Yokohama on April 14. It departed from Yokohama on May 3 with its complement of 376 passengers. and arrived in Burrard Inlet, near Vancouver, on May 23."

2. The "promise" referred to, is probably the Royal Proclamation made by Victoria in 1857 / 1858, wherein she promised equality, etc., WITHIN the British India Empire. That "promise", then, evidently did not apply to the whole "British Empire" or "British Commonwealth"! The voyage originated in mischievous intent. When the ship arrived off Vancouver, a passenger told an immigration officer: "This ship belongs to the whole of India, this is a symbol of the honor of India and if this was detained, there would be mutiny in the [British Indian] armies." This is the kind of talk that is designed to persuade folks to admit you into their homelands!!! The same threat was made by the "Shore Committee", which "resolved" that "if the passengers were not allowed [to disembark], Indo-Canadians should follow them back to India to start a rebellion"! The "immigrants" and their onshore supporters pretended that this was an innocuous voyage of immigration, not an attempt to infiltrate terrorists into North America!!! Despite this, the Canadian authorities did permit 24 of the passengers to immigrate. See also these entries: Maulavi Barkatullah & The Hindu-German Conspiracy Trial, U.S.A.. Maulavi Barkatullah, one of the terrorists on the ship, was the forerunner of Islamofascism and of the Leftist-Islamofascism axis that threatens the world today in the person of Osama bin Ladin!!!

3. Ghadar means Traitor, nor rebel. Ghadari is treason. The Ghadar movement was a communist, atheist movement.

4. A version that conflicts with the version at Wikipedia. The passengers were Communists from East Asia, who, after being entry to Canada, wished to go to the Punjab to stir up sedition. It is untrue that the British planned to keep them out of the Punjab. They also wished to demonstrate first in Calcutta, which was refused them by the British authorities. "The Komagata Maru arrived in Calcutta, India on September 26. Upon entry into the harbour, the ship was forced to stop by a European gunboat, and the passengers were taken prisoner. The ship was then diverted approximately 17 miles to Budge Budge, where the British intended to put them on a train bound for Punjab. The passengers wanted to stay in Calcutta, and marched on the city, but were forced to return to Budge Budge and reboard the ship. The passengers protested, some refusing to reboard, and the police opened fire, killing 20 and wounding nine others. This incident became known as the Budge Budge Riot." It was their disobedience and rebellion against legitimate authority that provoked their arrest and removal to Budge-Budge, where again, their rebellion caused the authorities to fire upon them!

5. They were Communists from East Asia, although of Indian origins. The British were entirely within their rights to deny them admission both to Canada and to India! The Republic of India itself would insist on such a right!

6. Tolerating and praising terrorism always boomerangs onto oneself. Decades later, India had to face the Sikh rebellion in the East Punjab, the so-called "Khalistan movement". Ironically, the Sikhs were always India's most vicious dogs in war, whether against the numerous "recalcitrant" native states, or against Goa, where the Sikhs came with the declared aim of mass rape. And one must not forget the Kanishka bombing, either!
 
PUBLISHED on the Internet: August 21, 2006.
 

P U R P O S E

Written with the purpose of educating people in matters concerning the Catholic Resistance to the Modernist Apostasy, and based on the principles elucidated by the Church, that the truth is never afraid, and that the Church is never afraid of the Truth, and on the principles elucidated by Frs. Rumble & Carty and by Fulton Sheen in his essay, "The Art of Controversy". — Benedicamus Deus, Lúcio.

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Lúcio Mascarenhas

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