Unmooring the Komagata Maru: Charting Colonial Trajectories 9780774860659, 9780774860673, 9780774860680, 9780774860697

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Unmooring the Komagata Maru

Unmooring the Komagata Maru Charting Colonial Trajectories

Edited by Rita Kaur Dhamoon, Davina Bhandar, Renisa Mawani, and Satwinder Kaur Bains

© UBC Press 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Unmooring the Komagata Maru : charting colonial trajectories / edited by Rita Kaur Dhamoon, Davina Bhandar, Renisa Mawani, and Satwinder Kaur Bains. Names: Dhamoon, Rita, editor. | Bhandar, Davina, editor. | Mawani, Renisa, editor. | Bains, Satwinder Kaur, editor. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190135131 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190135239 | ISBN 9780774860659 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780774860673 (PDF) | ISBN 9780774860680 (EPUB) | ISBN 9780774860697 (Kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Komagatamaru (Ship) – History. | LCSH: East Indians – British Columbia – Vancouver – History – 20th century. | LCSH: Imperialism – Social aspects – Canada – History – 20th century. | LCSH: Canada – Ethnic relations – History – 20th century. Classification: LCC FC3847.9.E2 U56 2019 | DDC 325/.25407109041 – dc23

UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program of the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Set in Galliard and New Baskerville by Artegraphica Design Co. Ltd. Copy editor: Dallas Harrison Proofreader: Judith Earnshaw Indexer: Margaret de Boer Cover designer: George Kirkpatrick Cartographer: Eric Leinberger UBC Press The University of British Columbia 2029 West Mall Vancouver, BC  V6T 1Z2 www.ubcpress.ca

Contents

List of Illustrations /viii Acknowledgments /ix Chronology of Events /xi Map: Route of the SS Komagata Maru /xx Introduction: Unmooring the Komagata Maru / 3 Davina Bhandar and Rita Kaur Dhamoon Part 1: The Politics of Anticolonial Resistance in the Journey of the Komagata Maru

1 Right to the Empire? British Imperial Citizenship before the First World War / 35 Ian Christopher Fletcher



2 The Last Stretch of the Journey: The Komagata Maru, Wartime Political Radicalism, and Migrant Workers from Punjab in Calcutta / 56 Suchetana Chattopadhyay



3 The Resistance of Indian Migrants: Facing Lies, Deception, and Racism / 76 Satwinder Kaur Bains

vi

Contents

Part 2: Migration Regimes in Colonial Contexts

4 The Komagata Maru as Event: Legal Transformations in Migration Regimes / 95 Radhika Mongia



5 Borders, Boats, and Brown Bodies: Reading Tamil “Irregular Arrivals” through the History of the Komagata Maru / 121 Nadia Hasan, Sailaja Krishnamurti, Omme-Salma Rahemtullah, Nayani Thiyagarajah, and Nishant Upadhyay



6 Temporary Arrivals: The Komagata Maru Passengers and Migrant Labour / 141 Davina Bhandar Part 3: Colonial Temporalities of Memory and Cultural Production



7 The Komagata Maru Incident as Described in Two Japanese Works / 163 Kaori Mizukami



8 (Mis)Representing the Komagata Maru in Indian Print Cultures / 179 Irina Spector-Marks



9 The Time and Sound of the Nautical Border / 197 Ayesha Hameed Part 4: Disrupting Colonial Formations of Nation

10 When Home and Harem Collide: The “Hindu Women’s Question”: A Mass Spectacle of the Canadian Nation, Family, and Modernity / 215 Enakshi Dua 11 The Komagata Maru Recontextualized: Memory, History, and Diasporic Sikh Subnationalism in Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? / 244 Rajender Kaur

Contents vii

12 Past Wrongs and a New National Imaginary: Remembering the Komagata Maru Incident / 265 Alia Somani 13 The Politics of Empire: Minor History on a Global Scale / 280 Renisa Mawani 14 Poems: Still Chanting Denied Shores / 290 Tariq Malik Appendix 1: Historical Figures Cited in the Chapters / 297 Appendix 2: BC Government Apology, May 23, 2008 / 309 Appendix 3: Canadian Government Apology, May 18, 2016 / 310 Contributors / 314 Index / 318

Illustrations

Map Route of the SS Komagata Maru / xx Figures 7.1 The ship’s owner Yokichi Shiozaki, the captain Tokujirō Yamamoto, the chief engineer Masayoshi Kajiyama, and Gurdit Singh / 164 9.1 Still from Continuous Journey / 198 9.2 Still from Yellow Limbo / 208 9.3 Still from From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf / 210 12.1 The passengers arriving in Vancouver / 273 12.2 A woman and her child aboard the Komagata Maru / 275

viii

Acknowledgments

This book was born from the journeys of past sojourners, close and distant kin, and family connections. We hope that this book honours those who have come before us and those who are forging radical practices of unmooring contemporary imperialism. We appreciate the insights of the contributors to this volume – you came from near and far for the workshop in Victoria, British Columbia, from which this edited book emerged, and we are grateful. We are also grateful for your ongoing patience as this volume followed its path to publication. Our collective thanks go to those who helped us to arrange the workshop. They include our organized research assistant Thomas Lattimer, the wonderful Anne MacLaurin (communications officer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Victoria), Grace Wong-Sneddon (at the University of Victoria at the time), and Kim Gough at the Royal Brit­ish Columbia Museum. We have special appreciation of the staff in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria, especially Joy Austin, Rosemary Barlow, and Tamaya Moreton – thank you for calming things down at various points of organizational crisis! On the days of the workshop, a number of people shared their time and knowledge, including Cheryl Bryce, from the Songhees community, who facilitated a colonial realities tour of Victoria; Elder Butch Dick, who opened the event; Roshni Narain for her ever-generous care and kindness; and those who chaired the panels: Nilufer E. Bharucha (English, University of Mumbai), Paul Bramadat (Director, Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, University of Victoria), Matt James (Political

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x Acknowledgments

Science, University of Victoria), and Maneesha Deckha (Law, University of Victoria). We are especially grateful to Reeta Tremblay, then the vice-president academic and provost at the University of Victoria, who made the workshop possible with her financial and institutional support. You were fantastic! Our thanks also to other generous funders, including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Royal British Columbia Museum, various units at the University of Victoria (the Department of Political Science, the Dean of Social Sciences, the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, the Centre for Global Studies, the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives), and the South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley. At UBC Press, we worked with the brilliant Emily Andrew, as well as Darcy Cullen and then James MacNevin, who saw this edited volume to fruition. Jacqueline Larson provided beneficial editing at the very early stages of this manuscipt. Our many thanks go to the anonymous reviewers for their rich and thoughtful comments. An earlier version of the chapter by Alia Somani was published as an article titled “What Is Remembered and What Is Forgotten? South Asian Diasporic Histories and the Shifting National Imaginary,” in South Asian Canadian Literature: A Centennial Journey, ed. Mariam Pirbhai, special issue of Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne 40, 1 (2015): 74–92. It has been republished here with permission.

Chronology of Events

1907

An anti-Asian riot occurs in Vancouver.

January 8, 1908

Canadian immigration rules are issued to restrict the entry of those of Indian (and initially Japanese) origin through the Continuous Journey Regulation.

May 9, 1910

Immigration rules are amended to tighten entry requirements.

1911

An Indian delegation goes to Ottawa to protest the exclusion of Indian wives entering Canada.

1913

Balwant Singh and a delegation of other British Indian subjects from Vancouver go to London to protest immigration exclusions to British authorities.

October 27, 1913 Justice Hunter strikes down the council order restricting entry. 1913 The Panama Maru arrives in Vancouver carrying British Indian subjects; the passengers win their court case and are allowed to stay in Canada. 1913

Lal Har Dayal founds the Ghadar Party in the United States along with Sant Baba Wasakha Singh Dadehar, Baba Jawala Singh, Santokh Singh, and Sohan Singh Bhakna.

January 5, 1914

Gurdit Singh reaches Hong Kong. (His name appears multiple ways in historical and contemporary texts e.g., Sardar Gurdit Singh, Baba Gurdit Singh, Baba Gurdit Singh Sarhali, and most often Gurdit Singh). xi

xii Chronology of Events

February 13, 1914 Gurdit Singh issues an advertisement for potential immigrants. March 24, 1914

Gurdit Singh signs the charter papers for the Komagata Maru.

March 25, 1914

Gurdit Singh is charged for selling tickets for the jour­ney, arrested, and soon released by Hong Kong police.

March 30, 1914

F.W. May, the governor of Hong Kong, cables the Can­ adian government that 150 Sikhs have chartered a steamer from Hong Kong to British Columbia and are not on a through ticket from India.

April 2, 1914

A second telegram is sent to Ottawa from the governor of Hong Kong.

April 4, 1914

After receiving no reply from the Canadian government, the governor of Hong Kong signs the clearance certificate for the Komagata Maru with either 150 or 165 passengers on board (records provide both figures). The ship departs from Hong Kong.

April 7, 1914

The Canadian government declares that the ship will not be allowed to land.

April 8, 1914

The Komagata Maru docks in Shanghai.

April 15, 1914

The ship leaves Shanghai with an additional 111 or 115 passengers (records provide both figures).

April 19, 1914

The ship stops at Moji, Japan, for eighty-six more passengers.

May 2, 1914

The ship stops at Yokohama, Japan, for eleven or fourteen more passengers (records provide both figures), then leaves for Victoria, British Columbia.

May 20, 1914

Balwant Singh Khuradpura, who had met the Koma­ gata Maru in Moji, arrives in Victoria. He speaks to a meeting of Sikhs in the gurdwara before leaving for Vancouver.

May 21 or 22,   1914

The Komagata Maru reaches Victoria and anchors at William Head for a health inspection of the passengers and crew.

Chronology of Events xiii

May 23, 1914

The Komagata Maru reaches Vancouver and anchors near Burrard Inlet.

May 24, 1914

Edward Bird, a barrister, is hired by Mitt Singh to rep­ resent the passengers of the ship. Bird asks Immi­gra­ tion Inspector Malcolm Reid for permission to meet with Gurdit Singh. His request is denied, and he com­ plains to Ottawa.

May 30, 1914

A Vancouver meeting of 500–600 Indians rally in support of passengers; $5,000 is raised in cash, and $66,000 is pledged.

June 1, 1914

The Immigration Board of Inquiry begins processing passengers who had lived in Canada previously.

June 4, 1914

Gurdit Singh and some other passengers start a hunger strike to protest against their treatment.

June 6, 1914

Gurdit Singh sends a message to the king of England and the governor general of Canada: “No provisions ... passengers starving ... kept prisoners.”

June 9, 1914

The last of the Indian passengers who had lived in Canada go ashore.

June 10, 1914

Husain Rahim and Bhag Singh offer Gardner Johnson, the shipping agent of the Komagata Maru, a cheque for $11,000 if the charter of the ship is assigned to the shore committee.

June 11, 1914

The shore committee sends food to the passengers. Malcolm Reid adjourns the Immigration Board of In­quiry inspection.

June 18, 1914

The owners of the ship order its return to India if two months of hire are not paid within twenty-four hours.

June 20, 1914

Husain Rahim and Bhag Singh give another $4,000 to Gardner Johnson and become the new charterers of the Komagata Maru.

June 21, 1914

The Khalsa Diwan Society and the United India League call another meeting in Vancouver in support of the passengers; 400 Indians and 125 whites attend.

xiv Chronology of Events

June 23, 1914

A meeting is held in the Dominion Hall of Vancouver by opponents of the Komagata Maru, with MP Harry Stevens as the main speaker.

June 24, 1914

Malcolm Reid wires Ottawa asking to put transfer pas­sengers forcibly on the SS Empress of India sailing at 11 a.m. the next day. The prime minister rejects the plan.

June 25, 1914

Munshi Singh, in a test case, faces the Immigration Board of Inquiry. A motion is passed to reject his application.

June 27, 1914

Gardner Johnson sends water on board the Koma­gata Maru.

June 29–30, 1914

The British Columbia Court of Appeal hears Munshi Singh’s case and reserves it judgment.

July 6, 1914

The Court of Appeal upholds the orders-in-council and dismisses Munshi Singh’s appeal.

July 7, 1914

Gurdit Singh and the ship’s passenger committee give Edward Bird a letter saying “we hereby instruct you to waive the Board of Inquiry for all on board the Komagata Maru and to negotiate for return of the Komagata Maru to Hong Kong.”

July 8, 1914

The passengers run out of water and food again.

July 9, 1914

A small amount of water and food organized by the shore committee is sent on board.

July 10, 1914

Deportation papers are prepared for the passengers.

July 11, 1914

Small amounts of water and food are sent on board.

July 17, 1914

Mewa Singh is arrested by the police at the Sumas border; he is carrying two revolvers and 200 rounds of ammunition. Balwant Singh, Bhag Singh, and Harnam Singh, carrying pistols and ammunition, are also arrested on the US side.

July 18, 1914

Malcolm Reid decides to use force to expel the Koma­ gata Maru.

July 19, 1914

One hundred and sixty police and immigration officers aboard the Sea Lion attempt to board the Komagata Maru. The passengers resist them, some

Chronology of Events xv

policemen are hurt, and the Sea Lion withdraws. Within the hour, Harry Stevens wires Prime Min­ister Robert Borden to say that the passengers are il­ legally resisting officials. Borden decides to make the Rainbow, a large naval ship, available, and he wires Martin Burrell, the minister of agriculture, to report on the situation in Vancouver. July 20, 1914

Malcolm Reid sends a letter to Husain Rahim to give consent for the departure of the ship. Rahim refuses.

July 21, 1914

Two hundred and four militia prepare to board the Komagata Maru first thing in the morning. The Rainbow anchors a few hundred yards southwest of the Komagata Maru. The guns of the ship are uncovered later that morning while thousands of people gather on the shore to watch. By late afternoon, an agreement is reached between officials and passengers for the ship to leave, in return for provisions. Martin Burrell agrees to give provisions.

July 22, 1914

Provisions are loaded onto the ship. Hussain Rahim and Mitt Singh visit the passengers on the ship.

July 23, 1914

At 4 a.m., members of the shore committee are brought back to land. At just after 5 a.m., the ship’s anchor is raised, and the Komagata Maru leaves Van­ couver Harbour under armed escort by the Rain­bow and Sea Lion.

August 16, 1914

The Komagata Maru reaches Yokohama. Sohan Singh Bhakna boards the ship with 200 automatic pistols, 2,000 rounds of ammunition, and copies of Ghadar (the revolutionary anti-British publication).

August 18, 1914

The ship leaves for Kobe.

August 20–21,   1914

At Kobe, fifteen passengers disembark. A demonstration is held in front of the British Consulate to demand provisions for the journey back to India.

August 27, 1914

The government of India authorizes the payment of 19,000 yen to take the passengers to Madras; 9,000 yen is given to the passengers committee for provisions.

xvi Chronology of Events

September 2,   1914

The Komagata Maru prepares to sail, but the passengers force the crew to drop the anchor three kilometres offshore to demand that the ship head to Calcutta.

September 3,   1914

The Komagata Maru reaches Singapore but officials refuse to let anyone disembark.

September 5,   1914

In Vancouver, Bela Singh, an informer in the Indian community, shoots Bhag Singh and Badan Singh in the gurdwara.

September 26,   1914

The Komagata Maru reaches the mouth of the Hugly River. A colonial European official orders the ship to stop near Kalpi, ninety kilometres downstream from Calcutta.

September 27 or   28, 1914

The Komagata Maru is searched by police and proceeds toward Calcutta.

September 29,   1914

The ship reaches the town of Budge Budge. Deputy Commissioner Robert Humphrey orders the passengers to take a special train to Punjab. Sixty-two passengers board the train; the rest refuse to do so. Additional police and militia are called in to enforce the order, but the passengers march toward Cal­cutta. After they arrive, during evening prayers, Super­ intendent John H. Eastwood authorizes the shooting of the passengers. Nineteen are killed and twentythree wounded. Some passengers escape, including Gurdit Singh. His son, Balwant Singh, is picked up by the police, who send him to Punjab, where he is released and then cared for by Bhag Kaur, Gurdit Singh’s elder sister.

October 11, 1914 Two hundred and one of the passengers are captured. October 15, 1914 In India, a committee is set up to look at the events of Budge Budge. October 21, 1914 In a Vancouver provincial court, Mewa Singh shoots and kills William Hopkinson.

Chronology of Events xvii

October 30, 1914 In India, of the 321 passengers, 62 leave for Punjab, 20 are left dead, 1 drowns, 9 are hospitalized, 202 are jailed, and 29 remain unaccounted for. October 31, 1914 Mewa Singh is tried for the murder of William Hopkinson and sentenced to death. November 19,   1914

Bela Singh is acquitted of the murders of Bhag Singh and Badan Singh.

December 3, 1914 The Indian inquiry into the events of the Komagata Maru submits its report, accepted by the government of India on December 15. January 11, 1915

Mewa Singh is hanged at the New Westminster penitentiary.

1918

The Canadian government changes immigration laws to allow landed Indian immigrants to bring their wives and children to Canada.

November 15,   1921

Gurdit Singh makes an anti-British speech to an estimated 50,000 Sikhs at a gurdwara and leads a procession to celebrate Guru Nanak’s birthday.

November 16,   1921

Gurdit Singh surrenders to the police in India. He is is held in custody for three months with no charges laid against him.

February 28, 1922 Gurdit Singh is released from jail. He returns to his anticolonial activities. March 7, 1922

Gurdit Singh is arrested in India for sedition.

July 26, 1922

Gurdit Singh is sentenced to five years of imprisonment at Mian Wali prison.

1930–33

Gurdit Singh is arrested a further three times for activities in the Indian National Congress, the Indian nationalist party.

1952

Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurates a plaque commemorating the Komagata Maru at Budge Budge after years of lobbying by Gurdit Singh and others.

July 4, 1954

Gurdit Singh organizes a memorial meeting for the passengers of the Komagata Maru in Amritsar. He dies the same year at the age of ninety-five.

xviii Chronology of Events

July 23, 1989

A plaque commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the departure of the Komagata Maru is placed at the Ross Street Gurdwara in Vancouver.

1990s

An industrial training institute in Punjab is named after Gurdit Singh after fundraising by Punjabi students who settled in Canada and the United States.

1999

Baljit Singh, the great-grandson of Gurdit Singh, is honoured at the 300th anniversary of the Sikh Khalsa Panth at Anandpur Sahib, Punjab, India.

1990s–

The Professor Mohan Singh Memorial Foundation in Canada lobbies various local, provincial, and federal governments for an apology for the Komagata Maru “incident.”

2006

Descendants of the ship’s passengers meet to form a committee to seek an apology from the Canadian government.

May 23, 2008

The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia apologizes for the Komagata Maru “incident.”

August 2008

Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper offers a limited apology at a gathering of 8,000 in Surrey, British Columbia, that is highly criticized.

April 2010

New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton delivers a petition of 4,600 signatures to Parliament requesting an official apology from the Canadian government.

June 2012

The Komagata Maru Museum is opened at the Ross Street Gurdwara in Vancouver.

July 23, 2012

A monument commemorating the Komagata Maru is unveiled in Coal Harbour in Vancouver.

2014

The government of India issues two coins to mark the Komagata Maru centenary.

May 1, 2014

Canada Post issues a stamp commemorating the centennial anniversary of the arrival of the Komagata Maru in Vancouver.

May 18, 2016

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologizes in Parlia­ ment for the Komagata Maru “incident.”

Chronology of Events xix

May 22, 2014

The Vancouver memorial for the Komagata Maru is defaced for the second time, the first time by a man urinating on the memorial and the second time by graffiti.

August 7, 2016

The Liberal government of Canada unveils a new plaque in English, French, and Punjabi to add to the Komagata Maru monument at Coal Harbour.

References Hickman, Pamela. Righting Canada’s Wrongs: The Komagata Maru and Canada’s AntiIndian Immigration Policies in the Twentieth Century. Toronto: James Lorimer, 2014. Singh, Gurdit. (1928) 2007. Voyage of Komagata Maru, or India’s Slavery Abroad. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books and Punjab Centre for Migration Studies. Waraich, Malwinderjit Singh, and Gurdev Singh Sidhu. Komagata Maru, a Challenge to Colonialism: Key Documents. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books, 2005.

a Challenge to Colonialism: Key Documents (Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books, 2005), inside cover.

Map: Route of the SS Komagata Maru | Adapted from Malwinderjit Singh Waraich and Gurdev Singh Sidhu, Komagata Maru,

Unmooring the Komagata Maru

Introduction Unmooring the Komagata Maru Davina Bhandar and Rita Kaur Dhamoon

On May 23, 1914, the SS Komagata Maru, a steamship carrying 376 passengers of Indian origin, arrived on the west coast of the Dominion of Canada. Based on laws implemented to limit the immigration of Indians, Canadian officials deemed the passengers illegal arrivants, and consequently the ship and its passengers were refused entry and detained for two months in Vancouver Harbour. The ship was eventually forced to depart for Calcutta, with 340 passengers, with the exceptions of the ship’s doctor and his family (given priority passage on another ship), and the remaining twenty passengers, granted entry into Canada since they were considered returnees. Although ethnic and racial histories of Western nations, including Can­ ada, remain on the margins of scholarship, those few scholars who have studied the Komagata Maru conventionally frame it as an incident of past Canadian immigration exclusion (Buchignani and Indra 1985; Johnston 1989, 2014; Kazimi 2012; Macklin 2010; Pollack 1978; SFU 2011; Singh 1989; Srikanth 2002). National histories of immigration exclusion have importantly illuminated the struggles of various marginalized peoples and how nations are forged through discourses of race (Abu-Laban and Gabriel 2002; Backhouse 1999; Bannerji 2000; Boyko 1998; Dua 2000; Kobayashi 1995; McClintock 1995; Roy 1979; Stoler 1995; Thobani 2007; Ward 1978). Yet, as we argue in more detail below, contrary to national historical accounts by scholars in Canada, the journey of the Komagata Maru cannot be fully contained within the borders of a single national perspective (Mongia 1999; Nayar 2016; Roy and Sahoo 2016). This is not least because

3

4 Bhandar and Dhamoon

the ship crossed oceans and jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Japan, and West Bengal; it held significant implications for the extension of legal, social, and political influences within and outside the British Empire; multiple nationalisms operated both within and against the borders of the emerging Canadian nation-state and other colonizing forces across the empire; citizenship was scripted and regulated at different imperial levels and not just within Canada; and colonial surveillence transcended any one nation-state.1 Furthermore, through an attempt to be written into the “national” historical record, Canadian national historiographical interventions and reinterpretations can operate to refound and absolve the nation as conciliatory and multicultural rather than challenge its continued colonial forms of violent exclusion, including ongoing dispossession and displacement of Indigenous peoples and nations. In raising questions about national narratives, this volume has two main objectives. First, it seeks to expose and challenge how Canada’s colonial history is jettisoned by the national historiography of remembering the ship’s voyage and its meaning; in decentring national histories in favour of a colonial analytic, it becomes more evident that, contrary to being postcolonial and postracial, Western nations today operate and extend ruling logics of white supremacy and hierarchies of racism.2 Second, the volume traces how different forms, times, and places of the Komagata Maru’s journey can help to map the movement and network of global colonialism in ways that challenge modern universal claims of subjecthood, foreground relations of power that shape transnational movement, and punctuate how historical systems of rule remain relevant in contemporary relations between and among hegemonic and subjugated actors. By colonialism, we are referring specifically to how Europeans implanted settlements on distant territories (Said 1978), claimed political control over the world (Kohn 2012, para 4), and settled people on land to engage in labour for their own improvement and to create wealth (Arneil 2013). In adopting a colonial framework of analysis rather than a national his­ toriographical one, we also hope that attention is drawn to the formation of the subjectivity of those on board the ship. The passengers are understood here as itinerant subjects of colonialism, whereby their subjectivity was produced – through legal, social, and political means – in a state of movement and precarity. Moreover, the regulation of the journey, technologies of mobility and immobility, and experiences of dislocation and displacement were shaped by colonial systems of rule. Whereas some have

Introduction 5

argued that the Komagata Maru event best illustrates a struggle for the acknowledgment of the universality of “imperial citizenship” or subjecthood, we hope to highlight the processes through which this determined effort was compromised through a systemic and networked set of alliances that governed processes of migration and what Pramod Nayar (2016) calls “dissident mobilities.” Indeed, we examine here the figure of “itinerancy” to challenge the notion that the would-be migrants on board the Komagata Maru could one day become or inhabit the position of “national” subjects of Canada. Rather, the subjectivity of itinerancy underlines the formation of political, social, and cultural identities made complex through various diasporas, such that itinerancy can be marked by colonial hierarchies (Roy and Sahoo 2016), cosmopolitan agency, survival, cultural and imperial citizenship, commerce and trade, and political subversion (Nayar 2016). Avtar Brah (1996) has theorized the necessity of examining the diasporic space made up of contingent and complex genealogies of dispersion and belonging. Although this idea of diasporic space informs our understanding of itinerant subjectivity, we hope to highlight the notion that genealogies of migration and movement remain the focus through a colonial analysis of the Komagata Maru. Through a sustained analysis and critique of colonialism, we expose a complex understanding of how particular people become subjects of empire through travel, entry, detention, and removal and how nation-states are embedded in global regimes of colonialism. The Komagata Maru in Canadian Historiography Conventionally, in the emerging body of scholarly work that considers ethnoracial histories generally, and the Komagata Maru specifically, its narration starts from the ship’s arrival on May 23, 1914, in Burrard Inlet, Vancouver, and ends with the ship’s forced departure two months later. The ship, commissioned by Sikh businessman Baba Gurdit Singh Sarhali, carried 340 Sikh, 24 Muslim, and 12 Hindu passengers, including two women and two children. They entered the harbour after clearing health inspections at William Head near Victoria. Since these passengers had not travelled a continuous journey from their state of national origin (i.e., India), they were deemed inadmissible under Canadian immigration law. This requirement was implemented via an order-in-council and an amendment to the Canadian Immigration Act of 1906. The amendment passed in 1908 as the Continuous Journey Regulation, which

6 Bhandar and Dhamoon

achieved parliamentary assent through the Continuous Passages Act. The amendment reads as follows: The Governor in Council may, by proclamation or order, whenever he considers it necessary or expedient, prohibit the landing in Canada of any specified class of immigrants or of any immigrants who have come to Canada otherwise than by continuous journey from the country of which they are natives or citizens and upon through tickets purchased in that country. (Government of Canada 1908)

This act was implemented with the clear intention to curb immigration from British India and throughout the Pacific Ocean region (Buchignani and Indra 1985; Johnston 1989; Kazimi 2012; Macklin 2010). On the authority of this law, immigration officers did not permit the passengers to leave the ship. They were detained on the ship for two months with limited capacity to replenish their supplies, leaving them on the brink of starvation. During the summer months, while the ship remained in the harbour, a tempest of debate and political negotiation raged on shore, eventually revealing the depth of Canadian resolve to maintain a colour bar that restricted immigration based on race, nation of origin, and religion (Buchignani and Indra 1985; Johnston 1989; Kazimi 2012; Macklin 2010). Throughout the media and in the political debates, the moral assimilability of the Indian migrants was questioned. The debates involved different levels of government, from municipal and provincial to federal and imperial. The debates on the Komagata Maru passengers and the imperative to curb Indian immigration did not exist in a vacuum. Anti-Asian sentiment among the people of British Columbia had already hit a crescendo by 1907 when rioters destroyed property and unleashed violent and verbal assaults in predominantly Asian neighbourhoods of Vancouver (Roy 1990; Sohi 2014; Sugimoto 1973). Anti-Asian riots in Vancouver were preceded by white supremacist riots in Bellingham, Washington, that attempted to drive out Indian lumber workers from that industry (see Roy 2015–16). The Vancouver riot led to a report in 1907 by the federal deputy minister of labour, William Lyon Mackenzie King, dispatched from Ottawa to oversee the aftermath of the riots in British Columbia. His goal was to assess damages to and compensation for affected Japanese businesses, but the report became another way to consolidate further a vision of white

Introduction 7

Canada. On the one hand, the report was written for the purpose of inter­national diplomacy; on the other, it was an assessment of the tense race relations developing on the west coast of Canada (see Bhandar in this volume; Niergarth 2010). In keeping with the “white Canada forever” policy that had fed antiAsian racism and been laid down in the Canadian Immigration Act of 1910, the Continuous Journey Regulation was deemed necessary because Indians could not be banned otherwise from entering the Dominion of Canada since they were British colonial subjects. Officials in Canada enforced the regulation. Ultimately, after the test case of Munshi Singh, one of the passengers who wanted to immigrate, detention of the would-be immigrants ended after the Supreme Court of British Columbia upheld the regulation. The ship and its passengers were escorted out of the harbour by a Canadian naval vessel to return to Calcutta. The Canadian focus has been central to many of the prominent accounts of the Komagata Maru. This includes Norman Buchignani and Doreen Indra’s 1985 book Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada and Hugh Johnston’s 1989 book (updated in 2014) The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar, considered to be the primary texts of any Canadian study of the Komagata Maru and Canadian South Asian history. In addition, Ali Kazimi’s highly acclaimed 2004 film Continuous Journey is central in Canadian historiography of the Komagata Maru. His book Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru – An Illustrated History, which visually documents “one of the most infamous ‘incidents’ in Canadian history” (2012, 6), followed the film. Kazimi animated the South Asian diasporic archive in an installation central to the Ruptures of Arrival: Art in the Wake of the Komagata Maru exhibit at the Surrey Art Gallery from May to November 2014; this series of works included the original composition by the Neemaljit Dhillon Quartet titled the “Komagata Maru,” a multi-instrumental soundscape performed with visual projections. Finally, there is the 2011 archive-based website created and maintained by the Simon Fraser University (SFU) library (funded by SFU and Citizenship and Immigration Canada), which states that “one of the benefits of retelling the story of the Komagata Maru today is that it allows us to build upon the work of previous generations to make sense of one of the most symbolic moments in Canadian history” (SFU 2011). The Canadian-focused work identified above has attended to examining the absences from Canadian national historiography, which has largely

8 Bhandar and Dhamoon

relegated ethnic minority histories of Canadian immigration and settlement to a marginal space in the Canadian landscape. The authors and projects noted above have challenged this underrepresentation. Although these histories counter a conventional whitewashed Canadian national narrative, we argue that they also operate to support a vision of the nation, albeit one tarnished by racism, recoverable in the face of an expanded idea of citizenship, democratic participation, and liberal values of inclusion. In recounting the Komagata Maru “incident” in this section, we identify three interwoven national narratives that have come to dominate scholarly literature and public discourse in Canada: the Komagata Maru has been underrecognized in Canada’s racist immigration history; it is a story of failed South Asian migration to Canada and a story of South Asian resilience; and it is a dark moment in Canadian history that the nation has now transformed to become authentically multicultural and immigrant friendly. The Komagata Maru as a Past Incident of Racist Exclusion of Immigrants Study of the Komagata Maru as an isolated historical incident, examined exclusively from a “Canadian perspective,” emphasizes the exclusionary character of past immigration policies and practices directed toward Indians, with specific attention to the Continuous Journey Regulation. For example, historian Hugh Johnston (2014) situates immigration racism within Canadian law (and briefly also US law) and the larger context of anti-Asian racism in which there was white anxiety about the “Hindoo invasion” in British Columbia. Johnston (1989, 2014) is clearly aware of the transnational journey of the Komagata Maru and cognizant of the context of Indians in the global British Empire – specifically the ship’s departure from Hong Kong; the riot, arrests, and deaths that ensued in Budge Budge; and the national profile of the riot in India. Nonetheless, his primary focus is on “the Sikh challenge to Canada’s colour bar” and Canada’s immigration policy: The full history of the Komagata Maru affair, from its origins to its long term consequences, is an immigrant story writ large. (2014, xiv; emphasis added) The outcome of the voyage of the Komagata Maru was a devastating failure and tragedy for the passengers, but it stands out as the most dramatic challenge

Introduction 9

to Canadian immigration policy ever mounted by any disadvantaged immigrant group. (2014, 9; emphasis added)

Aside from the fact that Johnston narrates the resilience of Punjabi Sikhs at the cost of often erasing the experiences of Hindu and Muslim passengers on board the Komagata Maru and shore committee members – most of whom were also Punjabi – his critique of Canadian officials turns on the notion that Canada should have been open to British Indian immigrants.3 In other words, there is a centrally held idea that Canada, as part of the British Empire, should have maintained the universal claims of British imperial citizenship. Yet Canada’s formation as a colonial nation was not limited to its immigration laws and practices, and, as noted earlier, the journey of the Komagata Maru cannot be contained within a single national perspective, even a pro-Indian perspective. Rather, colonialism is most directly expressed through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of their lands/ waterways and their systems of governance disregarded in favour of European (specifically British and French) systems of rule. Canada was not concerned about respecting the rights of “Indian imperial citizenship”; it was concerned about subjugating Indigenous peoples and asserting sovereign control over its borders (see Mawani 2012). This is particularly relevant in the context of the colonial relations between Canada and various sovereign territories of Indigenous nations on the west coast. These intersecting colonial administrative regulations, the land treaties processes, and the persistent forms of regulation of immigration are not isolated decisions but practices of colonial possession. Mainland British Columbia was settled, unlike many other parts of Canada, without a treaty process, and Indigenous peoples and nations never ceded their lands (Alfred 2001; Fisher 1992; Harris 1997, 2004). This highlights the continued forms of recognition of the rights to land that over fifty discrete Indigenous nations are able to make in British Columbia. Despite this politics of Indigenous dispossession, the framework of Canadian immigration exclusion and South Asian migration history structures the extensive web-based archival material collated by the SFU library. The journey of the Komagata Maru is told in terms of the “deliberate, exclusionary policy of the Canadian government to keep out ethnicities ... whom it deemed unfit to enter. These justifications were couched

10 Bhandar and Dhamoon

in racist and ethnocentric views of ‘progress,’ ‘civilization,’ and ‘suitability’ which all buttressed the view that Canada should remain a ‘White Man’s Country’” (SFU 2011). The SFU website draws on national, provincial, and municipal archives in Canada (especially government and court documents) and uniquely archives oral histories from community members, personal anecdotes, unpublished manuscripts, and family albums. It also offers translations in Punjabi and Hindi, and in a Canadian nationalist vein (because of federal funding rules and requirements) it offers information in English and French, the two official languages of Can­ ada. In 2015, the SFU library expanded the Canada-India connection by working with India’s Ministry of Culture to further collect, catalogue, digitize, and publicly share resources central to the Komagata Maru; they jointly organized events, talks, tours, and exhibitions in India and Canada as part of the centennial commemorations of the Komagata Maru by the government of India. However, though the SFU website repeats that there are significant connections between Canada and India in the journey and contemporary resonances of the Komagata Maru, its primary focus is on the ship’s relevance to Canadian history and South Asian migrants’ desire to be included in the Canadian nation: One of the benefits of retelling the story of the Komagata Maru today is that it allows us to build on the work of previous generations to make sense of one of the most symbolic moments in Canadian history. One of the unique features of this website is the active attempt to reframe traditional perspectives of this story to include a variety of Canadian Indian voices. This helps for a nuanced and multilayered look at history, while also communicating the lived realities of Canadians – and those striving to be Canadians – over 100 years ago. (SFU 2011; emphasis added)

Both Johnston’s work and the SFU website are highly influential national accounts of the Komagata Maru, and both emphasize past Canadian immigration racism central to the ship’s journey. At times, this national history of immigration racism has been at the expense of lesser-known details about the Komagata Maru’s relevance even in Canada, such as how the guise of public health screening was used by Canadian officials to classify nonwhite colonial subjects, including passengers on the ship, as carriers of contagious or loathsome diseases who could be denied entry under immigration law (see Wallace 2013 for more details).

Introduction 11

The Komagata Maru as a Story of South Asian Migration to Canada and South Asian Resilience In the early 1900s, many ships travelled to Canada carrying passengers of Indian origin. They included the Empress of Japan in 1906, the Tartar in 1906, the Monteagle in 1907, and the Panama Maru in 1913 (Buchignani and Indra 1985). Yet the Komagata Maru has attracted the most sustained attention in histories of South Asians in Canada. This might be because of the dramatic actions of Canadian officials to detain passengers on the ship for so long, its eventual forced removal, and the successful enforcement of racist immigration laws. But it also seems to be because the Komagata Maru has come to represent a story of failed migration of Indians to Canada and a story of mobilization of the Indian passengers and Indians already in Vancouver over the ship’s detention and forced departure. This narrative of mobilization is perhaps most evident in accounts emphasizing that Baba Gurdit Singh originally chartered the steamship with the intention of challenging the Canadian Continuous Journey Regulation on the basis that “everyone aboard the ship was entitled to enter Canada as of right” (Macklin 2010, 47). Indeed, Baba Gurdit Singh himself emphasized the importance of challenging the Canadian immigration policy (Waraich and Sidhu 2005, 37). The arrival of the Komagata Maru has been understood as a test of the legality and resolve of the Canadian courts to maintain the Continuous Journey Regulation. In the current period, too, the Komagata Maru has taken a central place in the legacy of early South Asian settlement in Canada, and public funds have been sought (especially from members of the Sikh community) to remember past attempts at migrating to Canada and the ongoing resilience of South Asians. The Canadian government has funded educational activities related to the Komagata Maru under the Community Historical Recognition Program, run by the federal ministry of Citizenship and Im­ migration Canada (CIC). In 2011, the CIC pledged $82,500 to Vancouver’s Khalsa Diwan Society to work with the Vancouver Parks Board to establish a monument to commemorate the incident and $104,000 to develop a museum in its Vancouver gurdwara dedicated to the Komagata Maru (CIC 2016). In 2014, the University of British Columbia presented Performing the Post-Colonial (UBC Punjabi Studies 2014), a theatrical piece on plays written about the Komagata Maru. Also in 2014, the University of the Fraser Valley held a performance entitled That Land beyond the Waves (CICS 2014), which focused on the plight of families on shore waiting for their

12 Bhandar and Dhamoon

loved ones to disembark from the Komagata Maru. The ship’s journey has also been the subject of considerable creative practice, including four other plays (radio plays and theatre productions), a novel, a documentary film, poetry, an extensive scholarly and popular literature, a potential movie by famed South Asian director Deepa Mehta, a number of visual art installations, soundscapes, as well as other forms of memorialization. In the artistic and political reimagining of the Komagata Maru’s voyage, the practices of cultural production have expanded. These challenges to the forms of artistic practice are noted in the 2004 feature-length documentary directed by Ali Kazimi titled Continuous Journey, which brought to life the limited visual archive of the Komagata Maru (see Hameed and Vukov 2007). The visual, literary, and cultural productions on the Komagata Maru, beyond articulating experiences and forms of racial discrimina­ tion, also play host to a variety of explorations of identity, a politics of resistance, and the networked relationships of the larger South Asian diaspora. This resurfacing through cultural productions, documentaries, radio plays, theatre productions, or films often attempts to bring alive the archival material that reinforces the veracity of the Komagata Maru events as a Canadian story. Indeed, the Komagata Maru points to an interesting history of being presented, retold, and resubmitted to national attention over the years. This retelling of Canadian exclusion and South Asian resilience echoes in contemporary memorialization, in which it seems that the commemoration of the Komagata Maru is less about what took place on the west coast, one site of historical trauma, than about how this commemoration was taken up in immigrant-intensive areas such as the Canadian cities of Brampton, Mississauga, Scarborough, Surrey, and Calgary – places often typically understood to have more “recent” immigrants from highly diverse communities.4 It seems that the “pioneering” spirit of the South Asians (East Indians, Hindus) who attempted to arrive in Canada and establish homes and settlements has been emphasized over the transpacific and colonial dimensions. The Komagata Maru as a Marker of Past Canadian Exclusion and Present Multicultural Inclusion The third dominant narrative of the Komagata Maru is that it was a “dark moment” in Canadian history, which the nation has transformed and re-

Introduction 13

deemed to become authentically multicultural and immigrant friendly. For instance, on the SFU website, Canada’s racist past is demarcated from its more tolerant present, deemed multicultural and more welcoming to non-European immigrants: Retaining a cultural connection to more than one place is the hallmark of Canadian multiculturalism. The way Canada has viewed non-European immigration has changed in drastic ways during the course of the last century and it has reflected changes within Canada as well as developments around the world. The early struggles of the pioneer community found resolution through landmark changes in governmental policy which included reinstituting the franchise for South Asian immigrants in 1947 and changing immigration laws in the late 1960s. (SFU 2011)

Johnston (2014, xiv) shares this narrative of a reformed nation, noting that Canada today is marked by more multicultural consensus than in the past and that immigration policy has reformed such that people from all parts of the world are now welcome in Canada. The significance of the Komagata Maru as a marker of a changed nation has also been emphasized in the apologies made by various elected officials in Canada. Following public pressure from South Asian groups and MPs, there was parliamentary debate in 2008 about the need for the government to apologize for its past restrictive immigration policy. As well, in the same year, members of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia unanimously passed a motion of apology: Be it resolved that this Legislature apologizes for the events of May 23, 1914, when 376 passengers of the Komagata Maru, stationed off Vancouver harbour, were denied entry by Canada. The House deeply regrets that the passengers, who sought refuge in our country and our province, were turned away without benefit of the fair and impartial treatment befitting a society where people of all cultures are welcomed and accepted. (Legislative Assembly of British Columbia 2008)

Although highly criticized by members of the South Asian community, Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper acknowledged in 2008 the treatment of passengers on board the Komagata Maru at a public South

14 Bhandar and Dhamoon

Asian event in Surrey. His speech was received as an inaudible apology: there was recognition that some sort of injustice had occurred, but exactly what his apology meant could not be determined. For the Canadian nation-state, recognition of this past wrong clearly delineated a “dark moment” in the nation’s history that “we” have moved on from; for the South Asian community, the “apology” occurred at an event in the Sikh community without much attention to the diversity of the affected communities. Indeed, the apology infamously took place on the “back of a pickup truck at a community barbecue in Surrey, not in the House of Commons, where an official state apology should take place” (Somani, this volume). In 2016, Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau offered an official apology in Parliament for “laws that prevented these passengers from immigrating peacefully and securely” (see Appendix 1). As noted by critics of state-based reparations (Coulthard 2014; Henderson and Wakeham 2013; Simpson 2011; Woolford, Benvenuto, and Hinton 2014), apologies for past exclusions often fail to include sub­­ stantive material changes in social or economic circumstances. We contend that state apologies for the Komagata Maru work to obfuscate the reality of ongoing colonial violence against Indigenous peoples, black communities, Arabs and Muslims, and other people of colour. We also contend that national historiographical discourses of redemption work to minimize Canada’s involvement in an international network of regulations and prohibitions that controlled the movement of people from the Global South to the Global North and continue today in the form of the Tem­ porary Foreign Worker Program. The nationalist historiography of the Komagata Maru, focused on how the event is read as a genesis of Canada’s progress toward an inclusive multicultural future, necessarily limits understanding that this was not a singular event in Canadian history. Lost is how this story of transpacific migration includes restrictions and prohibitions on Chinese and Japanese migrants and connects Canada’s development and identity to a transnational and colonial network of governance. By emphasizing the Komagata Maru and a pioneering people who endured and overcame an unwelcome beginning, Canada is seemingly redeemed through this process of selectively multiculturalizing public space, apology, and recognition. In addition, the nation is further removed from contemporary acts of similar policies and practices of migrant injustice in which the state remains culpable, such as in the case of the detention of Tamil migrants and refugees.

Introduction 15

The Komagata Maru Journey through a Colonial Analytic To draw out the complexities of understanding the story of the Koma­ gata Maru not as a referent point for a nation seeking redemption or contained by a single national perspective, or the story of the trials and tribulations of the settlement of Indians in British Columbia, this book offers an alternative approach to reading and representing the story. We propose to examine the story of the ship as it traversed international waterways, legal and regulative spaces, and differing temporalities through a colonial analytic, one attentive to networks of power. This lens best represents the conversations and debates raised by the contributors to this volume. Colonial networks and connections have been at the centre of recent scholarship on the global phenomenon of early-twentieth-century South Asian resistance and radicalism (Chattopadhyay 2016; Johnston 2013; Mawani 2012; Price and Bains 2014; Ramnath 2011; Roy and Sahoo 2016; Shah 2011; Sohi 2014). There is also a burgeoning area of inquiry investigating the politics of the larger South Asian diaspora in North American contexts (Bald 2013; Chang 2012; Mongia 1999, 2004; Prashad 2000; Shah 2011). In addition, this area of scholarship attends to changing racial taxonomies and both spatial and temporal colonial interconnections between and among Europeans and non-Europeans (Burton 1998; Lowe 2006, 2015; Mawani 2009; Povenelli 2011; Stoler 1995). In a similar vein, this book seeks to explore the productions, contexts, and effects of itinerant subjects through the analytic of colonialism. The concept of the itinerant subject is used here to capture the formation of identity, political subjectivity experienced through movement. Examining itinerant subjectivity through a colonial analytic not only centres the operations and effects of forces of power on subject formations but also centres the precariousness of movement for some travellers, and that precariousness transcends national borders. The passengers on board the Komagata Maru perhaps did not voluntarily enter into this subjectivity; nonetheless, this is what the colonial regime of power (Brah 1996) – as the regulative apparatus that determined the destination of the ship – established. This is not to suggest that the chapters in this volume share a singular definition of colonialism; rather, it is to signal the fragments of power imbued with colonial formations. As Ann Stoler (2001) compellingly argues, pursuing connections between speci­ fic governing regimes and the broad dynamics of rule can open up lines

16 Bhandar and Dhamoon

of overlapping inquiry and key conceptual frames of colonialism and imperialism. An analytic of colonialism, rather than of national history, does not mean that critical inquiries into the nation, constructions of the national, and the borders of the nation-state are not relevant. On the contrary, the colonial dimensions of the Komagata Maru journey invite further exploration of the entanglements of and the tensions between global networks of colonial power and multiple nationalisms. In 1914, the events surrounding the Komagata Maru functioned in the global colonial context of various competing nationalisms: Indian nationalism in India, in which the struggle for self-rule was paramount among ordinary Indians; anti-British nationalism among the Indian diaspora across the globe (e.g., the emergence of revolutionary Ghadar Movement activities in North America, Asia, and Europe) (Puri 1983; Ramnath 2011; Sohi 2014); the precarious link between being a British subject of Indian origin in India and a British Indian subject with the right to move across nations under the dominion of Britain (Mawani 2012); the emerging consolidation of Canada as a sovereign nation-state, independent of Britain, that could have control over immigration (Byrd 2011; Dhamoon 2014), especially when Britain, its colonies, and its allies were preparing for the First World War; French and British colonial nationalisms within the Dominion of Canada wrangling over federal/provincial powers and sovereignty over territory and governance, evident in constitutional battles and national debates on language laws, resources, and identity (Bannerji 2000; Ladner 2005; Simeon and Robinson 1990); and Indigenous nationhood, violently disregarded and genocidally brought under the domain of British and French law (Alfred 2005; Andersen 2014; Harris 1997; Lawrence 2002; Monture-Angus 1995). These competing nationalisms are entangled webs of colonialism and anti­colonialism rather than just independent historical struggles for nation and belonging. Furthermore, a colonial analytic punctuates competing understandings of imperial and/or British citizenship beyond the borders of a single nation. Following cautions from postcolonial theorists (Hall and Rose 2006; Stoler and McGranaham 2007) against centring British colonialists in accounts of colonialism, we see the Komagata Maru journey as an opportunity to trace the contradictions of being British Indian imperial subjects who were differentiated along white supremacist lines and who

Introduction 17

challenged the unrestricted movement of white British subjects. Such colonizer/colonized distinctions were complicated by the fact that British Indian subjects in far-flung colonies were in the service of the British army, but they did not have access to imperial citizenship (Bains, this volume). The struggle over determining the parameters of British imperial subjecthood took place beyond any one nation. Colonial officials, some anti­ colonialists, and the print media in Canada, India, London, and Hong Kong that wanted to restrict the movement of British Indians engaged with the discourse of imperial citizenship. In particular, despite global shifts toward expanding citizenship rights to white women and all white northern European subjects moving across colonial metropoles on the basis of liberal universal rights, the early twentieth century was also a time when imperial citizenship was dampened for people of colour. Without understanding larger colonial perspectives, the British system of emigration that largely controlled the passage of British Indians to various imperial sites and Canada’s relationship with colonial logic and anticolonial resistance are not conclusively engaged. Although the existing Canadian literature on the Komagata Maru narrates South Asian resistance and radicalism through the struggles of the passengers on board the ship while anchored in Vancouver Harbour, through the efforts of the shore committee in Vancouver, and through various legal challenges by South Asians, a colonial analytic invites engagement with literatures and political actions beyond Canada and a singular group. Indeed, rather than scripting the Komagata Maru as a solely Sikh encounter with Canadian racism, a colonial analytic foregrounds how members of the South Asian diaspora came together across caste and religious lines in challenging colonial formations of the Indian as backward, uncivilized, and bound by tradition. This was true of both the passengers on the ship and those on land in Vancouver, California, Britain, and parts of India. For example, some passengers had personal connections with members of the anti-British revolutionary Ghadar Party, which had networks in Oregon, California, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, France, Can­ ada, India, and Britain. Furthermore, those on land, in Vancouver and other parts of the world, were concerned not just about the rights of the Komagata Maru passengers to land in Canada but also about the rights of their family members and friends living across the British Empire as well as those family members left behind who faced an uncertain future of

18 Bhandar and Dhamoon

joining their families (Ramnath 2011; Tatla 2007, 8–9). Thus, even among the diaspora, there was no singular national perspective or singular motive for seeking citizenship rights in Canada. This interconnectedness of colonial regulation and anticolonial concern about migration also illuminates various techniques of surveillance deployed across national borders. Although Canadian historiographical accounts note that one of the key players in the events of 1914 was William Hopkinson, the immigration inspector who tracked “seditious” activity and reported it to Ottawa, London, and Delhi, a colonial analytic opens up lines of inquiry into the transnational networks of colonial surveillance. The movements of the Komagata Maru across the Pacific Ocean and ultimately to the west coast of Canada were known well in advance by colonial authorities who utilized networked surveillance strategies that spanned the imperial substrate. For example, Hong Kong officials did not want Komagata Maru passengers returned via Hong Kong because they had no power to deport the men (Waraich and Sidhu 2005, 69). Such surveillance – like that of today, which uses satellite imagery to trace ocean voyages of migrants and refugees – reveals the international imperial networks of communication between British authorities in Hong Kong, India, and London and Canadian and American authorities situated globally. Drawing from various disciplinary approaches, the authors of this book touch on several aspects of the colonialism that we have identified above, each emphasizing some dimensions over others. As outlined below, we have organized the chapters along four parts, which signal clear topics of importance to the colonial journey of the Komagata Maru. They mark a voyage that never fully departed and never fully arrived, even as this incomplete voyage resonates throughout a century of disputed territorial lineages. Part 1: The Politics of Anticolonial Resistance in the Journey of the Komagata Maru The centennial of the Komagata Maru’s arrival in Canada and its subsequent return to British India offers an opportunity to re-examine the mul­ tiple ways that this ship has charted the transnational resistance of South Asians against British colonialism and national (Canadian) government strategies to repress mobility, freedom, and basic rights. The chapters in the first section provide an interdisciplinary recalibration of the legacy of transnational resistance politics throughout the commonwealth among

Introduction 19

itinerant South Asians. The contributors trace the persistent movement of this voyage from a period of modernist articulations of imperial subjectivities, political movements, and forms of modern agency to anti­ colonial critiques of the deployment of these relations of power. Taking the Komagata Maru as the entry point in their chapters, Ian Christopher Fletcher, Suchetana Chattopadhyay, and Satwinder Kaur Bains examine these transnational webs of colonial biopower and resistance. Fletcher probes the nature and limits of anticolonial criticism through a careful study of press coverage of and commentary on the Komagata Maru in anglophone newspapers and periodicals from Australia, Britain, Canada, India, Ireland, South Africa, West Africa, and the United States. Although this book’s other authors also consider formations of indentured labour and South Asian diasporic subjectivity, Fletcher specifically casts a wide transnational net to examine the context of indentured Indian labour throughout the empire and how Indians challenged this system in South Africa, North America, and South Eastern Asia. Chattopadhyay examines radical responses to racialized subjecthood im­ posed by the colonial state on Punjabi (especially Sikh) migrants in wartime Calcutta. Her analysis reveals that the repressive colonial state apparatus to deal with the Komagata Maru passengers and Punjabi migrants influenced the intersections of anticolonial strands in the city during 1914–15 and shaped the organized transmission of the ship’s memory as a symbol of resistance among Sikh workers in the industrial centres of southwest Bengal from the 1920s onward. Her chapter importantly demonstrates how radical activism, diasporic identity formation, and labour movements converged. Bains tracks letters from Komagata Maru passengers to Canadian officials to illuminate the colonial logic of white nationalism and deception that further fuelled a nationalist consciousness among anti-British Indians in India and the diaspora. Bains specifically explores how imperialist regimes of citizenship shaped Sikh Punjabi understandings of transnational rights, white Canadian nationalism, divisions among passengers on board, and Indian resistance and political activism in Can­ ada and elsewhere across the empire. Part 2: Migration Regimes in Colonial Contexts Several contributors point to the continued relationship among the Koma­ gata Maru, the politics of securing borders, and the position of migrants in contemporary geopolitics. The assessment of the Komagata Maru in

20 Bhandar and Dhamoon

this context is both methodologically and epistemologically relevant. In this part of the book, Radhika Mongia insightfully locates the challenge posed by the Komagata Maru to imperial authorities in Canada, India, and Britain in the context of nineteenth-century debates and regulations concerning the migration of Indians as well as the prior legal terrain of indentured migration and the abolition of slavery in British plantation economies. Mongia shows that, as a legal event, the Komagata Maru significantly transformed the principles and institutional logics of migration control from empire-states to nation-states. In their chapter, Nadia Hasan, Sailaja Krishnamurti, Omme-Salma Rahemtullah, Nayani Thiyagarajah, and Nishant Upadhyay discuss the complicated bordering practices that take place within interethnic communities (e.g., within the South Asian diaspora in Canada), the temporal bordering that occurs between the Koma­gata Maru and more recent voyages of Tamil migrants on the MV Ocean Lady (2009) and MV Sun Sea (2010), and the continued practice of border keepers criminalizing migrants. They argue that the Komagata Maru acts as a reminder of continued colonial logics and “border imperialism” (Walia 2014) through the construction of nonwhite itinerant subjects deemed criminals, queue jumpers, or terrorists, and immigrants deemed good or model minorities. In her chapter, Davina Bhandar examines the Komagata Maru within the historical and current racial landscape of migration to Western nations. She argues that there is a twin racial logic at play in which the anti-immigrant politics of the early twentieth century operate similarly to the logics of exclusion and border management that inform the policies of immigration and use of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Canada today. How the Komagata Maru is remembered 100 years later, Bhandar argues, is closely connected to how nonwhite bodies serve as foreign cheap labour, temporarily situated, both in the past and in the present. Part 3: Colonial Temporalities of Memory and Cultural Production The story of the Komagata Maru has been told through print media, docu­ mentary film, radio plays, theatre productions, literature, poetry, visual arts, and soundscapes. These numerous cultural productions are instructive in understanding the networks of colonialism and diasporic relations and how the transpacific as a geopolitical space is also an artistic and culturally productive space. The multiple dimensions of memory work found in numerous cultural productions about the Komagata Maru and

Introduction 21

the various forms of analysis applied to narrate its colonial voyage speak to the complicated networks produced by nationalism, transnationalism, diaspora, race, and intergenerational forms of memory. This is true of memoir, whether by Gurdit Singh, the stalwart businessman who chartered the ship, or through the retelling of memory or “postmemory” passed down through generations of those once on board the ship. The chapters in this part of the book foreground “the mediated nature of memory” (Roy and Sahoo 2016, 86), making memory contingent as a site of historical truth claims. The function of memoir is emphasized in the chapter by Kaori Mizu­ kami, who focuses on the itinerant subjects completely ignored in Can­ adian historiography – the experiences and views of the Japanese crew on board the Komagata Maru. She examines a short essay written in 1936 by Yokichi Shiozaki, the Japanese owner of the ship and a fellow passenger. Prior to this publication, Shiozaki was interviewed by Sadao Yoshida regarding the incident, an accompanying text that Mizukami discusses. Although Mizukami finds sympathies for the position of the Indian migrants, she also notes that Japanese nationalism operated alongside imperial relations and the sovereign authority of Canadian border practices. The Japanese position in the history of the Komagata Maru speaks to the layered negotiations of colonial and sovereign authorities that act as powerful nodal points throughout the transpacific region. In a complementary fashion, Irina Spector-Marks rereads the journey of the Komagata Maru through nationalist and anti-imperial struggles. In her chapter, she discusses the immense print-culture archive produced by the journey. Her analysis allows for an understanding of how transnational mobilization also had local or regional reverberations. For imperial officials, controlling information was a way to control Indian bodies out of place in an avowedly “white man’s country.” In contrast, for Indian newspapers across the empire, the details of passengers’ intentions and experiences mattered much less than the potency of the ship as a symbol used to assert or reject imperial citizenship. Through a study of Ali Kazimi’s 2004 film Continuous Journey, in her chapter Ayesha Hameed offers what she calls a temporal method that rubs historical moments together to reveal simultaneously a sense of resonance and an acute disjuncture between history and the present. Her method illuminates unexplored links between historical archives and aesthetic dimensions of migration and “crooked lines” between the legal aporias

22 Bhandar and Dhamoon

of the Komagata Maru and ships on which refugees travelling to Australia today are detained and/or violently deported. Hameed’s exposition also reveals a play with borders through memory, sound, and temporality that collapses time and space. Part 4: Disrupting Colonial Formations of the Nation In the final part of the book, Enakshi Dua, Rajender Kaur, and Alia Somani return to the Canadian nation as a colonial and colonizing formation. Dua reveals how nation building is involved in heteronormative practices of social reproduction. Through an analysis of the Komagata Maru, the centrality of the heteronormative family is brought to light in the negotiation of itinerant subject formation, the border, national identity, and the context of colonial-imperial relations. Dua sheds light on the gendered and sexualized dynamics simultaneously reproduced by the Canadian nation-state via racialized immigration regulations and British imperial authorities. Analyzing literary representations of the Komagata Maru in Canada, in her chapter Kaur tracks patterns of disappointments, betrayals, and disaffections of diasporic subjects (in this case Sikh diasporic subjects) across history and geopolitical borders. She explores links between representations of the Komagata Maru and the bombing of Air India Flight 182 as a way to track diasporic Sikh subjectivity radicalized by disaffection through state policies contained within colonial frameworks. Her method reveals that ethno-subnationalisms have their roots in the home country (in this case India) but are also nurtured abroad by a diasporic community (in this case Sikhs) insecure about its position in the adopted country. Kaur tracks the distinctions between memories made through national state narratives and those found in official reports and state archives that reveal counter nonstatist memories that give rise to Sikh nationalism in India and Canada. In her chapter, Somani challenges nationalist projects of constructive forgetting, as in the case of Harper’s apology in 2008. Somani illustrates how current narrations of the Komagata Maru have led to foreclosures made in national histories that potentially contain the impacts of traumatic events. Somani prompts us to question what is at play in a pub­lic act of forgetting and retelling. How is this performative forgetting an essential tool in the politics of restitution or apology? In the act of forgetting about the Komagata Maru and then recovering the memory of the travellers on

Introduction 23

the ship, is the “white innocence” of the white settler nation of Canada reproduced? The book concludes with a brief analysis by Renisa Mawani on the Koma­ gata Maru as a minor event with global colonial significance and several poems by Tariq Malik on the echoes of its journey. Mawani asks what it might mean to think about the Komagata Maru not as a national or global history but as a minor one. Minor histories, she points out, challenge classifications and genres, opening new methods and frames of analysis. Malik’s poems are an important contribution to rethinking the movement of itinerant subjects on board a ship that has implications across geopolitical borders, for both the past and the present, and for relations of power. Overall, the chapters reflect the imperfections and resistances encountered in any well-planned trip. Whereas a national historiographical approach makes room for a greater critique of racist immigration policies and includes group histories otherwise marginalized, it can also falsely support visions of the nation that has overcome racism and obscure continuing abuses of control and rule. A colonial analytic of the Komagata Maru opens up lines of inquiry into contested formations of imperial and British citizenship; how the colonizer-colonized binary moves through migration and surveillence histories of South Asians, Chinese, and Japan­ ese and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples; how the conditions of competing nationalisms are structured by the ruling classes and anti­ colonial resistance; and the relationship between historical and con­ temporary modalities of governance. As Mawani says in her chapter, the Komagata Maru might be a minor event, but it has global colonial significance. A Journey without an End In our own journey of investigating the colonial trajectories of the Koma­ gata Maru, three areas of inquiry stand out as requiring further investigation. First, since the national narration does not seek to question the normative formation of gender relations, such relations are largely rendered invisible. In British India specifically, the formation of gender was highly regulated through specific laws that targeted customs of marriage, family and kinship relations, and religious practices (Mani 1987; Sangari and Vaid 1990). Although the “Western” imposition of morality on the family was seen as part of a great civilizing force throughout British colonialism, for forms of indentured labour and the regulation of Indian

24 Bhandar and Dhamoon

emigration there seem to have been other standards of family formation (Bahadur 2014; Ramsarran 2008; Tinker 1977). In the case of the Komagata Maru, the significance of women on board is not fully appreciated or even recognized in historical accounts. The fact that women were on board suggests that the passengers resisted the idea that they were sojourners, migrant workers not interested in relocating to and raising families in Canada. Rather, the presence of women and children underlines the possibility that families were being reunited and rejects the claim that the migration and settlement history of South Asians was exclusively that of men. Some of the chapters in this volume examine the gendered colonial contexts that affected itinerant subjectivity (see Dua, Somani, and Bains), but there were specific gendered and racist barriers to the migration and citizenship of women that need to be investigated further. Second, there is little surviving information about the passengers on board the ship, including their lives before and after their arrival in Vancouver, how they practised their diverse religious beliefs, the relevance of caste relations, how Gurdit Singh’s business interests were affected especially when Singh could not sell the cargo that he had brought with him on the ship, and how shore committee members managed financial and legal support for passengers. There have been literary interpretations of the ship’s journey and other forms of representation that give a sense of the intimate lives of the passengers. Although we know that there were distinctions among passengers such as class, caste, and religion, the implications of these distinctions while they were on board are not revealed by the histories that exist on the Komagata Maru. A colonial analytic lends itself to a more heterogeneous understanding of itinerant subjects of empire, whereby the physical, economic, legal, and familial routes travelled necessarily signal divergences among the South Asian diaspora, such that the journey is not just one of Sikhs, despite popular claims (Roy and Sahoo 2016), and that there are variations among Sikhs involved. The homogenization of South Asian identities through migration and resettlement is also not unique to the narrative of the Komagata Maru. There is a dearth of academic research on the colonial networked history of Canada and the South Asian diaspora in which the diversity of caste, class, ethnicity, and religion within the communities of the South Asian diaspora is not fully recognized. These distinctions, while exposing a less than egalitarian understanding of universal forms of equality, are nonetheless important in examining how the South Asian diasporic communities have settled,

Introduction 25

built their communities, and established networked connections. With some exceptions (e.g., Roy and Sahoo 2016), these distinctions, absented from scholarly representations, operate to occlude possible tensions or solidarities within the South Asian diasporic community. Instead, we are left to imagine, speculate, and interpret what the passengers on board the Komagata Maru perceived or experienced on their forward voyage, detention, return voyage, and (for some) subsequent incarceration. Finally, how might the journey of the Komagata Maru be situated within what Jodi Byrd (2011) calls “a transit of empire,” in which empire expands itself through notions of “Indianness” and Indigeneity? As Indigenous activists and scholars have long argued, the continued settlement of nonIndigenous peoples on their traditional lands and the presumed sovereignty of Europeans over Indigenous peoples comprise forms of both historical and contemporary colonialism. Some refer to this continuing form of rule as “settler colonialism” (Rifkin 2013; Veracini 2010; Wolfe 2006), which encompasses structural and everyday/commonsensical manifestations of power and controlling imperatives to dissolve Indigenous societies in order to erect new colonial societies on expropriated lands. The entanglements of past and present colonialisms and claims of nationhood (whether Canadian or Indigenous) are not outside how South Asian diasporas make claims of inclusion in present-day Canada. For example, there is tension between South Asians who seek federal government funding for Komagata Maru memorials across Canada and Indigenous peoples when that government continues to dispossess them of their lands through settler colonial law. How might these shifting colonial configurations be reimagined in settler colonial contexts? This focus on relations between Indigenous peoples and nonwhite immigrants, and on various forms of forced and voluntary migration and settler colonialism, has been growing over recent years (Bhandar 2016; Dhamoon 2015; Grieger 2014; Jackson 2012; King 2016; Lawrence and Dua 2005; Leroy 2016; Mathur, Dewar, and DeGagne 2011; Mawani 2009, 2012; Saranillio 2013; Vimalassery, Hu, and Goldstein 2016), but the dynamics of power across different kinds of colonialism have yet to be fully explored. In marking the commemoration of this voyage and reading the Komagata Maru through a colonial analytic, the contributors to this volume raise important methodological questions about how the migratory experiences of the radically dispossessed can be viewed in a contemporary moment of international politics that seeks to flatten out and erase the inconsistencies,

26 Bhandar and Dhamoon

revolutionary politics, and challenges to normative national claims to identity and belonging. The chapters offer an incomplete perspective on the Komagata Maru and its continued relevance to the formation of colonial logics, geographies of the transpacific, and challenges to nationalism from a migratory political position. Ultimately, the contributors illustrate the extensive parameters that the voyage of the Komagata Maru has undertaken over the past 100 years – it continues to be a voyage without a conclusion.









Notes 1 Use of the term “citizenship” has been highly varied across political regimes. Our use is not limited to legal forms (e.g., designated formal citizenship) but extends to substantive forms of subjecthood and belonging. Veronica Strong-Boag (2002, 69) outlines the inconsistencies in, and the unsettled nature of, the Canadian state post-Confederation by examining debates on the franchise, arguing that “Canadians had to learn the specifics of citizenship under the new regime.” In her discussion of the Federal Franchise Act of 1885, she notes how the act served to define the specifics of national identity, inclusion, and belonging. In this way, enfranchisement was situated as a key right in determining the relationship between subject and state, at the time, as now, regarded as a key feature of modern citizenship. 2 As Augie Fleras (2014, 47) notes, the terms “racist” and “racism” encompass multiple meanings and overlapping frames, including racism as biology (intelligence/morality/ skin colour/phenomarkers determine superiority and inferiority); racism as ideology (in which ideals and structures of society assert or imply the normalcy, acceptability, and superiority of one racialized group over another, together with the institutional power to put these perceptions into practice); racism as culture (whereby exclusion and inferiority are assigned through assessments of cultural practices against dominant cultural norms, often entrenched in discourses of national unity and cohesion); racism as structure (embedded in the normative fabric of society, whether formally or informally); and racism as systemic power (which protects ruling classes and norms of whiteness). Following the extensive work of scholars who have examined discourses of race and nationalism in Canada, we note that its immigration policy has entailed all five of these frames. 3 See Roy and Sahoo (2016, 86) for a further critique of the narrow focus on Sikhs in accounts of the Komagata Maru. The journey is commemorated as a Sikh narrative of martyrdom, the emphasis is on Sikhs on the ship, government apologies are mainly directed toward the Sikh community, and speeches on the topic typically end with Sikh religious greetings. Roy and Sahoo suggest that this framing of the Komagata Maru as a Sikh event reflects the hierarchical arrangement of colonized subjects by the British and the rights accorded by the British to Sikhs as favoured subjects of the empire (88). 4 The commemorative events in India also act as different interpretations and affective relationships of memory and sites of political identification. On September 29, 2014, the government of India announced a year-long centenary commemoration of the Koma­ gata Maru incident at a presentation that included the presence of three of Baba Gurdit Singh’s granddaughters and issued a set of commemorative coins in denominations

Introduction 27

of 100 rupees and 5 rupees. Tatla (2016) cautions against examining the life of Gurdit Singh through the singular prism of Indian nationalism, which has gained traction in postcolonial India.

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Introduction 29

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Introduction 31

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Part 1 The Politics of Anticolonial Resistance in the Journey of the Komagata Maru

1

Right to the Empire? British Imperial Citizenship before the First World War Ian Christopher Fletcher

In June 1914, A.G. Gardiner, the British Liberal editor of the Daily News, wrote that “it is possible that if we could see the events of our time through the eyes of the historian of 2014, we should find that quite the most significant thing to be seen in the world to-day is the ‘Komagata Maru’” (India, June 19, 1914, 291). He went on to suggest some of the forces underlying the confrontation between the 376 voyagers of the Komagata Maru and the Canadian authorities: the awakening of the East; the end of unrivalled white dominance over the lands, labours, and lives of people of colour; and the Indian demand for rights as subjects of the British Empire. The far-reaching discussion of the episode in the press often turned on the colour bar around the empire and the wider world. In July, one contributor to the Gold Coast Leader, a progressive weekly at Cape Coast, confessed that he had been thinking about what Gardiner had written for “the past few weeks” and observed that “a battalion of British immigrants” could settle without difficulty in West Africa but that “a hundred natives of the Gold Coast” could not do the same in Britain ( July 25, 1914, 5–6). The Fabian weekly New Statesman described Gurdit Singh’s transpacific “enterprise” as a “spectacular test” of Canadian measures to exclude Indian immigrants, but Singh was not alone in making dramatic assertions of equality or sovereignty in the years before the First World War (June 13, 1914, 295). The stories of various vessels, sailing along deeper currents of empire, migration, and diaspora, provide a chart of sorts of this turbulent history. Mohandas Gandhi wrote his great anticolonial text, Hind Swaraj, on board the Kildonan Castle in 1909. In a failed bid for 35

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freedom, the radical Indian nationalist V.D. Savarkar leapt from a porthole of the Morea into the harbour of Marseilles in 1910. At about the same time that fifty-six Sikhs on the Panama Maru were held at Victoria in October 1913, setting in motion the legal case that temporarily overturned Canada’s Continuous Journey Regulation, the militant British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst arrived in New York on the Provence and was detained until President Woodrow Wilson lifted the deportation order. She was arrested seven weeks later when she reached Southampton on the Majestic. In February 1914, the Umgeni delivered ten deported leaders of the white workers’ general strike from South Africa to Britain, where they received a massive labour and socialist welcome in Hyde Park. The Komagata Maru was under way in April when the freighter Mountjoy landed thousands of rifles at Larne for the Ulster Volunteer Force opposed to Irish home rule, and the Komagata Maru left Vancouver Harbour only three days earlier in July when the yacht Asgard sailed into Howth with hundreds of rifles for the Irish Volunteer Force in Dublin. As these episodes suggest, freedom of movement on the seas could undercut the power of states over territories and populations, but the concomitant management of movement at points of arrival and departure could lead to detention, deportation, and new forms of regulation such as tests and eventually, as Radhika Mongia (1999) has shown, passports. Demands for citizenship became a source of several streams of contentious politics during the Edwardian era. With the empire forming the political horizon of most challengers, struggles unfolded across the terrain of both metropole and colonies. Whereas British and dominion proponents of imperial citizenship usually reserved it for white people, many anticolonial advocates and activists drew on the promise of imperial citizenship to envision an inclusive citizenship that would ratify the rights of a variety of colonial subjects, people of colour, and Indigenous people on the basis of equality (Banerjee 2010; Gorman 2006). Historians have recently emphasized the “decline of the imperial subject,” focusing on the reinforcement of white settler supremacy over subalterns of colour and the emergence of a small privileged class of “subject-citizens” among Indians in the early twentieth century (Jayal 2013, 50; McKeown 2008, 210; see also Lake and Reynolds 2008). Yet the challenge of the Komagata Maru revolved around the claim that the Indians on board, mostly ordinary men and by extension their families, enjoyed, or should have enjoyed, British rights by virtue of being British subjects and that British rights

Right to the Empire?

prevailed, or should have prevailed, throughout the empire. The absorption and appropriation of British and imperial in claiming the right to belong and to count across the far-flung spaces of empire comprised a decisive political and rhetorical “assertion,” to use Jacques Rancière’s (2014, 144) word of choice, given the lack of place for it in law and policy. The stakes were high, for the exclusions or restrictions facing Indians on land and sea put in question the rights to travel and settle, work and trade, marry and establish households, and worship and congregate without dis­crimination, not just to participate in government and public life. Making such a claim for a right to the empire was a gamble. Even if the demand became negotiable and the subject gained some measure of recognition by it, would bargaining for inclusion transform or recuperate the heterogeneity and hierarchy on which the empire was founded? Our understanding of the Komagata Maru episode owes a great deal to studies in Canadian, Indian, and American history that illuminate the multiple contexts of the Sikh community, Asian immigration, settler colonialism, British imperialism, Indian nationalism, and Ghadar radicalism ( Jensen 1988; Johnston 1989; Kazimi 2012; Puri 1993; Waraich and Sidhu 2005; Ward 1978). The diasporic and transnational approaches of recent work have further enriched the historiography (Chang 2012; Ramnath 2011; Sohi 2014). Here I explore the Komagata Maru controversy as it circulated in anticolonial journalism, a small but lively sector of the press that engaged with yet went beyond the British Empire in the early twentieth century. Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton (2014) have problematized the relationship between the imperial and the global. Imperial and global processes were intertwined in conflicting and complementary ways as states pursued expansion amid intensifying extraction of resources; accelerating movements of capital, labour, and goods; and increasingly contested hierarchies of race and civilization. In the case of migration, for example, some 400,000 immigrants, of whom about 140,000 came from the United Kingdom, arrived in Canada in 1913 (Emmerson 2013, 233–34; Magee and Thompson 2010, 68–70). Something more than the construction of an imperial “Anglo-Saxon” settler state was under way. Yet the notion of itinerancy helps us to appreciate the ongoing effort to establish and enforce boundaries of inclusion and exclusion: moving from place to place, colonial subjects of colour were hailed with the instruction to “keep moving.” If rulers imagined the empire as a way to organize the world, then we might see the demand for imperial citizenship raised by

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subalterns as a way for them to politicize the question of who had a say in this world, already so unequal, and what it would become. Gandhi’s co-worker Henry S.L. Polak (1909) famously called South African Indians “helots within the empire.” Launch of the satyagraha movement in South Africa in 1906, mounting of the Sikh campaign against the Continuous Journey Regulation imposed by Canada in 1908, and spreading demonstrations of solidarity and support in India increasingly forced other Edwardians to recognize Indians as protagonists of the empire. Already in 1910, journalist Valentine Chirol, a severe critic of Indian nationalism, had appreciated that the situation of Indians in the dominions was one of “extreme gravity,” with “disastrous consequences ... for the prestige of British rule in India.” The presence of Indians in both self-governing and dependent colonies meant that the question had repercussions on “the relations of the white and coloured races throughout the Empire.” He warned that “the whole question ... cannot be allowed to drag on indefinitely” (280, 283, 284, 287). In a more optimistic assessment of the state of Indian politics three years later, writer and traveller Saint Nihal Singh (1913, 544) nevertheless acknowledged that the “classes” and the “masses” shared a “feeling of indignation” about the treatment of Indians in the empire. In fact, struggles over the colour bar were beginning to converge in an explosive conjuncture by 1913. The growing sense of an Indian right to the empire and the way that it put the nature of the empire in question can be discerned in the Modern Review, Ramananda Chatterjee’s Calcutta monthly. In “Indians in Canada,” Nand Singh Sihra (1913, 140, 149) began by stating that his readers felt sympathy for them based on a common sense of national identity and a long tradition of Indian emigration. The new “pioneers” of this “wandering instinct” in the contemporary era were Indian peasants who had travelled to China and the Philippines and all over the Americas, south as well as north of the Panama Canal. Sihra recounted the tightening of Canadian restrictions on Indians, underlined by stories and photographs of Indian families denied admission into the country, and the efforts of the community to persuade the Canadian government to treat them fairly as loyal British subjects. He appealed to all Indians “to join in the effort to remove the obstructions put in the way of the Indian Nation.” In “The Place of India in the Empire,” Sudhindra Bose (1913, 278, 279, 283, 284)

Right to the Empire?

eschewed “imperialistic sentimentality” to examine “the cold facts” of the situation of Indians in Australia, South Africa, and Canada. He contrasted the small numbers of Indians in Australia, the result of exclusionary legislation, with the vastness of the country: “Australia with its sub-tropical climate, with its over two million square miles of territory and only four and [a] half million of population surely has room enough for a few thousands of law-abiding, industrious, and honest British Indian subjects.” Turning to South Africa, he highlighted the myriad forms of discrimination against both indentured workers and free traders and then criti­cized the thwarting of the attempt by Indian National Congress leader G.K. Gokhale to end the indentured labour trade altogether. Finally, in dealing with Canada, he contrasted the heavier restrictions placed on Indian immigrants than those placed on Japanese immigrants. Bose rejected the claims of white settlers that Indians took their jobs and sent their earnings to India, pointing out that such men did not compete directly with skilled white labour and used their remittances to support families that they had been forced to leave behind. He judged “blind race prejudice” to be at the bottom of the situation, with the blanket restriction on educated and propertied Indians being “the strangest thing about it all.” In declaring that Indians “are entitled to the same rights and privileges as any other British subjects within the Empire,” Bose characterized Indian demands as “moderate” and suggested that they could be accommodated gradually, beginning with treating the immigration of Indians “on the same terms as non-Indians” and the personal and economic freedom of Indians on reciprocal terms with those enjoyed by people from the dominions in India. In the last months of 1913, Gandhi revived satyagraha to protest the passage of the harsh Immigration Restriction Act in South Africa (Gandhi 1954; Huttenback 1971; Swan 1985). Strikes, marches, beatings, and jailings sent shock waves in many directions. In Madras, theosophist Annie Besant (1913, 245, 247) condemned the colour bar and warned that “the Colonies are the great danger to the Empire to-day.” In its response to events in South Africa, Britain was “on ... trial as an imperial people.” Besant took the line that Britain could choose to enforce equal treatment of people of colour in Australia as well as South Africa and to this end use the dominions’ dependence on imperial military and naval might as leverage to gain its way. The emerging conjuncture also alarmed the Times,

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which published a series of articles on “The Indian Peril” (December 19, 20, 22, 23, 1913) that described threats emanating not only from radical Brahmins and Muslims inspired by pan-Asian and pan-Islamic politics and operating internationally but also from moderate nationalists and their British friends. Significantly, it observed that “the future status of Indians in the Empire ... must in time be far more a cause for anxiety to British statesmen than all the bombs ever made and all the plots ever concocted by the Indian Anarchists” (quotation from the leader of De­ cember 19). Although the crisis of the white workers’ general strike in South Africa gave Gandhi an opportunity to suspend satyagraha and begin negotiations for a settlement in early 1914, the concomitant struggle in Canada, where the government had scrambled to close the gap in the colour bar opened by the Panama Maru case, was poised for an escalation. Saint Nihal Singh (1914a, 492, 494, 497), who emphasized the indignation of the Indian masses (from among whom many immigrants came) and especially the mobilization of Indian women, judged that South Africa was only the “storm centre” of “an Imperial question of the widest dimensions.” Moreover, it flowed from a “complex international question which the meeting of the East and the West, and of the white and coloured races, has brought into existence ... All the peoples of the world – white, yellow, brown, and black – vitally are interested in this perplexing and insistent issue.” Making it clear that Indian labourers would neither remain indentured nor accept repatriation, he disputed the claims of white opponents of Indian immigration about the question of living standards. In any case, he suggested, Indians competed not with whites but with other immigrants, and he argued that “foreigners and enemies of the Empire” should not be favoured over “the dark-skinned subjects of His Majesty King George.” In weighing three possible solutions – unrestricted immigration, exclusion, and restricted immigration – he warned that exclusion would lead to either retaliation by the Indian government or popular unrest in the country. Indians would not trade away their British rights. In the short run, restriction with equal treatment was a plausible solution. According to Singh, most Indians were as yet unmoved by “constitutions and self-government” but expected the protection of a sovereign power: “If now they become disillusioned ... a situation of the most alarming nature is bound to be created.” Although couching his analysis in loyal terms, Singh left little doubt about the high stakes of the still fluid conjuncture.1

Right to the Empire?

The arrival of the Komagata Maru off the coast of British Columbia in late May 1914 intersected with several developments bound to intensify the controversy over Indian immigration and imperial citizenship. A delegation of the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League, including Annie Besant and Lala Lajpat Rai, was gathering in London to lobby the imperial government for further reforms of the Indian government as well as for the interests of Indians in the empire. The Indian secretary, Lord Crewe, had already announced his intention to propose changes, including increased Indian representation, in the Council of India that advised him in London. Deportation of the South African labour leaders had led to the passage of a resolution in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom favouring the extension of historical British rights throughout the empire, while the government had announced an Imperial Naturalization Bill, later the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Bill, a measure that applied only to Britain and the dominions. Last but not least, the South African government had introduced in the union parliament an Indians’ Relief Bill that combined restriction of further Indian immigration with some mitigation of the discrimination suffered by Indian residents. Even if the Canadian authorities could prevent the Komagata Maru from docking and its passengers from landing, the situation offered many political opportunities to advance the demand for equal citizenship in the empire. A Reuters telegram summarized a statement by Gurdit Singh to the effect that the Indians “claimed the right ... to immigrate anywhere in the empire as British subjects” (Modern Review, June 1914, 604). What followed was a long struggle over the substance and scope of imperial citizenship. In a leader on “British Citizenship,” the Times responded to events in Vancouver by ridiculing the “catch-logic” of a “right of unrestricted entry into any and every part of the British Dominions” and worrying about the disruptive impact of “Western ideas” on Indians lacking “self-control” ( June 4, 1914, 9).2 The attitude of the radical press in Britain and Ireland was uneven and contradictory. Many socialists and suffragists were invested in the progress of their movements among the settler populations in the dominions. The socialist weeklies Justice and Labour Leader made only glancing references to the Komagata Maru, and the New Age (July 9, 1914, 218) tried to compose the various factors, from race and “the element of sex” to economics and politics, shaping the situation in British Col­­um­ bia and elsewhere. The Daily Herald of London, aligned with militant

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socialism, syndicalism, and suffragism, interviewed Nand Singh Sihra about British Columbia, serialized a major address on India by Besant, editorialized on Britain’s responsibility to interfere when the dominions repressed workers and colonial subjects, and warmly declared that “it is a monstrous thing, that we, who have captured India, should wish to prevent Indians moving about from one part of the Empire to another ... If we fail to do justice to them now they are wakening to their own strengths, we shall reap exactly what we sow” (May 25, 1914; June 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1914; July 18, 1914). The republican monthly Irish Freedom was cooler, reminding Indians about the “subtle distinction” between citizens and subjects and declaring, in terms strangely similar to those of the Times, that “there is no such thing as British citizenship.” Observing that, “with the English, equality is an offence,” Irish Freedom ranked In­ dians, along with Irish and Egyptians, in a hierarchy that placed “conquered peoples” between the English and “the rest of mankind” (June 1914, 1). This radical Irish nationalist stance against the British came close to discounting Indian challenges that failed unambiguously to counterpose the claims of nation and empire. While the voyagers on board the Komagata Maru and their supporters on shore in Vancouver contended with the immediate situation, anti­ colonial critics and activists elsewhere sought to elaborate in dialogical fashion their own understandings of the meaning of imperial citizenship. In putting to political use the floating protest that the ship quickly came to signify, anticolonial periodicals disclosed some intriguing contrasts in their overlapping coverage and commentary. If politics is at least in part about the construction of alliances, then these publications articulated a range of possibilities for alliances among colonial subjects and people of colour. For example, Indian Opinion, Gandhi’s Durban weekly, had followed the cause of Indians in Canada, from protest meetings in Britain about the admission of Indian wives and children to the disposition of the Panama Maru case in British Columbia, throughout 1913 and into 1914. It even carried a Reuters telegram about Canadian reaction to news of a ship coming from Shanghai with Indians (April 29, 1914, 143). As the Komagata Maru episode unfolded, Indian Opinion continued to publish news telegrams as well as extracts and roundups from the press on the ensuing controversy.3 It published one of Besant’s denunciations of the dominions for policies leading to the breakup of the empire (June 10, 1914, 178). Significantly, Indian Opinion refrained from offering its own

Right to the Empire?

view of the situation in Canada. Isabel Hofmeyr’s (2013) luminous dis­ cussion of Gandhi’s press and periodical argues that his ethical approach to reading invited readers to think on their own. Indeed, a comparison of the politics of immigration restriction in the United States and the dominions concluded that “no doubt ... the people of India will read the signs of the times, and will mark, learn, and inwardly digest them” (Indian Opinion, March 4, 1914, 79). But Indian Opinion’s reticence might also have been dictated by the compromise in South Africa. The sense of imperial citizenship had won sympathy from Britain and solidarity from India, but Gandhi had already clarified that he wanted Indians to regain “lost civil rights” rather than acquire a full complement of political rights (Indian Opinion, January 14, 1914, 340). The fate of the Indian community in South Africa, not the prospect of overturning the colour bar in other dominions that had already declared against Indian immigration, was what immediately concerned Gandhi. It was otherwise in places such as London and Calcutta. India, the Lon­ don weekly of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress, offered news and views about India, the Indian government, and the Indian nationalists as part of its outreach to British parliamentarians and the British public. India covered Indians in South Africa as well as in Britain and elsewhere in the empire, such as East Africa (April 10, 1914, 177; April 17, 1914, 188). In February 1914, it noted that “the exclusion craze is spreading to New Zealand,” and a month later it reported on the latest developments in the Canadian government’s restrictions on Indian immigration (February 13, 1914, 75; March 27, 1914, 153). The arrival of delegates from the Indian National Congress and the All-India Mus­lim League generated reports of conferences, meetings, and speeches, such as one by the INC moderate and future Pakistan independence leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah on Indians in the empire (India, May 8, 1914, 232– 36). In the same issue that carried the first telegrams from Canada about the Komagata Maru and the government’s determination to prevent any landing, India noted the arrival of Lala Lajpat Rai in London and the publication of “A Plea for India” by Annie Besant (May 22, 1914, 244, 245, 248). Lajpat Rai and Besant were to play major roles in the delegation’s public advocacy for India and Indians. At the end of May, India was already drawing out the larger, and shared, point of the struggle with the dominions. On South Africa, it asked “are Indians to be debarred from free movement within the Empire: or are they to be allowed to take their

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stand by the side of other British citizens? Self-respect can never be restored so long as Indians are looked upon as Helots by the self-governing Dominions.” And for Canada it forecast “every prospect of a bitter conflict: and the end no man can foresee. So far as the Indians are concerned, the only solution which will be acceptable is the full and free recognition of their rights of citizenship in every part of the British Empire” (May 29, 1914, 257, 258). In fact, India soon began to distinguish between “compromise” in South Africa and “deadlock” in Canada, where “the situation in British Colum­ bia is pretty nearly as bad as it can be.” In a rare report on Gurdit Singh’s plans for direct passenger service between India and Canada, on hold while the Komagata Maru was at anchor in Vancouver Harbour, it hinted that only such an approach would enable a serious legal challenge to the Continuous Journey Regulation. India was left to point out the continuing admission of Chinese and Japanese immigrant workers and to ask for the dominion’s justification of a “system which differentiates between the Far Eastern peoples and the citizens of British India” (June 12, 1914, 279–80). Lajpat Rai (1914a, 282) took a much stronger line in a letter to the press reprinted in India, apprising the British public of the “full significance” of the bid by Indians to enter Canada “in exercise of their rights of British citizenship.” He called attention to the fact that many of the Indians were Sikhs who occupied a crucial place, past and present, in Britain’s military defence of India and the empire, yet they were being alienated not by nationalist agitation but by colonial discrimination. The imperial government even more than the Indian government was unwilling to live up to liberal principles and instead pursued a “policy of subjection.” Revealing his radicalism, he went on to describe Indian immigrant workers’ growing “consciousness.” Yet Lajpat Rai grasped that this class awareness was compounded by race and colonialism, for “just when he awakes to this consciousness he finds that there is no room for him in the world.” “Every riff-raff of a European, not to speak of British Colonials,” could enter the Indian labour market. The Indian worker, skilled or unskilled, “suffers doubly” because India “is open to the competition of the whole world, while he is debarred from admittance even into parts of the British Do­ minions.” The answer was Indian self-government, including the power to regulate immigration on the same terms as the dominions, “or else the trouble may grow in gravity.”

Right to the Empire?

India covered two public meetings in June, the first Besant’s address on “India’s Plea for Justice,” which, as we have seen, received wide exposure. Before an enthusiastic audience of Indians and Britons, Besant emphasized “the great question of Indian emigration to the British Colonies, now stirring the whole mass of the Indian people.” Indeed, the struggle in South Africa had “made a nation for the first time feel itself.” Objecting to Australian exclusion, she asked “had Indians no rights to any part of the world that even her own ocean was closed to her?” (India, June 19, 1914, 292–93).4 India expressed its disappointment in the press coverage of this lecture, which it described as “one of the most remarkable of its kind during many years” (289). At a second meeting of Indians two weeks later, Conservative MP Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree asked, when it came time to discuss the resolution on Indians and the dominions, if they were “to be allowed to exercise the first and elementary right of a British subject.” Indians would not give up their “birthright” in the face of the dominions’ “arrogant claim,” but he offered that “any undue influx could be restricted by mutual arrangement” once the demand for equal treatment was conceded. In moving the resolution condemning Canada’s “un-English attitude,” Bhupendranath Basu said that he “hoped the British public would take up this question, and vindicate the character of England for justice.” “Empire was meaningless, British citizenship was an empty phrase,” unless the imperial and Indian governments took steps to check the mistreatment of Indians or mete out the same exclusionary treatment toward Canadians (India, June 26, 1914, 305–6).5 Meanwhile, India reported that “all kinds of stories appear to be abroad” about the situation in British Columbia, including rumours about the departure of another ship from Calcutta or Hong Kong (June 26, 1914, 301; July 10, 1914, 14). There was news of a joint meeting of Indians and socialists and of a statement by the voyagers’ lawyer that Canadian regulations made it “a crime punishable by deportation to be a British subject of Asiatic origin” (India, June 26, 1914, 301; July 3, 1914, 1). As the legal and administrative procedures took their course in Canada, New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia moved forward with anti-Indian measures (India, July 3, 1914, 2). With prospects becoming very dim for a positive resolution of the confrontation in British Columbia, India reprinted a letter to the press from Lajpat Rai (1914b, 32), who found all of the British parties wanting when it came to addressing the needs of India; in contrast, he

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saw Indians, from the “intellectual classes” to “the masses,” the “military classes,” and the “Mohammedans,” more united and determined than ever. He once again defended Sikhs – “a well-built, good-looking, strong and healthy race” – from charges of being “an inferior race,” and he suggested that they were just the workers needed to develop the dominions. He even mentioned various ways to calibrate wage rates and immigration numbers to satisfy white workers in the dominions.6 However, with the departure of the Komagata Maru from Vancouver Harbour, which India characterized as a “tragedy ... closing in bloodshed,” it was hard to be of good cheer. In a reflection on “The Larger Patriotism,” India questioned the gap between rhetoric and reality in the empire and even admitted that Indians in South Africa had suffered “defeat on the question of their right of entry as British citizens,” not to mention the abolition of indentured labour (July 24, 1914, 43). Seeking to construct an alliance with right-minded people and parliamentarians in Britain had revealed profound limits to what Indian nationalists and their British supporters could accomplish. Chatterjee’s Modern Review, which provided steady coverage of the conditions, struggles, and achievements of Indians around the empire and the world, offered another orientation. It treated emigration as a salutary effort by Indians to improve themselves and their country. In April 1914, for example, Modern Review chided a group of Bengali Brahmins for condemning those who sailed abroad. Indeed, it suggested ironically that they might as well have embraced openly the exclusionary policies of the South African Jan Smuts and other dominion leaders. In keeping with its own self-consciously progressive outlook, the journal lamented the fact that such a topic was even under discussion “in this twentieth century,” all the more so because of the historical presence of “ancient Hindu colonists” in Southeast Asia (384). Modern Review was not content with the proposed settlement in South Africa: “Perfect reciprocity is our demand” (April 1914, 390). As the legislative process began to give effect to the settlement, the journal turned its attention to signs of organization and mobilization elsewhere in the empire and its borderlands. It published a letter from Portuguese East Africa, blaming the influence of South Africa for deteriorating conditions for Indians there and calling on the British Foreign Office to take up the matter. This point alluded to the treaty rights of sovereign empires

Right to the Empire?

such as China and Japan to intervene on behalf of mistreated subjects in foreign countries. The journal attributed the fact that “the Indian is considered good game everywhere” to India’s lack of sovereign power to “retaliate.” It drew the lesson that “those who are not powerful at home cannot expect to be respected abroad. Acquire power therefore” (Modern Review, April 1914, 379).7 In the nearby British East Africa protectorate, the question of settler representation turned on who should represent whom. In the notion that Europeans would represent all settlers, the “taint of South Africa” was again detected. Modern Review noted that “the Indians, the Eurasians, the Arabs, and the Natives” outnumbered the whites and that they had been “in the country long before the coming of the Euro­ peans.” Indeed, it characterized Indians as “the pioneers of civilization in East Africa” and “the makers of that Colony” (April 1914, 390–91). In its issue for May 1914, Modern Review reported on the founding meeting of the British East Africa Indian National Congress and its stand against “differential legislation” restricting Indians in many spheres of life (487). The same issue carried several brief articles about other parts of the Indian diaspora, from South Africa to Fiji. There was also news of efforts to exclude lascars from the worldwide British shipping industry, a group who, along with soldiers and “coolie” labourers, had made possible the great increase of British wealth and power (Visram 2002, 54–57). Commenting on the House of Commons resolution calling for the extension of British rights to all British subjects, Modern Review acknowledged that this gesture was “not unimportant,” but it pointed out that it was “of no practical use to us” without legislation, for example, to repeal the Indian government’s power of deportation. In terms of the empire, it carried little weight as long as the Imperial Naturalization Bill under consideration in the UK Parliament applied to citizenship and naturalization in only the metropole and the dominions. If India was excluded, Modern Review warned, then “our position will be statutorily that of helots within the Empire” (May 1914, 493). This was the India-centred frame in which Modern Review responded to news of the imminent arrival of the Komagata Maru in British Columbia. While advising that Indians “should not cease to protest against this sort of humiliating discrimination,” it reminded readers “that the only lasting and effective remedy is to acquire power at home.” The world was such that the enforcers of “the colour bar” would not lower it until they learned

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that “the ‘coloured’ man can hit back.” It underlined the need to pursue “political power” in India by contrasting this strategy to “unmanly” displays of “impotent rage” (May 1914, 496). The June issue reprinted news telegrams recording the voyage and arrival of the ship, Gurdit Singh’s declaration of the purpose of his mission, and the thwarted efforts of Indians in British Columbia to help their compatriots. The journal contented itself with the observation that all of these exertions had been made “to assert a right which the most undesirable white immigrant is allowed to enjoy everywhere as a matter of course!” (June 1914, 605). In the course of recounting the latest developments from Canada, the July issue of Modern Review addressed the “iniquitous” claim of “white men ... to go and settle or sojourn anywhere on the surface of the earth” and its converse, the notion that “‘coloured’ men, particularly Indians, are supposed not to possess the right to labour for wages in a ‘white’ colony.” It went on to suggest that history showed the impermanence of racial hierarchies: “The whirligig of time brings on strange revenges.” Counselling against “resentment” as “a waste of energy” and as “unspiritual,” it again advised Indians “to resolve to be strong in our mother-land and to help our countrymen in trouble.” Modern Review noted what it called a “humorous side” to immigration restriction: “These ‘white’ colonies rightfully belong to ‘coloured’ aborigines, who have been deprived of their patrimony by force and in many places totally annihilated” (July 1914, 19). Although it is clear that the journal was emphasizing the irony, not the humour, of white settlers’ claim to the territories of Indigenous peoples, we see here an example of what Renisa Mawani (2012) has argued in Canada was the casting of First Nations, despite their presence, into the past and even oblivion by both the dominion state and its Indian critics. Criticizing the attempt of the Fabian New Statesman to square the circle, Modern Review called for “reciprocity”: “If the British Colonies exclude India, they ought to agree to be excluded from India.” At any rate, the exclusion of people of colour from white dominions was out of order unless it was accompanied by an undertaking “to deport all white persons from regions inhabited by non-white races from time immemorial” (Modern Review, July 1914, 20). Hailing the passage of the Indians’ Relief Act in the South African Parliament, Modern Review was careful not to equate this milestone with the end of the journey. Only “the right of perfect freedom of movement” would eliminate Indian “grievances” in the empire.

Right to the Empire?

Likewise, the prerequisite of “rights of citizenship” around the empire was rights in India, a result of “civic strength” gained by “progress in sanitation, education and co-operation” (July 1914, 21). Modern Review’s commentary walked a fine line between sarcasm and sedition. One wonders how the Indian press law factored into editorial thinking about what could and could not be said about the Komagata Maru episode and its illumination of the relationship between imperial citizenship and Indian self-government. The August issue crystallized the journal’s political creativity. Taking note of the Irish home rule crisis and proposals for home rule all around, it came out in favour of a “federated empire” in which problems such as dominion mistreatment of Indians could be subject to negotiation. The combination of a federal empire and equal rights was the “only sound Imperial idea” (August 1914, 117). In the absence of any such mechanism, Modern Review cautioned against notions of indentured labour from India serving to develop Australia’s Northern Territory. Responding to the cascade of anti-Indian exclusion measures in New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia as well as Canada, it went to the source: “Whatever causes may be assigned by the white colonists for the exclusion of ‘coloured’ persons from the countries which the former have usurped, the real cause is competition.” It went on to allude to the intimate violence of dispossession and to ask some pointed questions about the claims and conduct of white settlers: “If the white colonists consider the mixture of races an evil, why did they usurp the land of the Red Americans, the Maoris, the Zulus and other aboriginal races, and produce half-breeds? Why do they continue the process to this day? Why do they not keep to their ancestral homes?” (July 1914, 20). The journal did not disavow, however, a competing Indian colonial project. Noting the departure of the Komagata Maru, it angrily observed that Canada “cannot defend herself one day against, say, the Japanese if British protection is withdrawn. That is really the reason why she does not already exclude the Japanese. We ought to try our utmost to be self-governing like the Colonies.” In a poignant gesture, Modern Review published an uncaptioned photograph of Gurdit Singh and other passengers on the deck of the Komagata Maru (August 1914, 144). If India was oriented toward Britain and Modern Review toward India as an alternative imperial centre, African Times and Orient Review, Duse Mohamed’s London weekly, turned to a strikingly different articulation

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of forces for equality and sovereignty. It sought to link and combine anticolonial, pan-African, pan-Islamic, and pan-Asian projects within and without the empire. In late 1913, its few references to India and Indians were intriguing. It noted the simultaneity of African and Indian unrest in South Africa, connecting both to the question of land and likening the struggle of Indians to those of black people in the United States, another people of colour brought into a country to labour on the land (African Times and Orient Review, November–December 1913, 207–8, 241–42). When relaunched as a weekly in March 1914, African Times and Orient Re­ view commented in response to the Imperial Naturalization Bill that what was needed, given the “chaotic condition of the rights of citizenship,” was an Imperial Citizenship Bill to clarify that all British subjects should enjoy “the rights and privileges of a British citizen” (March 24, 1914, 3). It came back several times to the themes of citizenship, empire, and race, defining rights in economic and political terms and envisioning an empire with “one bond of Imperial British Citizenship” unbroken by colour (May 12, 1914, 169–70; May 26, 1914, 221–22). In early June 1914, African Times and Orient Review began to comment on the meaning of the Komagata Maru, not just for Indians but also for Africans and all people of colour. What was happening in Canada was “not cricket” (June 2, 1914, 241). In its view, Africans and Asians made up the bulk of the peoples of the empire. “Without any undue stretch of the imagination,” they could “become fellow-workers in the direction of a common liberty.” Amid speculation about Britain and the other great powers, it even hazarded the possibility that “Canadian expulsion of In­ dian immigrants may produce rebellion in India,” which in turn could “be the signal for a general rising throughout the African and Asiatic world” ( June 2, 1914, 242). African Times and Orient Review took on concessions in the Times and elsewhere to colour and race prejudice in the matter of British citizenship (June 9, 1914, 272–73; June 16, 1914, 293–94). It went on to recommend the positive economic as well as strategic benefits of immigration from India to Canada and trade between Canada and the British Empire in Africa, Asia, and Oceania, not least as a way to block US “hegemony” in the Americas and incorporation of Canada. African Times and Orient Review envisioned “pouring in” from northern India “a stream of agriculturalists at the rate of one million males and females per annum for ten years”; “this wedge of Asiatic British subjects” and “the wedge of

Right to the Empire?

French Canadians” would hold Canada for the empire from “Yankeeism” (June 9, 1914, 266–67; July 7, 1914, 363–64). Indeed, one contributor, after reviewing “the heritage of British subjects,” called for “the speedy and sincere return to the Victorian principles of Government in our practical dealings with the rights and privileges of non-European subjects and citizens,” and another complained of the fact that “educated and civilized non-European British subjects” now had fewer rights than the treaty rights enjoyed by foreigners in the British Empire (July 14, 1914, 391–93, 399– 400, italics in original). Addressing Britons, African Times and Orient Review warned that “the policy of the tail wagging the dog,” of allowing the dominions “a free hand” against subjects of colour, was leading to “a rupture with the mother-country” and “coloured rebellion.” British subjects, “whether Black or White,” were promised “equal rights.” If “the coloured majority” around the empire were deprived of their rights, then the “white majority” in the dominions would be “swept away” (July 7, 1914, 361). This remarkable vision of the Edwardian empire and its subaltern protagonists was fleeting. The last issue of July 1914, which carried the news that the Komagata Maru had departed from Vancouver Harbour for the voyage back to India, was the first to intimate the approach of a world war. As the Komagata Maru made its way across the Pacific Ocean, another ship, the Liberia, was steaming through the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean with sixty African Americans bound for British West Africa. When the colonial authorities in the Gold Coast adopted the Regulation of Immigrants Ordinance 1914 to stop the venture (Langley 1973, 41–58), anticolonial advocates and critics objected and signalled their openness, similar to their attitude toward “white” Syrian traders, to “an influx of industrious and desirable Afro-Americans” (Gold Coast Leader, May 30, 1914, 4, 5).8 This openness was all the more striking given their defence of land rights in West Africa and their support for the simultaneous struggle of the South African Native National Congress against the Natives’ Land Act of 1913 (Hayford 1913; Plaatje 1987). The great campaigner Sol T. Plaatje (1987, 49) called the dispossessed and displaced black South Africans whom he encountered “fugitives of the Natives’ Land Act.” Likewise, it is striking to see the continued circulation and use of “helots” during the Komagata Maru controversy to describe the status of Indians around the empire. Helots, of course, were the class

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of enserfed and disenfranchised cultivators in the Spartan countryside. This stark economic and political subjection suggests that notions of British and imperial citizenship carried meanings, at least for some of its advocates such as Lala Lajpat Rai, that went beyond a simple liberal conception of civil and political rights. In a world where land could be seized, labour cheapened, and life taken with a rope, citizenship might have stood ultimately for the desire for another world and the power to make it. In this light, we can see that itinerant colonial subjects of colour might not have been driven simply by the command to “keep moving”; their own desires to move in a variety of directions might have been at work as well. Yet, as we have seen, the demand for imperial citizenship conveyed a right to the empire that not only challenged the colour bar imposed by white citizens of the dominions but also, with its notions of colonization and civilization, could become entangled in the claims and communities of Indigenous people. The visions of populating Australia and Canada and defending them from Japan and the United States that appear in the Komagata Maru controversy depended on hierarchies of race and civilization and elisions of Indigeneity and sovereignty (Mawani 2012). In 1916, legal scholar and former Colonial Office official Arthur Berriedale Keith published Imperial Unity and the Dominions, a study of imperial constitutional developments in the last years of the Edwardian era. We find two chapters side by side, “The Treatment of Native Races” and “Coloured Immigration,” and even a reference to “the famous voyage of the Koma­ gata Maru” (196). But what catches our attention is the discussion of the claim of Indigenous people in British Columbia that they had not surrendered the right to their lands and remained owners of the whole province, a claim that Keith says is “absurd” (172). We know, however, that such claims have endured and now inform what Glen Sean Coulthard (2014) calls “resurgence.” The intertwined histories of the Komagata Maru are far from over.





Notes 1 See also Singh 1914b. 2 See also “Everywhere the Asiatic Problem,” Times, June 9, 1914, 9. 3 See, for example, Indian Opinion, May 27, 1914, 167–68; June 3, 1914, 174; June 10, 1914, 180; July 1, 1914, 196–97; July 8, 1914, 204; July 15, 1914, 210; and July 22, 1914, 216. 4 See also Besant (1914, 103–53).

Right to the Empire?





5 For an “English” writer’s disappointment about the few British people in attendance, especially to hear Basu’s speech, see India, July 10, 1914, 18–20. 6 But also see extracts from Lajpat Rai’s spirited letter to the press in “The Demoralisation of Empire,” India, July 31, 1914, 53: “If I were to state in one sentence what India has done for England, I would say ‘India has made England what it is in the comity of nations.’” 7 But see Pearson (1914, 45–46), who states that Indians are treated like “European settlers” in the colony. 8 The Crisis, the monthly edited by W.E.B. Du Bois for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, did not support this emigrationist movement, based in Oklahoma, accusing the organizer, “Chief Sam,” of misleading his followers. It called on black people to carry on their struggle in Oklahoma, which seven years earlier had become a state following the dissolution of “Indian Territory.” See the Crisis, February 1914, 190; and June 1914, 75. In contrast, the Crisis was sympathetic to black people in the United States, including Oklahoma, wishing to move to Canada and exposed the racist response to them on both sides of the border. Moreover, though it did not comment on the Komagata Maru episode, it did briefly report on Indian protests against exclusion in Victoria in January 1914 and on Chinese and Japanese prosperity in Vancouver in May 1914. See Crisis, February 1911, 15; April 1911, 11; May 1911, 13–14; July 1912, 148–49; January 1914, 116; and May 1914, 12.

References Ballantyne, Tony, and Antoinette Burton. 2014. Empires and the Reach of the Global, 1870–1945. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Banerjee, Sukanya. 2010. Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late-Victorian Empire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Besant, Annie. 1913. Wake Up, India: A Plea for Social Reform. Madras: Theosophical Publishing House. –. 1914. India and the Empire: A Lecture and Various Papers on Indian Grievances. London: Theosophical Publishing Society. Bose, Sudhindra. 1913. “The Place of India in the Empire.” Modern Review, September, 278–84. Chang, Kornel. 2012. Pacific Connections: The Making of the US-Canadian Borderlands. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chirol, Valentine. 1910. Indian Unrest. London: Macmillan. Coulthard, Glen Sean. 2014. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Emmerson, Charles. 2013. 1913: In Search of the World before the Great War. New York: Public Affairs. Gandhi, Mohandas K. 1909. Indian Home Rule/Hind Swaraj. Phoenix, Natal: Inter­ national Printing Press. –. 1954. Satyagraha in South Africa. Translated by Valji Govindji Desai. Stanford, CA: Academic Reprints. Gorman, Daniel. 2006. Imperial Citizenship: Empire and the Question of Belonging. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hayford, J.E. Casely. 1913. The Truth about the West African Land Question. London: C.M. Phillips. Hofmeyr, Isabel. 2013. Gandhi’s Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Huttenback, Robert A. 1971. Gandhi in South Africa: British Imperialism and the Indian Question, 1860–1914. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Jayal, Niraja Gopal. 2013. Citizenship and Its Discontents: An Indian History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jensen, Joan M. 1988. Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Johnston, Hugh. 1989. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar. 2nd ed. Vancouver: UBC Press. Kazimi, Ali. 2012. Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru: An Illustrated His­ tory. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. Keith, Arthur Berriedale. 1916. Imperial Unity and the Dominions. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lajpat Rai, Lala. 1914a. Letter to the Press. Reprinted in India, June 12, 1914, 282. –. 1914b. Letter to the Press. Reprinted in India, July 17, 1914, 32. Lake, Marilyn, and Henry Reynolds. 2008. Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Langley, J. Ayodele. 1973. Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900–1945: A Study in Ideology and Social Classes. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Magee, Gary B., and Andrew S. Thompson. 2010. Empire and Globalisation: Networks of People, Goods, and Capital in the British World, c. 1850–1914. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Mawani, Renisa. 2012. “Specters of Indigeneity in British-Indian Migration, 1914.” Law and Society Review 46, 2: 369–403. McKeown, Adam M. 2008. Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders. New York: Columbia University Press. Mongia, Radhika Viyas. 1999. “Race, Nationality, Mobility: A History of the Passport.” Public Culture 11, 3: 527–56. Pearson, W.W. 1914. “British Indians in Portuguese East Africa.” Modern Review, July, 45–46. Plaatje, Sol T. (1916) 1987. Native Life in South Africa. Edited by Brian Willan. Harlow, UK: Longman. Polak, Henry S.L. 1909. The Indians of South Africa: Helots within the Empire and How They Are Treated. Madras: G.A. Nateson. Puri, Karish K. 1993. Ghadar Movement: Ideology, Organisation, and Strategy. 2nd ed. Amritsar, India: Guru Nanak Dev University. Ramnath, Maia. 2011. Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rancière, Jacques. 2014. Moments Politiques: Interventions, 1977–2009. Translated by Mary Foster. New York: Seven Stories Press. Sihra, Nand Singh. 1913. “Indians in Canada.” Modern Review, August, 140–49. Singh, Sant (Saint) Nihal. 1913. “India’s Imperialistic Inclinations and Ideals.” Fortnightly Review, March, 532–45. –. 1914a. “The Indian Immigration Crisis in South Africa.” Fortnightly Review, March, 487–97. –. 1914b. “Asiatic Emigration: A World Question.” Living Age, August 15, 387–92. Sohi, Seema. 2014. Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Swan, Maureen. 1985. Gandhi: The South African Experience. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. Visram, Rozina. 2002. Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History. London: Pluto Press. Waraich, Malwinderjit Singh, and Gurdev Singh Sidhu, eds. 2005. Komagata Maru: A Challenge to Colonialism: Key Documents. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books. Ward, W. Peter. 1978. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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2

The Last Stretch of the Journey The Komagata Maru, Wartime Political Radicalism, and Migrant Workers from Punjab in Calcutta Suchetana Chattopadhyay

In this chapter, I examine radical responses of Punjabi migrant workers to the British colonial state’s persecution, suppression, and surveillance in Bengal after the arrival of the Komagata Maru. Of special interest are Calcutta and its suburbs as terrains of dissent during wartime and the postwar era. The colonial state’s repressive apparatus to deal with the passengers of the ship and Punjabi migrants influenced intersecting anti­ colonial strands in the city in 1914–15, and this shaped the postwar transmission of the ship’s memory as a symbol of resistance among the Sikh workers in the industrial centres of southwest Bengal. Tracing these processes helps us to discover unknown facets of the last stretch of the ship’s journey and its immediate and long-term local effects. Existing historiography has included aspects of colonial surveillance and arrangements made by the British authorities even before the ship reached the shores of Bengal. Yet certain aspects of the official administrative response remain unexplored, including the secret decisions to prevent the passengers from reaching Calcutta and to arrest Gurdit Singh and his close aides. No attempt has been made to trace the entry of a segment of the Sikh working-class diaspora into the local revolutionary, left, and labour movements. Finally, the interplay between acts of recollection and the regional formation of radical collectives in the wake of the ship’s voyage remains uncharted. By drawing on untapped yet voluminous and readily available colonial archival records and the fragmentary references found in Bengali autobiographical accounts, I attempt to fill these gaps and steer the history of the journey of the Komagata Maru in new directions.

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The Last Stretch of the Journey 57

I frame my discussion in the theme of colonialism by offering an account and analysis of the imperial policing of the Komagata Maru passengers before and after the confrontation and massacre at Budge Budge; the official surveillance of the ships carrying Punjabi Sikh migrants that reached Bengal immediately afterward; and the local anticolonial opposition in Bengal and the entry of Punjabi Sikh activists into wartime revolutionary underground and postwar labour, mass, and leftist movements. The last stretch of the journey of the Komagata Maru is uncovered by exploring the impact of the ship’s arrival on the modes of resistance adopted by migrants from Punjab in Bengal, the “itinerant subjects of colonialism” whose actions had echoes in the city and the region during the weeks, months, years, and decades that followed. In 1914, Calcutta was the past capital of the British Empire in India. During the First World War, repression and scarcity stalked the city. Racist violence and war-induced price rises bred an atmosphere of increased general hostility toward the colonial state. Militant nationalism had contributed to the shift of the empire’s administrative headquarters in India from Calcutta to New Delhi in 1912. Although the social base of the Bengal revolutionaries was narrowly Hindu and middle class, during the early years of the war they tried to establish links with pan-Islamist and Ghadar activists. This attempt facilitated the entry of a tiny segment of Sikh workers into the urban revolutionary underground. Although quickly suppressed, the transregional and transcontinental militancy derived from Ghadar encouraged some migrants to turn leftward in the postwar years, and the voyage of the Komagata Maru and the Ghadar imprint were felt on the local labour movements directed against the rule of colonial capital.1 They Shall Not Reach Calcutta Even before the Komagata Maru reached the shores of Bengal, the colonial state was making arrangements to deal with “the disappointed emigrants from the Punjab to Canada by Komagata Maru” (Home [Political] West Bengal State Archives [WBSA] 322/1914). The police authorities in Punjab and Bengal, in consultation with the central authorities in Simla and Delhi, secretly planned to imprison Gurdit Singh and his close followers the moment they touched land and to send the rest by a special train to Punjab. They also decided that the ship must not reach Calcutta. The

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Komagata Maru had already attracted public attention. If it was allowed to sail into the port city, then a large and volatile crowd could gather to welcome the ship and its passengers; this was to be prevented (Home [Political] WBSA 322/1914). The wider social and political tensions in Calcutta had become sources of recurring anxiety among the colonial authorities. During and after the ship’s arrival, the popular mood could often be interpreted as informally “pro-German” or at least as expecting a resounding British defeat. Stray incidents, making their way into police records, painted such scenarios. “Natives” caught star-gazing in the maidan (the open space at the centre of the city) had mistaken Venus as a German airship sent to pulverize the imperial order. Clerks of Mackinnon-Mackenzie, a Scottish business firm with a large share in the shipping trade, spread the rumour, repeated by their friends working for the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, that the majority of the company’s ships requisitioned for the war had been sunk by the German navy. They also spoke of the deaths of 20,000 Indian troops on these vessels and insisted that their European employers, the sahibs, had forbidden them from divulging this news. At a YMCA meeting, a Christian speaker projected the conflict between the big powers as the outcome of interimperialist rivalry. Through a mischievous trick by a band of revolutionary youths, an unsuspecting British official was parted from his gun. Liaqat Hussain, a millenarian-nationalist preacher, stressed in a newspaper letter that Indian volunteers should not be recruited as cannon fodder. He argued that those keen to defend the British Empire should sacrifice their own children and send them to fight in the battlefields of a “European War” that had nothing to do with India. A few days after the arrival of the ship, he was heard thundering thus in a city park: “Which sala is the King? There should be no talk of any king raised in any swadeshi meeting” (Weekly Reports of Intelligence Branch, Bengal Police, 1914). The city was perceived as a disturbed zone where unmanageable forces of opposition lurked, and where the Komagata Maru passengers could en­courage, and find support and blend in among, such dissenters. The government’s priority was to “neutralize” those arriving with the intention of stirring up “trouble”; having been forcibly turned away from Vancouver and refused entry at Singapore, the troubled passengers were perceived as dangerous and capable of rising against the colonial authorities in India. More importantly, they could inconvenience and embarrass

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the government at a time of war, when it was banking on the loyalty of Indians and on resources of the subcontinent in the form of men, money, and material. By launching a potentially popular public campaign against imperial racism, the passengers could disrupt the war effort. The colonial authorities suppressed a telegram from the passengers to their sympathizers in Punjab and Bengal: Sardar Harchand Singh of Lyallpur, a prominent Sikh leader, and Bengalee, a Calcutta newspaper. The message that never arrived urged Indian nationalist leaders to receive the ship at Calcutta, followed by a movement to force the government to investigate the circumstances leading to its return. A note between the concerned provincial governments observed that the Lieutenant Governor (of Punjab) thinks it advisable, in the present crisis, to prevent the arrival of these men from being used as the occasion for a recrudescence of the agitation with regard to Indian emigration in the British colonies, and he therefore proposes to take action under Ordinance No V of 1914, dated the 5th Sept 1914, to procure their return to their homes immediately on landing. (Home [Political] WBSA 322/1914)

Paradoxically, the majority of the ship’s passengers were described in con­ fidential correspondence as “harmless,” “destitute,” and disinclined to follow “the leader of the expedition,” the implicit assumption being that they would be easier to control (Tatla 2007, 20; see also Home [Political] WBSA 322/1914).2 The colonial administration in India, in close touch with authorities in British Columbia, British diplomatic missions in Japan, and police forces in British-controlled port cities of China and Southeast Asia, such as Hong Kong and Singapore, were monitoring the ship’s passage. On September 27, 1914, a deceptively calm telegram reached the authorities in Simla from Calcutta: “KM met today by Bengal and Punjab officers as arranged. All satisfactory so far” (Home [Political] WBSA 322/1914). The next com­ munication was long for a telegram and sent on September 30. The version given, followed by an official communiqué to the press that formed the master narrative of all official accounts, was later held up by the Komagata Maru Committee of Inquiry, which exonerated the government. The po­ lice officials on the ground, while recording their official statements, repeatedly declared that they had remained calm in the face of “insolence.”

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They also freely admitted having been prepared to use force and mobilize troops from Fort William and elsewhere while the passengers, despite their suspicions, were peaceful. They had put up with colonial authority, including searches. They had obeyed the orders to turn back from the road to Calcutta and remained herded in the railway station at Budge Budge (in Calcutta). The officers acknowledged having underestimated the ability of the emigrants to close ranks and defend Gurdit Singh when they realized that the British authorities had special plans for him. David Petrie, a high-ranking police officer present at Budge Budge during the confrontation with and massacre of the Komagata Maru passengers, reported the mood of resistance soon after the incident. As far as he was concerned, alongside the rest of the colonial bureaucracy, the battle line was already drawn: Most of the Sikhs, too, were men who had been abroad in the colonies and elsewhere – Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, and so on. It is a matter of common experience that Indians too often return from abroad with the tainted political views and diminished respect for their white rulers ... On an examination of all the circumstances, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Gurdit Singh’s deliberate resolve to pursue his own way in defiance of authority must have led, sooner or later, to the same result. (Home [Political] WBSA 322/1914)

This revealing statement demonstrates that the core concern of prior arrangements was repression, and the strategy was geared to protecting the “master race” from any challenge to its authority from below. Closely Observed Ships Following the arrival of the Komagata Maru, all ships sailing from North America and the Far East, especially those carrying Sikh labourers, were closely watched. The migrants were subjected to a combination of imperial control of the “lesser races” and a planned offensive from above. Sir Charles Cleveland, director of criminal intelligence, represented the paradox of liberal imperialism at a moment of crisis, when iron-fisted repression became the chief conduit of exercising power. From his autumn headquarters in Delhi, he did not hesitate to set aside any lofty sentiment of paternalism, elegantly expressed through a status-conscious, hierarchical contempt for low-ranking officers of the imperial bureaucracy:

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It looks to me as if a number of Sikhs who may quite possibly have been upset over the “Komagata Maru” incident are leaving British Columbia, and a lot of them may stay in Hong Kong or Chinese ports. I feel very doubtful about the policy of treating these men as suspects on their arrival in India. Hopkinson does not ... I think discriminate much between Indians who give trouble to the Canadian authorities over immigration restrictions, and Indians who are plotting against the Government of India. And, though Sikhs who went to Canada as loyal subjects of the Raj ... may ... unfortunately leave there in a rather different mood, I must say I am inclined to discount the value of the label “Seditionist” when affixed in Canada by subordinate officials. While sympathizing with this kindly view of the character and intentions of the Sikhs now on their way back to India, we must remember that these unfortunate people for some time past have been subjected to the most inciting and provoking exhortations of the “Ghadr” party. We have seen from numerous letters sent by Sikhs in the Far East, in Canada and in the United States of America that the “Ghadr” poison had worked on them and converted them, at the time of writing at least, into blood-thirsty fanatical revolutionaries: and in view of the history of the “Komagata Maru” we must fear that on their way back these Sikhs have been preached at by selected orators of the “Ghadr” party. The practical sedition of the Gurdit Singh party has shown that the ravings of the Far Eastern Sikhs, who have been converted to the “Ghadr” doctrines, are not mere froth. It would be advisable to take the above considerations into view when issuing directions regarding the treatment of these returning emigrants. (Intel­ ligence Branch [IB] 1105/1914 [57/1914])

Cleveland sent instructions in November to the Intelligence Branch officials of Bengal to conduct rigorous inquiries on the “particulars of all boats that have arrived in Calcutta subsequent to the Komagata Maru, with Indians from the Far East, stating briefly what sort of people the passengers were.” He was keen to know “how they were dealt with” (IB 1105/1914 [57/1914]). Racial stereotyping merged with a fear of class war. The great majority on board these ships were labourers. Other passengers included watchmen, tailors, students, policemen, and deportees from North Amer­ica. Being poor, Sikh deck passengers were regarded as potential carriers of the Ghadar tendency and became special targets of surveillance. The numbers of those arriving were recorded before they

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arrived, with cooperation from the shipping companies. These enter­prises were owned by monopolistic “managing agency” houses, forming the commercial pillars of British colonial capital in Asia. In Calcutta, the British business firms that controlled the shipping traffic in the docks of South Bengal were Mackinnon-Mackenzie, Jardine Skinner, and Andrew Yule. They were the official agents, respectively, of the British India, Indo-China, and Nippon Yusen Kaisha lines that transported travellers to various destinations between eastern India and the American west coast. The behaviour of the migrants while on board was monitored and investigated with the help of the better-off cabin passengers and the officers among the ship’s crew. The officers especially were seen as reliable informants to be taken into confidence. Their social backgrounds made the colonial administrators regard them as natural allies sharing the same social interests and eager to uphold petty authority. This position was reinforced by Captain Yamamoto of the Komagata Maru, who had fully cooperated with British officials after reaching Bengal; he had even advocated the execution of two Sindhi brothers, Narain Das and Jawahr Mal, who had been close supporters of Gurdit Singh while on board. Ves­sels were stopped at the docks on the Hooghly River, south of Cal­cutta. All passengers had their belongings searched thoroughly under the watchful gaze of experienced intelligence officers of the Bengal po­lice. The guidelines sent for search methods by the Criminal Intelligence Department of Punjab to its counterpart in Bengal were followed to the letter. Tins, pails, boxes, and baskets of food, which made up the meagre worldly possessions of the returning emigrants, were searched by customs officers to determine if false bottoms existed (IB 1105/1914 [57/1914]). Those with prior political records were imprisoned under the Ingress into India Ordinance, and the rest were speedily deported by train under armed escort to Ludhiana, where they were subjected to further screening (IB 1105/1914 [57/1914]; Home [Political WBSA 322/1914). In midOctober, the Nam Sang reached the docks at Diamond Harbour near Calcutta. The commander and first officer of this ship complained of the insolent, abusive, and violent conduct of the Punjabi migrants, alleging that they had terrorized white passengers, chased the ship’s crew, and tried to prevent the rescue of a European woman who had gone overboard (Weekly Reports of Intelligence Branch, Bengal Police, 1914). Three Sikhs were arrested from the ship as the ringleaders after being pointed out by

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the first officer. The Foo Sang also arrived about the same time; the ship carried proscribed leaflets. Three Sikhs were arrested, including a “seditious” bookbinder from Singapore who had earlier worked for the gov­ ernment press and used his skills against his masters (IB 1105/1914 [57/1914]). A month after the arrival of the Komagata Maru, the Tosha Maru anchored with Sikh passengers from North America and East Asia. They “openly” talked of rebellion (Chakravorty 1997, 113). Captain DallasSmith, assistant commandant of the Dacca Military Police Battalion, was put in charge of accompanying the passengers under armed escort by train. He complained of inadequate food and water provisions, which inflamed the feelings of the passengers. The lack of support that he received from those above him, the “indefiniteness of the instructions” that prevented an application of “overwhelming” force, and the need to deploy diplomacy and good humour in the face of abusive conduct and “wild talk” from those below him made him bitter and unhappy. These negative feelings laced his report. He claimed that the “attitude” of the migrants had “left no doubt as to the frame of mind in which they were returning to their country” and that during the railway journey they were an “unceasing cause of anxiety” (IB 1105/1914 [57/1914]). The On Sang arrived in early January 1915 carrying soldiers of the Indian army who were on sick leave, “distressed” seamen, some businessmen, and labourers. One hundred and seventy Punjabi migrants, mostly from Can­ ada and the United States, were on board. Two passengers, described as “dangerous characters,” were detained. The rest, with the exception of those allowed an “extension of stay” in Calcutta, were promptly dispatched by a waiting train to Punjab, “quietly and expeditiously” (IB 1105/1914 [57/1914]). Once the “special train” was in motion, the polite and compliant demeanour of some of the passengers underwent an abrupt transformation. Occupants of one of the carriages shouted “Bande Mataram.” They “called it to one another, to the Bengali railway men, and to a small knot of European police officers who were on duty at the time of departure.” A man made a gesture of “hatred and contempt,” throwing something with open hands at the officers, interpreted as “I throw dust on your head” (Weekly Reports of Intelligence Branch, Bengal Police, 1915). On the closely observed ships and while embarking, the migrants responded to imperial authority through these everyday acts of transient subversion, expressed by gestures and words. Although the police authorities

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congratulated themselves on their smooth control of shiploads of rebels, the spectre of “defiance” continued to haunt them.3 Into the Underground In the streets of the colonial metropolis, rumours with a distinct antistate edge were circulating. Immediately after the confrontation, British authorities were accused of having shot and killed unarmed women and children travelling on the Komagata Maru, and British soldiers were accused of having opened fire on a Sikh regiment that had mutinied after reaching the shores of India (Home [Political] WBSA 322/1914). Immediately after the riot by and massacre of Komagata Maru passengers at the Budge Budge railway station in late September, a group of loyalist Punjabis gathered at Burra Sikh Sangat at Harrison Road, a busy thoroughfare in north Calcutta. Prompted by the government, they were keen to display their devotion to the British crown. Condemning the passengers of the Komagata Maru as rioters and seditionists, they pledged unshakable faith in the war effort. However, a high-ranking British police official was forced to admit that a mood of skepticism hung in the air: “I am given to understand that many of the Sikhs did not wholly associate themselves with the resolutions passed, saying that the meeting was an official one. They keenly desire an impartial enquiry into the matter with non-official members from their own community” (Weekly Reports of Intelligence Branch, Bengal Police, 1914). Those arrested after the massacre recorded their ill treatment and exhaustion. They were brought to Calcutta under duress and incarcerated at the Alipur Central Jail. Representing the suppressed voices of the Komagata Maru, their statements, written down in police stations and jail cells, offered counterclaims of abuse that clashed with the official narratives of events furnished by their captors. The interned travellers recorded their exhausting journey through an unknown topography of terror. After escaping from the Budge Budge railway station, they were chased as fugitives and shot by the troops. They crossed rivers; trekked through marshes, across fields, and along roads; hid in forests; begged for alms; and sought asylum in nearby villages, adjoining districts, suburbs, and neighbourhoods of Calcutta. Tara Singh claimed that he had received help from an unknown Bengali gentleman while escaping on foot; his anonymous benefactor had warned him that the British could hang him if he was captured, given him money, and provided him with clothes and a disguise. Surain Singh, later

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convicted under the Arms Act of 1878, also spoke of local assistance and of being beaten by the constable who arrested him (Home [Political] WBSA 322/1914). Amir Mohammad Khan, a close aide of Gurdit Singh interned as one of the chief “trouble-makers” for an unspecified period of time, complained of rapid weight loss in jail and of being condemned without a trial “in violation of all laws divine and human” (Home [Polit­ ical] WBSA 26/1915). Both open and secret connections between local critics of colonial policies and Punjabi dissenters were being forged. A link was already evident in early 1914 when the Komagata Maru sailed to Canada and was then turned back. Several Calcutta-based Bengali-language and Englishlanguage newspapers and periodicals, run by Hindu and Muslim intellectuals from Bengal, discussed Canada’s anti-immigrant laws, the racism of the imperial authorities, and the loss of livelihood in India under British rule that had contributed to mass migration. After the Budge Budge massacre, some of them “deplored” state action. They argued that the passengers should have been allowed to reach Calcutta, that those being held without trial were harmless and deserved freedom, and that Sikhs returning from abroad and the community living in Calcutta and its sub­ urbs were being harassed and persecuted (Government of Bengal, Home [Political] Department, 1914). While middle-class expressions of civic outrage and dissent were registered in the colonial public sphere, a cross-class underground network was also developing in the city. The secret society networks of middle-class Bengali Hindus were strategically stepping beyond their elite confines to establish links with Ghadar and pan-Islamist revolutionaries. This was part of a wider program to get arms from Germany and trigger rebellion in the ranks of colonial troops from Lahore to Calcutta to Singapore (Sarkar 1983, 147–48). Certain local social dimensions were also at work. The efforts to procure guns and money by underground cells, discernible from 1913 on, rose sharply in a climate of war. The revolutionaries took advantage of the Sikh presence among service sector workers and the increase in the number of motor vehicles in the streets of the city. Several taxi robberies, including the “Garden Reach dacoity” in February and the “Corporation Street dacoity” in December 1915, were executed with the help of Sikh drivers. In the afternoon of February 12, 1915, when three employees of Bird and Company, a British managing agency in Calcutta, were taking 18,000 rupees in cash in a ticca ghari (“horse-drawn

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carriage”) to the South Union Mill, they were stopped by armed Bengalis in a taxi. The four young men forced the occupants of the carriage to hand over the cash; the robbers then rapidly left the scene of the crime, “throwing out the chauffeur as they drove off.” The chauffeur, a Sikh employee of the Indian Motor Taxi Company, turned out to be an accomplice. In the evening of December 2, 1915, five armed Bengali young men also arrived in a motorcar and looted gold and silver ornaments from the shop of Fakir Chand Dutt, a pawnbroker at 66 Corporation Street, a central artery of the city. Since the robbery took place in the heart of Calcutta, several people witnessed the deed, but no one offered any clue about the direction that the fleeing perpetrators took. This car was also traced back to the fleet of the Indian Motor Taxi Company. Chait Singh, an employee, was arrested on suspicion of being the driver. The complainant’s and eyewitnesses’ refusal to identify the revolutionary robbers made “detection of the case” impossible. Ultimately, the “suspected participants” were dealt with “in other ways” under the Defence of India Act (Annual Report on the Police Administration of the Town of Calcutta and Its Sub­ urbs for the Year 1915). The interconnections among Ghadar influence, Sikh workers, and militant nationalists became the theme of a panic-stricken inquiry by the police: The connection of the Sikh taxi-cab drivers in Calcutta with the Bengal Revolutionary Party seems to be by far the most important and immediate subject for investigation. It is not merely the occasional use of Sikh taxi-cab drivers for political dakaities that is disturbing but the likelihood of organised use being made on a bigger scale of the Sikh drivers, should any big disturbance break out in Calcutta. From what one hears there seems little doubt but that many drivers speak Bengali and are on close terms of intimacy with members of the Revolutionary Party. (IB 454/1916 [13/1916])

The arrival of the Komagata Maru, the massacre at Budge Budge, the repressive measures adopted by the colonial authorities for Sikh travellers and local Sikh inhabitants, and Ghadar influence prompted a handful of Sikh workers to participate in local revolutionary actions. The revolutionary underground subordinated the identity of the Sikh activists as workers to that of nationhood while depending on the labour that they performed in the urban milieu. The Sikh revolutionaries who joined the political

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underground in Calcutta participated in a vision and program of resistance along nationalist lines in which their class location was not privileged or highlighted. However, their work gave them access to motorcars and a plebian milieu of labour and service. This connection came to be valued and utilized by the Bengali revolutionaries, who had adopted robbery as their modus operandi to raise funds. The Sikh activists in turn found an organized channel to subvert British authority through the revolutionary network. So far, their relationship with the city had been confined by the entwined conditions of migration and livelihood. The nationalist revolutionary network connected them, for the first time, with planned political action. The story of Chait Singh is a good example of such contrasting identities. A resident of the city for four or five years who came to police attention during the investigation of the robbery on Corporation Street, Chait Singh was described as “a man of Ghadar sympathies.” He was depicted as a “fanatical” former colonial soldier “full of grievances” against the British Empire. His revolutionary colleagues belonging to Jugantar bailed him out. To celebrate his release, they participated in elaborate feasts in Bhavanipur, a mixed neighbourhood where they had met and interacted. The Sikhs slaughtered sheep to cook curry for the assembled guests and drank liquor. These convivial gatherings at which Sikh drivers and Bengali baboos (“gentlemen”) rubbed shoulders forged an anticolonial social alliance and friendship among young men that temporarily dissolved class, caste, linguistic, and regional barriers. However, their celebrations were short lived. Chait Singh was arrested for a second time, with his Bengali friends, and jailed indefinitely under repressive wartime regulations. He had developed a following among fellow cab drivers, who initially tried to cover his tracks (IB 664/1916 [50/1916]; IB 454/1916 [13/1916]). Chait Singh was closely connected with Dewan Singh, a doorkeeper of the Howrah Gurdwara. Dewan Singh was also imprisoned for asking soldiers of the 16th Rajputs, an infantry unit deployed against the Komagata Maru passengers and stationed at Fort William, to rebel. Dewan Singh had been living in Bengal for sixteen years. By his own admission, he had worked as a semi-permanent ticket inspector for the railways. He tendered his resignation “because he refused to arrest respectable people” for trespasses. He had also “quarrelled with his superiors.” Dewan Singh was suspected of having links with the Komagata Maru passengers; these suspicions were strengthened when Sher Singh, his nephew, was arrested.

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Sher Singh possessed Ghadar leaflets, supposedly carried by the ship’s passengers and deposited at the Howrah Gurdwara with his uncle. At fifty years of age, Dewan Singh was criminalized in police reports as an “undesirable character” known to the local police as a pukka budmas (“seasoned evildoer”). It was alleged that he had begun his career in Punjab as a “bazaar dancing boy,” a derisive euphemism for a male child prostitute (IB 454/1916 [13/1916]). In contrast, Bhupendra Kumar Datta, a Bengali revolutionary belonging to Jugantar, who shared the jail space with him, described Dewan Singh as a kind and courageous veteran warrior who made new political prisoners feel at home in a claustrophobic environment. Dewan Singh was apparently “incensed” when younger revolutionaries contemplated going on hunger strikes to protest prisoners’ abuse but were in favour of excluding older political inmates. When he and other elderly prisoners insisted on fasting, the idea of boycotting food was hastily given up. Datta also remembered having met Chait Singh there. Unlike the British officials who saw him as a secretive figure exuding quiet menace and ferocity, Datta saw him as a “tall man” with a “heart-felt, open” smile (1999, 35, 42). The Sikh members of the revolutionary underground were rounded up by 1916 alongside members of the local host network. Although the colonial authorities were confident that the arrests and searches would suitably intimidate the Sikh migrant workers of Calcutta, Howrah, and the suburbs and permanently deter them from engaging in movements opposing the state (IB 664/1916 [50/1916]; IB 454/1916 [13/1916]; IB 689/1919), this was not to be the case. In the upsurge against capitalism and colonialism in the years following the First World War, a section of Sikh workers, while turning leftward, consciously focused on the memory of the Komagata Maru, which had symbolically propelled the migrants toward participation in local politics. Sikhs as Workers The horizon of the postwar political landscape in Calcutta and its surroundings was extended and altered by anticolonial mass movements, labour activism, and the emergence of the left. This was also the period when migrations from Punjab and the size of the Sikh labour force increased. To the Sikh migrants who joined postwar strike waves and formed unions in the 1920s and early 1930s, an unofficial commemoration of the voyage of the Komagata Maru became inseparable from contemporary

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resistance to the domination of colonial capital. They engaged with, worked on, and simultaneously moved beyond the boundaries of nationalism by focusing on a self-aware identity based on organized class action. This understanding was linked with the lived experiences of migration and imperial exploitation, the components of identity that had come to the forefront during the voyage of the Komagata Maru, and underlined the actions of Sikh revolutionaries in a wartime city. The earlier tendency, evident in 1914–15, to subordinate the identity of migrant workers to that of nationhood, was transformed in the postwar context when livelihood issues inspired systematic protests in the city and beyond. The diasporic identity of the Sikh migrant workers converged with the wider labour movement. The Sikhs in Calcutta, classified by colonial census makers as practitioners of one of the “minor” religions, worked mostly as sepoys and traders during the first decade of the twentieth century (Census of India 1911, 1913, 20–26). In 1911, 980 Sikhs lived in Calcutta and its suburbs; they fell within the wider population of 1,743 Punjabi migrants and included 171 Sikh women. Most Sikhs were adult men of working age between twenty and thirty-five (Census of India 1911, 14, 28). Ten years later the population of Sikhs had risen to 1,485; although they continued to engage in business, the number of sepoys declined. Instead, many became taxi drivers (Census of India, 1921, 38–39). With the introduction of and increase in motor vehicles during the second decade of the century, the pattern of Sikh employment changed. Inside the Calcutta municipal area, the highest concentration of Sikhs was in Bhavanipur, where ex-soldierturned-taxi-driver Chait Singh had joined a wartime revolutionary net­ work. They were also found, probably employed as sepoys, in Fort William and the maidan. The rest were scattered across Jorasanko and Kolutola in the north, Ballygunge and Tollygunge in the south, and Garden Reach, an industrial suburb associated with shipping (Census of India, 1921, 10). The presence of Sikhs in the service sector as drivers explains their presence in the postwar world of strikes and unions. Although taxis and private cars had come to symbolize speedy transport and urban luxury, those who drove these vehicles suffered from low wages and police repression. During the strike wave of 1920–21, the taxi and professional car drivers went on short-lived strikes during December 1920 and January 1921. Whereas the work stoppage among taxi drivers in December secured higher pay, the work stoppage among taxi and private car drivers in January

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failed to overturn new police regulations. The rules directly interfered with the workers’ livelihoods by imposing medical checks on drivers. This measure adversely affected elderly drivers, who could lose their licences and jobs if deemed physically unfit. The practice of carrying attendants/ companions to help drivers stay alert on the road was prohibited. As a result, those who assisted drivers in the motor transport trade also stood to lose their jobs (Committee on Industrial Unrest in Bengal 1921). The labour movement was incorporated into the noncooperation and Khilafat movements, the chief vehicles of popular anti-imperialism. The postwar mass upsurge was led by these campaigns demanding India’s selfgovernment and protection of the Ottoman Caliphate, the headquarters of Sunni Islam, from Anglo-French invasions. In this wider climate of Hindu-Muslim unity and populist militancy, the echoes of Ghadar from the war years resurfaced, and the protest mentality of the postwar years showed signs of spreading in the colonial army.4 In 1921, Santa Singh, a sepoy and driver, “used words in favour of the Khilafat Committee and Non Co-operation, and was found guilty and sentenced to suffer rigorous imprisonment for two years.” He had complained of poor wages, urged other soldiers to resign, promised better-paid work with the Khilafat Committee, and advocated the wearing of swadeshi or “Gandhi cloth.” After his court martial, he served time in the Alipur Central Jail, a familiar destination for political prisoners in the city. In 1923, “an officer reported that he seemed very discontented, and that he was met by several motor car drivers on his release.” During the months that followed, Santa Singh received a taxi driver’s licence; he travelled briefly to Rangoon to stay with his brother, a milkman; finally, he returned to Calcutta to take up the occupation of a private car driver (IB 454/1916 [13/1916]). Others had tried to organize uprisings within the army during the war. Influenced by the postwar anti-imperialist mass movements, Santa Singh had encouraged mass resignation from colonial service, a strategy aimed at weakening the British Empire. The transition from being a recalcitrant sepoy driver to a civilian transport worker, the journey from the army barracks to the Alipur Central Jail to Rangoon and back to Calcutta, and his aim to sow “sedition” in the ranks of the army at a time of intense and anticolonial upheaval resonated with similar patterns and movements in the immediate and distant pasts. It was as if Chait Singh’s and Dewan Singh’s actions had seeped through his movements in this changed

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political context in a new way. The accumulated experiences of rebel soldiers of the preceding century, of Pathan and Sikh soldiers who had been court-martialled or of those who had left the army, had filtered down through the decades; they had directly and indirectly touched the route that Santa Singh had taken. From the second half of the 1920s onward, an identifiable leftist tendency emerged among the Sikh workers living in Calcutta and its suburbs. In November 1927, during the birthday celebration of Guru Nanak, a diwan (“congregation”) was held at the Burra Sikh Sangat. Gurdit Singh, who had moved to Calcutta that year, delivered a “fiery speech” before 600 men and women, citing “indignities” inflicted on the Sikhs by the government. An “objectionable” Gurumukhi leaflet was circulated, urging the Sikhs to subscribe to Kirti (Worker), a labour journal published by communists in Punjab. They were also asked to join Bengal Kirti Dal. It was to be a local branch of the Kirti-Kisan Party of Punjab, a counterpart of the Workers and Peasants Party of Bengal (WPP); both were open organizations of the illegal Communist Party of India (CPI). The police sensed a joint influence of “Ghadar revolutionaries” and “the Bolshevik flavor” behind this initiative. A Bengal Kirti Dal committee was set up in December 1927. In 1928, this small organization’s office shifted to Gurdit Singh’s house in Bhavanipur. Later that year, Sohan Singh Josh, a Ghadar revolutionary-turned-communist leader, visited Gurdit Singh and other members of Kirti Dal. He had arrived in Calcutta and headed for the Bengal WPP office; local communist activists, including prominent figures such as Abdul Halim and Dharani Goswami, escorted and hosted him (IB 185/1928 [87/1928]). Soon plans were afoot to merge the Bengal Kirti Dal with the WPP of Bengal. This was evident on the eve of a proposed All-India Conference of the different regional groups led by Communist Party members. Muzaffar Ahmad, one of the early communist leaders from Bengal and India, wrote to Sohan Singh Josh in November 1928: I draw your attention to the fact that Sikhs in Calcutta form a Bengal Branch of the Punjab Party. This is really ludicrous. I held a Conference with some of them and what I understand is that the workers themselves are not unwilling ... I will make the Bengal Kirti Dal at least a branch of the Bengal Party ... Also print a notice in Punjabi addressing the Punjabi workers, Sikhs, Hindus and Mussalmans in Calcutta and near about. (Roy 1998, 51–53)

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This was followed a month later by what the police described as “the first conference of its kind in India.” Sohan Singh Josh delivered an “objectionable” presidential address at Albert Hall, College Street, a hub of the anticolonial public sphere in the city, where leftist and communist delegates from Punjab, Bombay, Bengal, and other regions had congregated. He “began by referring to the ‘Komagata Maru’ incident at Budge Budge, on which occasion, he said, Punjabis had been brutally murdered. He then attacked the Congress policy and said that they must demand complete independence.” He envisaged a coming war between the communists and the British Empire. In anticipation of such a day, he advocated launching a campaign to discourage potential recruits from joining the colonial army, focusing on the imperial practice of enlistment drives in Punjab (IB 210/1927 [23/1927]; IB 185/1928 [87/1928]; IB 111/1928 [191/1928]). The conference was held alongside the annual session of the Indian National Congress (INC). The left activists, trade unionists, and workers “invaded” the INC conference tent and demanded the adoption of “complete independence” as the declared goal of Indian nationalism (Chattopadhyay 2011, 180). After communist and militant labour leaders were arrested in March 1929 and stood trial at Meerut, a legal defence fund was created by Calcutta communists; they included activists with a Sikh background. Although Gurdit Singh briefly turned left before moving to a position of permanent affiliation with the INC, the handful of activists who had joined Bengal Kirti Dal remained within the communist fold. Inder Singh Hoshiarpur, Genda Singh, Balwant Singh, Ajit Singh, and Prithi Singh were regarded by the colonial authorities as Sikh members of the CPI, active among the diaspora living in Calcutta and Budge Budge, especially transport workers from Punjab (IB 210/1927 [23/1927]). Saroj Mukherjee, a communist leader from Bengal, remembered Genda Singh as an active organizer of a CPI-led Transport Workers Union in the early 1930s. In 1934, he was arrested for delivering a speech against the state at a communist rally in the maidan. He spoke at a time-honoured protest spot in Calcutta, the space in front of the Ochterlony Monument, an imperial landmark later renamed Shahid Minar (Martyr’s Column). Sentenced to one year of rigorous imprisonment on the charge of sedition, Genda Singh and other communists were stripped of their status as political prisoners and treated like ordinary convicts inside the jail. He had appealed to the crowd to uproot the British Raj and throw the regime into the sea (Mukhopadhyay 1993, 61, 78). By speaking out in the open,

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Genda Singh and other activists from the late 1920s and early 1930s represented a shift from the era of transient gestures and words of subversion. Fully articulated political programs were being unveiled through their public speeches. The organized and self-aware militancy of postwar labour movements had made this transition possible. The times of silent action and secret propaganda were over. The Long Memory By using the motif of the ocean, associated with the Komagata Maru and other ships carrying migrant workers across long stretches of water, the speech by Genda Singh haunted and offended the colonizers. He had inverted the water-bound experience of Sikh migrant workers and consigned the British Empire to the sea. Direct reference to the experiences aboard the Komagata Maru could also be found in the lectures of Gurdit Singh. Although leaving behind his early communist association in the city, he had joined a socialist labour current present within and subordinate to the INC nationalist platform. In public meetings, Gurdit Singh continued to recall the ship’s journey. In Budge Budge, which he revisited as the president-elect of a district labour conference in 1932, he was welcomed on behalf of the local population. He was overwhelmed by a sense of déjà-vu while addressing a crowd of 4,000 men and women: “He was glad to address the Budge Budge people in their own place, he loved Budge Budge as he was intimately connected with the place ... [He] described how he and the rest of the crew of the Komagata Maru were treated by the Canadian as well as the English Government.” He also consciously linked and situated this past within a personal and wider frame of social resistance from below by stating that he had been born a peasant and had spent his life among workers and planned to spend what remained of it in the same way. While opposing capitalism and empire building, he praised the Soviet Union as a workers’ state and advocated unity of labour so that workers could become “invincible.” The speech, delivered in Urdu, was translated into Bengali by Jalaluddin Hashmi, an INC trade unionist, for the benefit of those who could not scale the language barrier (IB 497/1927 [168/1927]). Not merely an individual with a unique “episodic” memory, Gurdit Singh shared with others his experience on the ship as a form of knowledge rooted in a rejection of the colonial condition from below. Labour activists and workers from different ethnolinguisticreligious and political backgrounds, as listeners, absorbed and claimed

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this as transmitted memory. For them, the past was unfolding in the present and urging action (IB 185/1928 [87/1928]; IB 497/1927 [168/1927]) while individual memory was taking on the form of class memory.5 In these gatherings, the Komagata Maru returned to lead other voyages of opposition, mobilization, and resistance.







Notes 1 For an account of the journey of the Komagata Maru, see Johnston (1979). For a pioneering historical treatment of the Ghadar Movement from 1913 to 1918, see Puri (1983). To grasp the relationship between the colonial state and colonial capital, see Bagchi (1972). For a survey of the Sikh diaspora in Calcutta, see Banerjee (2012, 271–300). An understanding of wartime conditions in Calcutta can be found in Chattopadhyay (2011, 18–43). 2 Tatla (2007) analyzed control of the Sikh passengers of the Komagata Maru after they landed. 3 For a detailed exploration of this theme, see Chattopadhyay (2016, 203–22). 4 For details on the context and trajectory of the twin mass movements launched in India after the First World War under Gandhi’s leadership, see Sarkar (1983, 165–227). 5 On the memory formation of individuals, see Tulving and Donaldson (1972, 382–402). An analysis of workers’ memories of past struggles in the northern Indian context can be found in Joshi (2003, 11, 236). For discussions on memory and action, see Assmann and Shortt (2012, 3–4). References Archival Sources Annual Report on the Police Administration of the Town of Calcutta and Its Suburbs for the Year 1915. Census of India 1911. Vol. 6, City of Calcutta, Parts I and II. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, 1913. Census of India 1921. Vol. 6, City of Calcutta, Parts I and II. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1922. Committee on Industrial Unrest in Bengal. 1921. Report of the Committee on Industrial Unrest in Bengal. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press. Government of Bengal. Home (Political) Department. 1914. Report on Native Newspapers of Bengal (1914). Home (Political) West Bengal State Archives (WBSA) 322/1914. Intelligence Branch (IB) 1105/1914 (57/1914). IB 454/1916 (13/1916). IB 664/1916 (50/1916). IB 689/1919. IB 210/1927 (23/1927). IB 497/1927 (168/1927). IB 111/1928 (191/1928).

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IB 185/1928 (87/1928). Weekly Reports of Intelligence Branch, Bengal Police, 1914, 1915. Books and Articles Assmann, Aleida, and Linda Shortt, eds. 2012. Memory and Political Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bagchi, Amiya Kumar. 1972. Private Investment in India 1900–1939. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Banerjee, Himadri. 2012. “The Other Sikhs: Punjabi-Sikhs of Kolkata.” Studies in History 28, 2: 271–300. Chakravorty, Upendra Narayan. (1977) 1997. Indian Nationalism and the First World War (1914–18). Calcutta: Progressive. Chattopadhyay, Suchetana. 2011. An Early Communist: Muzaffar Ahmad in Calcutta. Delhi: Tulika. –. 2016. “Closely Observed Ships.” South Asian Diaspora 8, 2: 203–22. Datta, Bhupendra Kumar. 1999. Biplaber padachinha (Footsteps of Revolution). Calcutta: Sahitya Sansad. Johnston, Hugh. 1979. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Joshi, Chitra. 2003. Lost Worlds: Indian Labour and Its Forgotten Histories. Delhi: Permanent Black. Mukhopadhyay, Saroj. 1993. Bharater Communist Party o amra (Communist Party of India and Ourselves), Vol. I (1930–41). Calcutta: National Book Agency. Puri, Harish K. 1983. Ghadar Movement: Ideology, Organisation, and Strategy. Amritsar, India: Guru Nanak Dev University Press. Roy, Subodh, ed. 1998. Communism in India: Unpublished Documents 1925–1934. Calcutta: National Book Agency. Sarkar, Sumit. 1983. Modern India 1885–1947. Delhi: Macmillan. Tatla, Darshan S. 2007. “Introduction.” In Voyage of Komagata Maru, or India’s Slavery Abroad, by Gurdit Singh, 1–53. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books and Punjab Centre for Migration Studies. Tulving, E., and W. Donaldson, eds. 1972. Organization of Memory. New York: Academic Press.

3

The Resistance of Indian Migrants Facing Lies, Deception, and Racism Satwinder Kaur Bains

Gurdit Singh’s plan to charter a ship in May 1914 from Hong Kong to Vancouver to protest Canada’s Continuous Journey Regulation was met with the full force of discrimination against the Indian passengers who sought to settle in British Columbia. Although it took two months to reach BC shores, the Komagata Maru was forced to berth in Vancouver’s harbour for another two months. Numerous letters were written and received by Gurdit Singh and the passengers on the ship, charting the historic journey. Recuperating these voices of the passengers brings into focus their resistance to the deception and racism that surrounded the ship from when it left Hong Kong to when it entered Canadian waters. This resistance also became a critical part of the revolutionary movement of Indian nationals against colonial and imperial power, Canada’s and Britain’s respectively. In this chapter, I explore the relevance of these letters to understand local encounters with British colonialism and its global imperial connections across geopolitical boundaries. The letters document the passengers’ resistance of the steadfast exclusionary practices and denial of rights by the Canadian government and the imperial regime. Historians have been concerned with how the manifestation of colonial nationalism has been closely correlated to the rise of overtly discriminatory legislation in the British Empire (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2013). Both are evident in the ship’s journey from the inception of the idea (an Indian national countering Canadian exclusionary laws) to its forced removal from Canadian waters. Although the agenda of the British Em­pire furthered its cause of expansion and control, dominions 76

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and colonies under its control suffered from the consequences of exclusion, racial de­marcation, class division, and white supremacy. Under the legal structure of the crown, colonized individuals never gained citizenship in the empire; rather, they were accorded subjecthood with unequal rights that dominion colonies eroded with free will and concerted effort in the local context (Karatani 2003). Citizenship rights were safely ensconced in the traditional principle of ius soli (“right of the soil”), whereas subjecthood allowed structural dominance. Canadian history is replete with the imperial phenomenon of government officials assigning alien status to Aboriginal people in their own land through the Foreign Jurisdiction Act of 1890, which assumed their inherent consent in adopting that status (Porter 1999). The similar experiences of colonial exclusion among Chinese and Japanese communities in British Columbia also shaped the Komagata Maru tragedy. When the ship arrived in the province in 1914, South Asians and other Asian immigrant communities already faced intense discrimination, legislated racism, public resentment, and political hostility. Between 1904 and 1907, approximately 5,000 South Asians had immigrated to British Columbia, following in the footsteps of approximately 35,000 Chinese and Japanese immigrants (Wallace 2017). Asian exclusionists in Canada had implemented laws that made it very difficult for Indians to journey to Canada within a decade following the earliest arrivals in 1904 (Buchignani and Indra 1985). The argument “that South Asians were unassimilable because they accepted a lower standard of living, had caste prejudices, spoke a foreign language, and were potential anti-imperial activists who would fight for Indian independence” was a well-developed ideology that underpinned immigration restrictions (Wallace 2013, 34). Punjabi immigrants arriving in British Columbia from British-occupied India came with conflicted ideas of loyalty to the British Empire based on the Punjabi rural peasantry’s sentimental notions of the Raj as maa-baap (as parent – both “mother and father”) with attached values of service, duty, and cooperation, all the while recognizing that they were being treated as second-class citizens in India itself and exploited economically and socially ( Johnston 2013; Singh 2001; Singh 2007). Although they faced innumerable barriers on arrival in Canada, they came initially as economic immigrants, much like many others coming to Canada at the time from Europe and other parts of the world (Buchignani and Indra 1985; Price 2007–08). But Indians generally were also under a misguided notion

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of shared imperial citizenship, which was continuously betrayed because there was no reciprocal trust and loyalty by the crown and no recognition of them as equal British citizens. A perfect example is a letter of June 24, 1914, by Vancouver lawyers McCrossan and Harper, who refused the offer of a retainer by Gurdit Singh to fight the case of the 376 passengers on board the Komagata Maru: “We feel that the matter has become of such great moment that it has got beyond the realm of such legal proceedings and has become largely, if not entirely, a question of national policy of vital importance, not only to the government of this country but also involves conflicting Imperial interests” (quoted in Singh 2007, 65). Their refusal to assist in the legal battle of the passengers was tilted in favour of the all-powerful imperial interests. The narrative of the Komagata Maru is an example of how imperial Britain and colonial Canada sought to control immigration to preserve Canada as “a white man’s country” (see Ferguson 1975). In this quest, Indians (under British rule in India) who wanted legal status in Canada were doubly jeopardized: “Those who have no status at home are ipso facto deprived of any abroad” (Singh 2007, 57). In his memoirs, Gurdit Singh wrote that we were poor Indians seeking to enter Canada to earn our livelihood and we thought we had every right to enter there as India as well as Canada was under the British Crown. When even the slum dweller of London could freely move to India as well as Canada why should not we? We are insulted, we are dishonoured, and we are disgraced in all parts of the world because we have no government that will feel for indignities inflicted on us. (2007, 109)

Gurdit Singh’s sentiments address the bitter irony of the passengers’ exclusion as British subjects from a daughter colony in which the passengers should have been accorded the same universal rights and privileges as any other immigrants arriving from the colonies to Canada: “But what about the Indians who are said to be British subjects protected by their benign government? They have no consul of their own to represent them there. Serfs at home, they are treated no better than helots abroad” (2007, 59). This was especially true of new Sikh immigrants to Canada who had served in the British army with distinction and been recognized for their commitment to the British Empire.

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The eminent service of Sikhs in the British army had overridden their “coolie” status. Patterns of Sikh emigration in regiments stationed abroad had given them fairly unimpeded access to other colonies across Africa and Asia (Buchignani and Indra 1985; Srikanth 2002). Sikhs saw themselves as imperial citizens as they moved about freely across many colonies. However, as Hugh Johnston (2013, 11) clarifies, this was a misguided notion because “the first problem for the Empire was a great contradiction in its early twentieth-century make-up – its expectation of loyalty from subjects of many races and nationalities and its philosophical and organizational inability to treat them equally.” Daniel Gorman (2006, 161) is critical of the opportunistic value placed on the notion of imperial citizenship by the colonizers in the colonies: “The concept of imperial subjecthood after all ... guaranteed freedom of movement throughout the Empire.” But there was no empire-wide common citizenship policy or protection, though Indians had been mistakenly led to believe that “British subject” meant equal rights (Johnston 2013). Although at one of the imperial conferences held in England Canadian prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier said that “a man who was a British subject anywhere ... should be a British subject everywhere” (Oliver 1954, 45), he would soon find fault with his own words and reformulate his own perspective. Anti-imperialist sentiments had risen in the Indian subcontinent after the first war of independence in 1857, forcing the British to become more aware of their tenuous position as rulers of India. “In regard to India and more broadly to the Empire dependent on its colonies, the notion of a common imperial citizenship codified in Britannic alliance ran aground” (Gorman 2006, 170). Punjab had been the last province to be annexed by the British in 1849. Although the Punjabi warrior tradition – what the British idealized as the “martial race” concept – was held in high regard by the colonial rulers, Punjabis were also aware of the deep-seated prejudice and racism manifest in the Raj. Punjabi Sikhs had always been vocal in the nationalist pro-India movement, and educated Punjabi communities settled abroad were regarded as “political hothouses in which political aspirations moved far ahead of those held by the public in India” (Johnston 2013, 10). Ships plying the Pacific Ocean brought to the shores of British Columbia Indian men who quickly joined the rebellious movements starting along the coast at the turn of the century. They were dissatisfied both with exclusionary and racially motivated Canadian conditions and with the conditions of

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the lives of their compatriots living under the British Raj (Buchignani and Indra 1985; Johnston 2013; Puri 1983; Singh 2007). Intelligence gathering had become the order of the day for imperial officials in Canada, and it was well known that Indian men were being recruited to spy on each other (Isemonger and Slattery 1913). The unfulfilled voyage of the Komagata Maru was a profound personal and collective disappointment for Punjabi Sikhs who thought that they had an amicable and special relationship with the Raj. The Komagata Maru tragedy was also folded into the growing pro-nationalist Ghadar Movement initiated by Indian (mostly Sikh) immigrants in 1913 in Astoria, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest, to oust the British from India (Puri 1983). As Johnston (2013, 12) points out, “it was true that there were personal links between the Ghadr Party leadership and the organizers of the Komagata Maru; Ghadr literature did find its way onto the ship; and some men who had been on board did later become active Ghadrites.” The detention of the ship on the shore and the ensuing struggles helped to seal the fate of many passengers who became increasingly disenchanted with and militant toward the Raj. Five days after the morning of July 23, 1914, when the Komagata Maru was escorted out of Burrard Inlet, Austria declared war on Serbia. Canada and India, like the rest of the British Empire, was at war. India contributed to the war effort with 400,000 Punjabis who fought for the empire in various parts of the world. At the same time, however, they were being denied their rights by another daughter colony whose officials were undertaking exercises of elimination and disbarment. Beginning in 1881, immigrants arriving in British Columbia had been forced to undergo intense medical scrutiny at the William Head quarantine station close to Victoria. It was there during inspection that decisions were made whether prospective arrivals would be deported or allowed to stay (Wallace 2013). Ships from China, Japan, and India were routinely quarantined, and much time was spent on medical exams. Authorities searched for anything that would allow them to deport passengers back to Asia. Although many argued that disease was rampant among Asian immigrants (Indian, Chinese, and Japanese), these contentions were refuted by an Alberta physician, Dr. E.H. Lawson, who wrote to the Victoria Colonist on September 25, 1913. As the surgeon on Canadian Pacific Railway vessels, he had found Sikhs to be clean and honest, with high moral standards, qualities that he said

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were missing from the mining camps of white workers. He concluded that he had “not yet seen one good reason why they should not be permitted to bring their families in as freely as the European immigrants” (quoted in Wallace 2013, 40). Verifying these efforts, Gurdit Singh (2007, 77) wrote that “on 21st May, 1914, the ship arrived at Victoria. The officers with a squadron of steamboats hemmed in the ship. The doctors certified that the ship was clean and the passengers healthy.” The medical examinations were not a deterrent to Indian immigrants as they quickly sought to create a sense of community on arrival. Almost immediately they created houses of worship (gurdwaras) where they gathered to organize, plan, and support their fellow citizens. Gurdwaras, in their dual role as social and religious institutions, have a long history as places of refuge for weary travellers in India and abroad, wherever diasporic communities settled (Bains 2013). These institutions also provided political, moral, and financial support to movements of political change – including social rebellions – even in recent times. For example, the gurdwara in Hong Kong was a temporary home to many Sikhs travelling in Southeast Asia during the early 1900s. Many were soldiers travelling around the colonies, others were policemen and watchmen, and some were entrepreneurs looking to create new homes and make economic gains that would further solidify and increase their agricultural holdings in Punjab (Srikanth 2002; Ward 2002). One desired destination for these soldiers and entrepreneurs was Canada. Many had been stranded in Hong Kong for some time because of the legal bans imposed by Canadian authorities on migration from the Far East. A significant event would change all of that. At the Hong Kong gurdwara, a sabha (“meeting”) was held in December 1913 at which a proposal to charter a steamship was discussed (Singh 2001). The Continuous Journey Regulation was so meticulously designed that it effectively restricted certain groups of people who could not find direct passage while avoiding the outwardly distasteful mark of race. Since no passenger could enter Canada unless she or he had undertaken a continuous passage from the country of origin, many Indians in Hong Kong were stranded. The plan to charter a ship and set sail for Vancouver would put this law to the test. A businessman of some means, Gurdit Singh came forward to undertake this task in a singular act of nonviolence, as he described it, and as a direct challenge to the blatant exclusion of Indians from Canada. As plans were

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under way to procure a seaworthy vessel, the far reach of the empire was felt as imperial officials in Hong Kong attempted to prevent the ship from sailing (Singh 2001; Waraich and Sidhu 2005). After seeking legal advice, Gurdit Singh was informed by the Williamson, Grit, and Davis law firm in Hong Kong that, “so far as the colony is concerned, we have to advise you that in our opinion there are no restrictions upon the immigration by Indians from the colony” (quoted in Singh 2007, 66). Thus, after a few months of planning, the Komagata Maru was hired and renamed the Guru Nanak Jahaz in recognition of its Indian charter. It set sail from Hong Kong, stopping in Shanghai and Yokohama, and arrived in Vancouver on May 23, 1914, with a total of 376 passengers. Most of these passengers were men, but there were two women and several children aboard: the wife of Dr. Raghunath Singh (medical officer on the ship), with one son, and Kishan Kaur Tumowal, with one daughter and one son, as well as the seven-year-old son of Gurdit Singh (Singh 2007). Immediately on reaching BC shores, the ship was denied berth and entry into the harbour by Canadian government officials, and the Komagata Maru could not disembark its passengers. They waited on deck with their bags properly packed and in their best clothes. They were appalled and dejected by their treatment by Canadian officials, loyal to the same crown to which they had pledged loyalty until then. For two months, the ship sat in Burrard Inlet while Gurdit Singh and the passengers attempted to find ways to enter Canada legally (Johnston 2013). The passengers faced deplorable conditions on the ship because it had not docked for over three months, and provisions were running low. This was common on the many journeys made by previous passengers, but they persevered in their hopes for a better future, and landing would help them to forget the hardships. Harnam Singh, Amar Singh, and Sundar Singh wrote to the immigration agent on July 11, 1914: We the undersigned members of the Committee of SS Komagata Maru, beg to draw your attention that on account of the ship being dirty, the flies and rats are becoming more and more daily, which would be the cause of serious sickness. For want of good food and exercise, some men were very sick. If the state of things continues any longer we all shall lose our health. For more than three months we are shut up on the ship and our health is going weaker and weaker. Please arrange to take the sick to the hospital and look into the matter of our health and food. (quoted in Singh 2007, 102)

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Even after this plea, though, no help was forthcoming. As passengers continued to suffer these indignities, they realized that only if Gurdit Singh could leave the ship would they be able to find any recourse. Shortly after this letter was written, Daljit Singh wrote to Bhai Bhag Singh of the shore committee thanking them for raising the funds to pay the instalment to the Japanese ship owners. Daljit Singh implored them to “try for an early landing of Baba Gurdit Singh ji. Everything will be alright then. We will be in loss till Baba ji is a prisoner in this way” (quoted in Singh 2007, 89). But all attempts failed, and Gurdit Singh remained a prisoner on the ship along with the other passengers. To keep their spirits up, the dhadhi jatha (a group of “religious minstrels”) who were on board the ship sang religious hymns, and a path (“reading” or “recitation”) of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji (the central Sikh religious text) was recited morning, afternoon, and evening (Singh 2001). Soon after leaving Yokohama, two camps established themselves on the ship. The first was led by Dr. Raghunath Singh, the ship’s doctor, who complained about the inadequate facilities on the ship and blamed Gurdit Singh for creating disharmony among the passengers. The other camp sided with Gurdit Singh and included passengers dismayed when Dr. Singh handed over a long list of complaints against Gurdit Singh to Canadian immigration officials in Vancouver. He also ingratiated himself with these officials by giving information about seditious lectures on the ship and by providing information on the passengers – imperial authorities had always paid informants well. He separated himself from the passengers, and his ploy worked. He received preferential treatment and was allowed to disembark with his family on July 17, 1914, with no apparent reason given why he was chosen over all the others (Johnston 2013; Singh 2001). Dr. Singh signed a letter on July 7, 1914, to the ship’s lawyer to say that he was not part of the passengers whom Gurdit Singh represented: “I, Dr. Raghunath Singh do not agree, as I belong to the non-immigrant class” (quoted in Singh 2007, 99). While the passengers suffered much indignity and personal strife on the ship, any alliances on shore for their plight were along ethnic (Indian) lines only. No good news from the ship was reaching the communities of people who watched this spectacle unfold before them. The media were merciless in their reporting. They regularly used racial slants and racial overtones, often fanned by highly charged imperialist comments by public officials, such as the premier of British Columbia,

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Sir Richard McBride. He claimed that “to admit Orientals in large numbers would mean in the end the extinction of the white peoples and we have always in mind the necessity of keeping this a white man’s country” (quoted in Singh 2001, 45). According to Gorman (2006, 169), the “social identity of whiteness drove the political discourse of citizenship in the settlement colonies.” In writing about social justice, Rajender Kaur (2012) suggests that the policies of oppression of and violence against nonwhites were morally and ethically justified in the British Empire under a fabled assumption of superiority. Rajini Srikanth (2002, 81) concurs: “The whites had started to create a racial consciousness of their whiteness as being separate and superior to other races – Gurdit Singh’s challenge flaunted their own preoccupation with their race.” Overt and discriminatory white Canadian nationalism was normalized in the rhetoric of British imperialism. As Minister of Labour William Lyon Mackenzie King said at the time, “that Canada should desire to restrict immigration from the orient is regarded as natural, that Canada should remain a white man’s country is believed to be not only desirable for economic and social reasons but highly necessary on political and national grounds” (quoted in Gorman 2006, 166). Srikanth (2002) agrees in her assessment of mobilization by immigrants to Canada by suggesting that European settlers wanted to create a more homogeneous society based on European ideals, and there was no room for “Oriental” immigrants. As a nationalist, King thought that dominion autonomy was paramount, but he was also mindful of the obligations of imperial demands in relation to Asian members of the empire while rejecting intra-empire movement and travel (Price 2007–08; Singh 2007). That intra-empire movement was part of the coerced and voluntary migration, in what Madhavi Kale (1998) coins “imperial labour reallocation,” of hundreds of thousands of Indian men and women to serve the empire’s interests in the colonies between 1837 and 1917. King went so far as to say that it was not so un-Christian to want to sell men into slavery (Gorman 2006; Price 2007–08). By 1920, there were almost 1.3 million Indians working as indentured labourers in squalid conditions and below poverty subsistence throughout the Brit­ ish Empire, held under false licences that curtailed their travel back to India. The nature of British subjecthood for Indians was complex and perhaps not clearly understood by the Indian passengers on board the Komagata Maru. Two classes of citizenship were created in India: one for those born

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in the native states of India and one for those of European origin. They clearly demarcated the difference between non-European British subjects and British Protected Persons or BPPs. As Gorman (2006) notes, “neither BPPs nor non-European British subjects could become fully naturalized members of the Empire, thus precluding them from political equality with white subjects” (164). In the case of India, white became a privileged caste itself. Indian laws were often overridden to allow whites to enter and leave India freely, facing no travel barriers of any sort (164). But the reverse expectation was that, wherever Britain had jurisdiction (even at arm’s length), British law was applicable automatically to all its subjects if they could prove that Indigenous law was repugnant “to a statute or order applied in some special way to British subjects in a foreign country in question” (165). Imperialists were concerned with building homogeneous but not inclusive communities of settlement, in opposition to their own invasions and conquests across the globe. Imperial authorities believed that the importation of Chinese and Indian labour into South Africa, for example, upset the racial and cultural consensus of the empire. The idea of limiting citizenship within the empire was built on seeking homogeneity, not inclusion – based on a well-embedded mentality of cultural elitism and constitutional hegemony over nondominions. According to Gorman (2006, 160), “racist assumptions thus fed upon economic and cultural fears to create an environment particularly amenable to the implementation of discriminatory policies.” Creative ways were found in Canada to implement policies that would prevent migration from India – in particular the idea of the continuous journey, an impossibility of which policy makers were aware. Radhika Mongia (2003, 208) has correctly called this the policy of “racial exclusion without naming race.” In 1908, Deputy Minister of Labour King travelled to India as part of his trip to Asia to assure the British Raj that Canada would restrict movements of people from India while keeping in mind its colonial sensibilities (Price 2007–08). British officials such as Viceroy Lord Minto were satisfied with the measures taken by King on his return. Minto had warned the governor general of Canada that the British would do nothing to prevent Indians from attempting to migrate to Canada. However, he suggested that measures to restrict immigration would be up to the Canadian government and that physical fitness, possession of landing money, and so on could be used in legislation.1 King wrote in his report on returning from India that

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the liberty of British subjects in India is safeguarded rather than curtailed, the traditional polic[ies] of Britain in respect to the native races of India have been kept in mind, and the necessity of enacting legislation either in India or in Canada which might appear to reflect on fellow British subjects in another part of the empire has been wholly avoided.2

Laws were drafted to exclude immigrants at Canadian ports who did not meet the requirements. Two categories of people were created: “undesirables” and “desirables” (Kazimi 2012). It became obvious that, in the case of desirables coming from Europe, discretionary powers could be exercised, whereas Asians were to be blocked by whatever means were available to Canadian authorities. The mayor of Vancouver stated that “the East Indian is not a desirable citizen and when I say that I am backed by the public opinion” (quoted in Singh 2001, 69). Racial profiling and hate mongering directly underpinned laws and policies directed at prohibiting Indian migration. In May 1908, the Indian law that prohibited Indians from going to countries such as Canada, with which India did not have an agreement, left contract services intact – if they came of free will, then nothing could stop them. Minister of the Interior Frank Oliver addressed this by increasing the amount of cash that an immigrant needed. The figure was $200, an exorbitant amount that would be difficult for most people to procure.3 The clause exempted traders such as Gurdit Singh, preachers such as the dhadhi jatha on board the Komagata Maru, students (there were many on board), and any tourists and government officials (Singh 2007). The restrictions came at a time when there were unprecedented numbers of desired immigrants coming to Canada – 400,000 to be exact, almost all from Europe, and no restrictions were placed on their entry. Once news of the arrival of the Komagata Maru spread through Can­ ada, David Ross, a Saskatchewan farmer, wrote to the prime minister begging him to release the passengers because western farmers needed workers to harvest their grain. “Let western farmers sample the Sikhs, I beg of you. Let the coming ship-load of East Indians land after thorough physical inspection.” After personally seeing South Asians at work, he emphasized that “there are no finer men in Canada to-day than the Sikhs,” and he quoted from Lawson’s letter to show that, “in regard to their cleanliness,” most South Asians were socially suited for life in Can­

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ada. But no heed was paid to these pleadings (quoted in Wallace 2013, 41). The Komagata Maru arrived within this conflicted and highly charged environment. According to Sikh historian Bhagat Singh (2001, 64), it was not the immigration law that worked in Canada at the time; it was that intense racist feeling that pervaded the whole white scenario. So, in this situation the lawyers who had already been taking up the cases of Indians with great interest, refused to take the cases of the passengers of the KGM. The racist sentiment had superseded the law.

Gurdit Singh was undaunted by the reception that they received. He wrote to Canadian immigration official Malcolm Reid: “What is done with this shipload of my people will determine whether we shall have peace in all parts of the British Empire” (quoted in Sohi 2014, 108). And indeed the event fanned the embers of the nationalist Ghadar Movement already gathering steam in British Columbia and northwest coastal cities in the United States. As Johnston (2013) claims, it was what happened on the ship that made the passengers revolutionaries. Although it is evident that the Komagata Maru passengers were sympathetic to the Ghadar Movement, their primary goal was to fight the discriminatory immigration laws. Historians surmise that this incident was the beginning of the end of the British Empire as far as the Sikhs were concerned (Johnston 2013; Puri 1983). Although the passengers said over and over again that they had come to Canada obeying its laws and meeting its legal requirements, on June 24, 1914, white Canada’s immigration policy had become riddled with social opinion, which infected the sentiments of officials in charge of mak­ing decisions about the passengers' futures. Guards were posted to patrol the waters in armed boats to intimidate and secure compliance. Legal justice was denied when the passengers’ lawyer, Edward Bird, was not allowed to visit the ship to get legal instructions from his clients. Imperial authorities also circumvented their own laws. A letter to the editor of the Daily News Advertiser, published on July 10, 1914, written on behalf of the passengers, and signed by Harnam Singh, Vir Singh, Harman Singh, Sunder Singh, and Amar Singh, said that the “Immigration [D]ept. did not give us a single chance for our lawyer to come on board

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to see us and take our thoughts to plead our cause. For this, the Im­ migration Dept. is held responsible and we are quite blameless and have come here by all rights to land.”4 Gurdit Singh pleaded that as a merchant he should not be prohibited from landing. He told officials that he had “undertaken this enterprise for pecuniary benefits, not with a view to permanently settle in Canada. His fight was exclusively against racial discrimination and atrocious immigration laws” (Singh 2001, 72). Even Singh’s letter of July 8, written in a conciliatory and pleading tone, and asking for provisions, was ignored: I have the honour to inform you that we have neither provisions nor water on board. Our provisions ran short from this morning and the water too shall be finished tomorrow. I request you, therefore, that you may please arrange to send the both things today. I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient servant. Signed: Daljit Singh Secretary to charterer. (SFU 2011a)

A.H. MacNeill, one of the lawyers for the passengers, wrote to the prime minister: “The attitude of the local immigration people and local politicians was such as not to admit to any negotiations or settlements on any terms. The whole matter could have been very readily avoided by the exercise of some slight degree of diplomacy and consideration for the people who were on board, as well as their friends on shore” (quoted in Singh 2001, 76). It quickly became obvious that tensions along racial lines instigated by government officials were not conducive to useful and conciliatory negotiations. Gurdit Singh also wrote to the king of Britain and the governor general of Canada about the lack of provisions, the prisoner-like conditions that confronted the passengers, and Malcolm Reid’s refusal to let supplies onto the ship. The imperial response from London, through the governor general, was that supplies were to be provided, lawyers were to be allowed to interview passengers, and cargo was to be removed. Imperial authorities feared the repercussions that denying the passengers the necessities of life might have for the crown (Singh 2007). While men on the ship fought for their basic human rights, the larger immigration ban continued on shore, where discriminatory laws prevailed against Indian women and their children.

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The gendered narrative of South Asian immigration continued with a ban preventing women from joining spouses, which became the source of much intelligence gathering and fear mongering (Buchignani and Indra 1985). Immigration agent J.D. Scott wrote to the Immigration Branch that “the coming of their women is the occasion of a certain amount of apprehension and will doubtless lead to trouble” (SFU 2011b). The prospect of permanent residence associated with a settled family fuelled racial apprehensions among people of European descent already living in Canada with their families intact (Buchignani and Indra 1985). Having created permanent spaces for their own kind, their aversion to the “Oriental” was widespread. Rumours about new immigrants not being able to find work and being unsuited to the climate were refuted by leaders such as Teja Singh who told officials to send any person looking for charity to them (SFU 2011c). The entire story of the Komagata Maru tragedy is rooted in resistance struggles, opposition to racial oppression and prejudice, political activism, and personal stories of justice denied. Bhagwan Singh Jakh had been a political activist in Hong Kong as the priest of the local gurdwara. A year before the Komagata Maru sailed into Vancouver, he arrived on the Empress of Russia in 1913 under a false name. He soon started lecturing at the local gurdwara and calling for a fight for independence among the local Sikhs. Canadian spy William Hopkinson had figured out his true identity and waited for the opportunity to deport him once the Empress of Russia arrived again in the harbour. Hopkinson had obtained statements from the Chinese crew about his true identity. Twice he tried to deport Bhagwan Singh, but the courts intervened; in the end, though, Singh was arrested and forcibly deported even while lawyers tried desperately to secure his release. Vancouver lawyer T.R.E. McInnes wrote to Prime Minister Robert Borden that it would have been better if Reid had “deported a hundred hindus than this priest Bhagwan Singh” (quoted in Johnston 1989, 21).5 He knew that public sentiment about this callous and vindictive move would alienate Indians both in Canada and in India, yet his racial antagonism overrode his caution. While Hopkinson and others conspired to weaken the Indian com­ munity in British Columbia, the Immigration Act and the order-in-council of January 8, 1908, demanding a continuous journey would be put to the test by a panel of five judges, deciding on the test case of Munshi Singh (Singh 2001, 71). Munshi Singh was chosen by Gurdit Singh as a test case

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for all 376 passengers on the ship. Since the case was denied, Gurdit Singh had no option but to leave because appeals to higher courts would not happen until October that year. He demanded provisions, but the grave impact of the crisis on the British Raj was not understood by locals or imperial immigration officials, content to evict the ship in a show of force backed by racially charged antagonism. The minister of agriculture was summoned to the coast by the prime minister to diffuse tensions and to find a less volatile solution. What kept the whole situation from deteriorating into an armed conflict under Reid, Hopkinson, and MP H.H. Stevens was the cynical imperial view that the British Raj would suffer in India if blood was shed in Canada (Singh 2001). Viceroy of India Lord Hardinge made no mention of the contributions of Indians or the hardships faced by passengers – “his” British subjects. Instead, in his letter to Prime Minister Borden, he noted the $4,000 worth of provisions supplied by the government. He stated that the government of India watched the entire Komagata Maru incident but that there was no reason for it to intervene (Singh 2001, 78). This letter unmoored the ship and its passengers from their rightful place in Canada by the undignified and immoral nationalist imperial agenda of exclusion. The passengers were eventually turned over to imperial authorities in India, who meted out an injustice that further solidified the nationalist movement in India and abroad. When the Komagata Maru was escorted out of Vancouver Harbour at 5:10 a.m. on July 23, 1914, accompanied by the heavy military presence of the HMS Rainbow, it left in its wake a community torn apart by racial conflict and an empire that would soon see the sun set on its vast ambitions. Imperial itineraries of nationalism, deception, and racism had shaped and defined the experiences of 376 passengers and a few nations worldwide, creating a historically significant moment in Canadian history that still seeks positioning within a larger discourse of race and deception at work in the empire. It also gave a powerful stimulus to the anti-imperial propaganda awakening national consciousness in the hearts of Indians in both India and the diaspora. The imperial forces at play in Canada, India, and Southeast Asian colonies such as Hong Kong came together to end the wishes of a few hundred British subjects to settle in Canada. While passengers aboard the Komagata Maru attempted to persuade Canadian authorities, they endured many hardships as the ship sat in Burrard Inlet in Vancouver. Regardless of

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the particular nature of this one ship, the larger imperial mission was to be protected at all costs, and it was unfortunate that in Canadian waters the Komagata Maru passengers faced the full brunt of persecution under the law.



Notes 1 See Minto’s letter on the website dedicated to the Komagata Maru journey, http:// komagatamarujourney.ca/node/11024. 2 See the full text of King’s report after his mission to India, https://archive.org/stream/ reportbywlmacken00cana_2/reportbywlmacken00cana_2_djvu.txt. 3 See the website dedicated to the Komagata Maru journey, http://komagatamarujourney. ca/node/11158. 4 See the website dedicated to the Komagata Maru journey, http://komagatamarujourney. ca/node/409. 5 Library and Archives Canada, Borden Papers, T.R.E. McInnes to Robert Borden, December 2, 1914. References Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 2013. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge. Bains, Satwinder. 2013. “When Old Becomes New and the Telling Is Re-Told: Sikh Stories within Museum Walls.” In Diverse Spaces: Examining Identity, Heritage, and Community within Canadian Public Culture, edited by S. Ashley, 170–87. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press. Buchignani, Norman, and Doreen Indra (with R. Srivastava). 1985. Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Ferguson, Ted. 1975. A White Man’s Country: An Exercise in Canadian Prejudice. Toronto: Doubleday. Gorman, Daniel. 2006. Imperial Citizenship: Empire and the Question of Belonging. Man­ chester: Manchester University Press. Isemonger, F.C., and J. Slattery. 1913. The Gadhar Conspiracy: Confidential Intelligence Report. New Delhi: Archives on Contemporary History, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Johnston, Hugh. 1989. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar. Vancouver: UBC Press. –. 2013. “The Komagata Maru and the Ghadr Party: Past and Present Aspects of a Historic Challenge to Canada’s Exclusion of Immigrants from India.” BC Studies 178: 9–31. Kale, Madhavi. 1998. Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Migration in the British Caribbean. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Karatani, Rieko. 2003. Defining British Citizenship: Empire, Commonwealth, and Modern Britain. London: Frank Cass. Kaur, Rajender. 2012. “The Komagata Maru in History and Literary Narrative: Cultural Memory, Representation, and Social Justice.” South Asian Popular Culture 10, 2: 151–65. Kazimi, Ali. 2012. Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru – Illustrated History. Toronto: Douglas and McIntyre.

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Komagata Maru Passengers Committee. 1914. Letter to the Editor. Daily News Advertiser [Vancouver], July 10, 1. http://komagatamarujourney.ca/node/10426. Mongia, Radhika. 2003. “A History of the Passport.” In After the Imperial Turn: Thinking with and through the Nation, edited by Antoinette Burton, 527–55. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ollivier, Maurice, ed. 1954. Conference Proceedings for the 1911 Imperial Conference, the Col­ onial and Imperial Conferences from 1887–1937, Vol. III Imperial Conferences Part II. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. Porter, Andrew, ed. 1999. Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol 3: The Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Price, John. 2007–08. “‘Orienting’ the Empire: Mackenzie King and the Aftermath of the 1907 Race Riots.” BC Studies 156–57: 53–81. Puri, Harish. 1983. Movement: Ideology, Organization, and Strategy. Amritsar, India: Guru Nanak Dev University Press. Simon Fraser University (SFU). 2011a. Komagata Maru: Continuing the Journey (digital archive). http://komagatamarujourney.ca/node/409. –. 2011b. “Letter from Passengers Committee to Reid re: Placement in Alberta.” http:// komagatamarujourney.ca/node/408. –. 2011c. “J.H. MacGill, Immigration Agent, Letter to William D. Scott, Superintendent of Immigration, re: Rumour in Hindu Community of Women Emigrating Soon.” March 18. http://komagatamarujourney.ca/node/8958. –. 2011d. “Letter from Teja Singh, Manager of Guru Nanak Mining Company, to J.H. MacGill.” December 29, 1908. http://komagatamarujourney.ca/node/9888. Singh, Bhagat Singh. 2001. Canadian Sikhs through a Century (1891–1997). Delhi: Gyan Sagar Publications. Singh, Gurdit S. (1928) 2007. Voyage of Komagata Maru, or India’s Slavery Abroad. Chan­ digarh, India: Unistar Books and Punjab Centre for Migration Studies. Sohi, Seema. 2014. Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America. London: Oxford University Press. Srikanth, Rajini. 2002. “The Komagata Maru: Memory and Mobilization among the South Asian Diaspora in North America.” In Re/Collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History, edited by J. Lee, I.L. Lim, and Y. Matsukawa, 78–93. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Wallace, Sarah Isabel. 2017. “Komagata Maru Revisited: ‘Hindus,’ Hookworm, and the Guise of Public Health Protection.” BC Studies 178: 33–50. Waraich, Malwinder Singh, and Gurdev Singh Sidhu, eds. 2005. Komagata Maru: A Challenge to Colonialism: Key Documents. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books. Ward, Peter. 2002. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Part 2 Migration Regimes in Colonial Contexts

4

The Komagata Maru as Event Legal Transformations in Migration Regimes Radhika Mongia

I first published an essay that addressed aspects of the fateful voyage of the Komagata Maru twenty years ago (Mongia 1999). I organized the essay to illuminate the piecemeal and chequered legal history of the modern passport, and I analyzed the debates provoked by Canadian demands to restrict Indian immigration as a crucial part of this history. In this earlier essay, I positioned the Komagata Maru incident, if briefly, as something of the denouement of a complex and labyrinthine story that would instigate a radical transformation in legal thinking and attendant policy with the government of (British) India ultimately acquiescing to a system of passports after having objected to it for ten years. Aiming to defamiliarize our current migration regime, which treats a nation-state monopoly over international migration as legitimate, noncontentious, and commonplace, I foregrounded the place of migration in the transformation of a world dominated by empire-states into a world dominated by nation-states.1 Here, in the spirit of commemoration that animates this volume, I return to some of those arguments to reiterate their significance and draw out in more detail the legal transformations provoked by the Komagata Maru. As we know, when the Komagata Maru arrived on the shores of British Columbia in May 1914, its Indian passengers were prohibited from disembarking. They were not, however, summarily turned away; instead, they were detained on the ship for two months as a series of convoluted legal, extralegal, and illegal machinations unfolded. It is also well known that the refusal to permit the Indian passengers entry into Canada was a clear instance of racial discrimination. However, though predicated on racial thinking, the legal basis of the decision to refuse entry did not – and could 95

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not – cite race as the reason. Alongside the impossibility of citing race as the basis for differential treatment was another acute problem: within existing legal frameworks and migration regimes, the authority of Can­ ada to prevent the immigration and the authority of India to prevent emigration were both severely constrained. Important questions that require close examination are thus crystallized in the Komagata Maru episode. Why was the law hampered in utilizing race as a basis for differential treatment? How was the law crafted to make race-based distinctions with­­­­­out citing race? Which norms of migration regulation prevailed? Which principles served as their premise? How did the unique pressures of an imperial world shape these principles? How and why did migration regimes change in the early twentieth century? To address these questions, here I examine the legal terrain that constituted the conditions of possibility for the voyage of the Komagata Maru, why it would take two months and many negotiations before the ship and its passengers were escorted out of Vancouver Harbour and dispatched to India, and how the incident would provoke a dramatic change in the legal premises of migration control – from a regime subtended by the overarching principle of free mobility into a regime that authorized the legitimacy of restriction and prohibition. Understanding the prior legal terrain necessitates an engagement with the debates and regulations concerning the nineteenth-century migration of Indians following the abolition of slavery in British plantation economies. Migration scholarship, as David Eltis (1997, 90) notes, has shown a marked tendency to study indentured and nonindentured (or “free”) migration as distinct and unrelated streams, a tendency also evident in the study of Indian migrations. However, as we will see, there are intimate legal links between indentured and free Indian migration. In fact, to my mind, we cannot grasp the full import of the challenge posed by the Komagata Maru without an understanding of the prior legal terrain of Indian migration control devised, in the main, to address indentured migration. Approaching the Komagata Maru as constituting what William Sewell (1996, 262) calls an “event” – “a relatively rare subclass of happenings that significantly transform structures” – is useful for understanding these legal and institutional changes. For Sewell, among the effects or changes that could be caused by events “is a transformation in the cultural categories that organize human action” (263). Events need not be moments of radical rupture. Instead, they could be path dependent: “That is, that what happened at

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an earlier point in time will affect the possible outcomes of a sequence of events occurring at a later point in time” (264). My analysis here suggests that the Komagata Maru constitutes an “event” that transformed the logic and the institutional axis on which migration was controlled. It was an event, moreover, crucially shaped by a set of path dependencies that constrained and enabled particular outcomes. The legal narrative that I present will demonstrate the links between the abolition of plantation slavery, the workings of Indian indenture, and the making of national subjects as a set of temporal path dependencies that decisively shaped the Komagata Maru episode and, in turn, caused a transformation in the cultural (and legal) categories that organize human action. This legal narrative, moreover, unequivocally directs our attention to illuminating the spatial global networks of colonial rule that the editors urge in their introduction to this volume. Slavery, Indenture, and Free Migration On August 1, 1834, following the British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, Britain adopted a method for the gradual abolition of slavery in its colonies. The method bound the recently emancipated slaves to a plantation under a system of apprenticeship for a period of six years, later reduced to four years. Thus, 1838 marks the formal end of slavery in the British plantation economies. Well before the apprenticeship program began, plantation owners in Mauritius and the Caribbean were anxious about the feasibility of emancipated slaves providing a continued source of la­ bour on the plantations. More significantly, they were worried about how to expand their enterprises without a concomitant increase in the supply of labour.2 Hence, in addition to an increase in the illicit slave trade (of both Africans and Indians), the planters in Mauritius arranged for labour from India.3 Between 1834 and 1839 (i.e., the period of apprenticeship), more than 20,000 Indians arrived in Mauritius.4 In fact, on August 1, 1834, the date that emancipation came into effect, the ship Sarah sailed into the harbour at Mauritius carrying thirty-nine Indian migrants.5 For a brief initial period, this migration was not subject to any systematic state involvement. However, coming as it did on the heels of slavery, from the outset the migration was plagued by concerns regarding the “freedom” of the migrants. Hence, as early as 1835, when the migration to Mauritius was gaining momentum, the Court of Directors of the East India Company (in charge, at the time, of British administration in India),

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in an effort to ensure freedom, stipulated that “intending emigrants [were] to appear before a magistrate and satisfy him of their freedom of choice and knowledge of the circumstances of the case.”6 This oversight of a private contractual arrangement did not diminish state anxiety about the migrants’ freedom. In 1836, the colonial government, while recognizing “the inexpediency of throwing impediments in the way of free emigration of the native Indian labourer,”7 asked the Law Commission in India to give the matter its “serious consideration” and to determine “whether any further security can be afforded to these people against ill-treatment than is provided for by the existing orders.”8 The Law Commission thought that extensive legislation and regulation were unwise and unnecessary: No legislation is advisable, except ... such as have already been made, to prevent undue advantage being taken of the simplicity and ignorance of [these] persons ... If sufficient care be taken to ascertain that every essential point is provided for in the engagements [i.e., the contracts] ... it does not appear to the Commissioners that there is anything more which the Gov­ ernment of this country can reasonably be expected to do for the protection of [this] class of persons.9

It was along the lines of such minimalist state involvement that the first piece of legislation regulating the movement of indentured Indian labourers was ratified by Parliament in 1837. Though, over the course of the nineteenth century, the regulation of Indian indentured migration would blossom into a massive, micromanaged, state-controlled enterprise, even this minimalist state oversight of private contracts constituted a radical departure from prevailing practice. In asking for the recommendations of the Law Commission in India, the colonial government had stated that “it is to be observed, that this practice [of regulating migration] has no foundation in any existing law, but was prescribed by [an] order of Government on the first case coming under its notice.”10 The prevailing common sense through most of the nineteenth century, in keeping with overarching laissez-faire thinking, was one in which free mobility was the normative view. In this context, even as regulations were proposed and implemented, they were simultaneously challenged, leading to intense debates among state, quasi-state, and nonstate participants that circulated between England, India, Mauritius, and the

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Caribbean. Whereas some were preoccupied with questioning the legal basis of state authority to monitor free migration, others remained skeptical about the freedom of the migrants. Debates that began in 1835 were not resolved until 1842, when state control was justified on the grounds that the peculiar situation of the abolition of slavery in the plantation economies combined with colonialism in India and “the character of the [Indian] natives” warranted an exception to general principles regarding free movement.11 The uniqueness of the circumstances produced a lasting paradox: the state regulated “free” migration precisely to ensure that it was “free.” Thus was instituted the practice of Indian indentured migration under a state-supervised contract that would continue for almost a century, until its legislative termination in 1920. Crucial to these nineteenth-century state regulations was what the documents called the “necessary ignorance” of the “class of persons” who might engage in indenture. The regulations did not extend to those not deemed “necessarily ignorant” or in danger of being duped. Indeed, until the early twentieth century, arms of the empire-state monitored only the movement of indentured Indian labour and did not interfere with the migration of those not participating in the indenture system. In fact, within the law, the terms “emigrate,” “emigration,” and “emigrant” referred only to indentured labour. Thus, Act XXI of 1883, the definitive Indian emigration regulation until 1915, states that “‘Emigrate’ and ‘Emigration’ denote the departure by sea out of British India of a native of India under an agreement to labour for hire in some country beyond the limits of India other than the island of Ceylon or the Straits Settlements.”12 Over time, the term “to labour” had been interpreted as “manual labour,” thus exempting a host of emigrants ranging from soldiers to those from the wealthier classes. In addition, the act specified, expressly, the countries to which one could “emigrate.” As such, state control over “emigration” covered only the large-scale movement of indentured labourers to specific destinations, such as Mauritius, the Caribbean, South Africa, Fiji, and so on. Given the nature of the legislation, those who did not contract to labour prior to embarking on their journeys, or those not engaged in “manual labour,” or those whose destination was not among the specified destinations of “emigration” (including Ceylon and the Straits Settlements) were not deemed “emigrants” and could travel unhindered, especially between parts of the British Empire. As a consequence, the initial paradox of

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regulating “free” migration precisely to ensure that it was “free” would yield the further paradoxical situation of what we can call “more free, free” migration. Within the history of Indian migration regulations, it was only with the increased movement of nonindentured – or more free, free – migrants to several white-settler colonies (e.g., South Africa, Australia, Canada, Argentina, and the United States) in the first decades of the twentieth century that we witness vigorous demands to extend state control to cover all types of movement. The explicit aim of these demands, to restrict and prohibit migration on racial grounds, was of a piece with broader antiAsian sentiment, policy, and legislation across these jurisdictions that conceived the settler colony as racially white. Although there was a similarity across states in the demand for white-only settlement, the legal and other mechanisms mobilized to achieve this outcome, their levels of success, and their impacts varied widely. Racial discrimination in immigration was implemented through a host of mechanisms that emerged from the unique circumstances of each case and included various innovations: the imposition of a head tax; the prescription of education/literacy tests; specifications regarding identity documents; precise regulations concerning the trajectories of voyages; and “gentleman’s agreements” of compromise between states on imposing restrictions on emigration. The mechanisms deployed were occasioned by context-specific social, political, and economic conditions that spoke to and utilized differing – sometimes conflicting – legal logics and justifications. The particular mechanisms mobilized in Canada to restrict Indian migration are especially important since they both encapsulated and helped to precipitate wider change in the legal – we might even say doctrinal – thinking on migration control. The Komagata Maru, I argue here, constituted an event that effected a transformation in the cultural, legal, and policy frameworks of migration. I have recounted the circumstances produced by the abolition of slavery that resulted in the colonial Indian state regulating specific migration streams under a set of circumscribed conditions. Simultaneously, the colonies that were the migrants’ destinations also introduced laws, rules, and regulations that pertained exclusively to indentured migration. In India, the legal justification for the specific regulations that emerged, encapsulated in Act XXI of 1883, spoke to the paternalism of the state to ensure that the migrants were free. Between 1842 (when indentured migration

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to Mauritius was resumed after a suspension) and the close of the nineteenth century (when it had been extended to a range of colonial sites), a large and complex bureaucracy to manage the migration had emerged (Mongia 2018; Tinker 1974). Even as this bureaucracy generated an everexpanding universe of minute rules and regulations that sought to address the unending reports of gross violation and acute exploitation, the basic legal premise of the system remained unchanged: namely, the unique conditions attendant on the abolition of slavery justified an exception to the general principle of unhindered, free migration, in the specific and limited case of indentured migration. The protracted ten-year debate, between 1906 and 1915, on how to restrict Indian migration to Canada, while activating new idioms and producing new practices, was decisively shaped and constrained by this pre-existing legal regime that governed migration. Race and the Dilemmas of Free Migration Canadian attempts to prevent Indian migration would resort, over the years, to different legal tactics. In November 1905, with “some 2,000 people from Northern India” in British Columbia, Canada made initial attempts to curtail the migration under its pre-existing migration regulations.13 In a telegram, the governor general claimed that the migrants “had doubtless come under misrepresentation as they are not suited to climate, and there is not sufficient field for their employment. Many in danger of becoming public charge[s] and thus subject to deportation under law of Canada.”14 A year later, in November 1906, the government of Canada issued a memorandum “discouraging” Indian migration on grounds that reiterated the governor general’s concerns about the climate, the possibility of destitution, and thus subsequent deportation. However, fears of widespread destitution did not materialize, thwarting the possibility of mass deportation. Furthermore, though the memorandum was circulated and might well have discouraged some, it did not bring the migration to a halt; a small yet steady flow of Indian migrants from varied locales continued to arrive in Canada. Thus, in 1907, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier offered two options for the consideration of the Colonial Office in London and the government of India to stymie, if not entirely cease, the migration. The first was a monetary requirement of $200 for each immigrant seeking entry into Canada. For Laurier, this amount was deemed “necessary to

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avert real suffering and distress and consequently would appear to us to be called for in the best interests of humanity.”15 The second option was the adoption of a system of passports that met three conditions: “1) [to] prohibit Hindoos [sic] from going to Canada without passports, 2) to limit the number of passports issued to a number agreed upon by the Gov­ ernments of Canada and India, and 3) to request [the] Government of Canada to deport all Hindoos [sic] arriving at Canadian ports without passports.”16 Laurier’s suggestions did not represent an innovation in Canadian migration control. As tactics of prohibition, Canada had already imposed a “head tax” on Chinese migrants and had concluded a “gentleman’s agreement” with Japan, whereby Japan would restrict the number of emigrants to 400 annually (via a system of passports).17 The passport here functioned less as a document of identity and more as what we now know as a quota system for visas.18 Laurier’s attempt to utilize these preexisting strategies of prohibition with regard to Indians met with mixed success. The viceroy of India rejected the passport system, writing in a telegram that we recognize peculiar difficulties of Canadian Government and appreciate the conciliatory attitude with which it has approached this difficult question, but after very careful consideration, regret we are unable to agree to any proposal for placing in India restrictions such as are suggested on emigration of free Indians or to suggest any further action on our part to check it. Any such measure would be opposed to our accepted policy: and it is not permissible under Indian Emigration Act XXI of 1883 ... In present state of public feeling in India we consider legislation of this kind to be particularly inadvisable.19

I omit here details of the “present state of public feeling in India” that, in 1908, was becoming deeply anticolonial and nationalist. I also omit a dis­ cussion of the intensifying overt and covert popular and official racism toward “Asiatics” and “Orientals” in Canada.20 A fuller discussion of these points is beyond the scope of this chapter. What remains important to recall is that, as emigration became a more central element in Indian politics and anticolonial demands, the government of India wanted to avoid situations such as legislative measures that expressly discriminated against Indians qua Indians. While rejecting the passport proposal, the viceroy suggested that Canada instead pursue suitably disguised methods

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of racial discrimination to curtail the immigration. For instance, it could “require certain qualifications such as physical fitness ... and the possession of a certain amount of money.”21 For its part, the government of Canada mobilized the entire governmental machinery of empire, from Canada and Hong Kong to the different district authorities of India, to inquire into every aspect of the migration. A report on the character of “the Hindus” was prepared by the minister of the interior of Canada; a secret agent was employed to infiltrate the Anti-Asiatic League of Canada to determine its support base and funding source; authorities in Hong Kong were directed to provide information on every ship that sailed, including details of the number of Indians on board and their financial situations; reports on the factors encouraging the migration were elicited from the government of India; ethnographies of the immigrants themselves were carried out to understand their motivations; the role of shipping companies in assisting the traffic was assessed; and William Lyon Mackenzie King, then deputy minister of labour (later a long-serving prime minister of Canada), was dispatched for secret consultations with the colonial government in London on “the subject of immigration from the Orient and the immigration from India in particular.”22 In short, the presence of some 2,000 Indians in Canada instigated an elaborate fact-finding mission. The knowledge amassed through this exercise yielded a small yet crucial piece of information: authorities learned that a proportion of Indian immigrants to Canada were reimmigrants who had worked in a country other than India and went to Canada having heard that livelihoods, if not fortunes, could be made there. Otherwise, the bulk of the immigrants came from the Indian province of Punjab. With this detailed information in hand, on January 8, 1908, British Columbia passed an ingenious and notorious order-in-council stating that “immigrants shall be prohibited landing [in Canada], unless they come from [their] country of birth or citizenship by continuous journey, and on through tickets purchased before starting.”23 This order effectively prevented both reimmigrant Indians and immigrants coming directly from India to enter Canada: the former since they did not come from what was deemed their “country of birth or citizenship,” the latter due to the concerted, and successful, pressure exerted by the Canadian and imperial governments on shipping companies to cease selling “through tickets” to Indians. While companies continued to sell “through tickets” to Europeans (Johnston 2014, 17), they eventually

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terminated their services due to financial unviability.24 In this way, private businesses were also incorporated into an increasingly dense, if covert, web of active racial discrimination. The precise wording of the initial Continuous Journey Regulation is significant for what it reveals about making and implementing laws. Directly following the announcement of the regulation, a Russian and a Frenchman were denied admission into Canada since they had not come by “continuous journey” from their “country of birth or citizenship” but from Japan. Under the regulation of January 8, both were disallowed entry into Canada. They would have been deported had it not been for the intervention of US immigration officials at Vancouver “glad to pass them on into the United States.” Recounting the incident to Prime Min­ ister Wilfrid Laurier, the secret agent, T.R.E. McInnes, commented that “I, of course, have no status to advise in such a matter, but I know that the Regulation was never intended to be enforced in this absurd manner.” He recommended that the regulation be reworded to state that immigrants “may be prohibited [from landing] – not shall be.”25 The aim of the regulation was specifically to prevent the entry of Indians into Canada. Its original phrasing, combined with the bureaucratic logic of the state functionaries, led to the unintended consequence of its implementation in what McInnes called an “absurd manner.” The regulation was immediately reworded and enabled officials to exercise discretion and thereby permit the entry of white immigrants regardless of where they embarked on their journeys. The correspondence surrounding the regulation enables us to see the machinations involved in interweaving racism and juridical liberalism. The efficacy of the unnamed racist strategy of the law was dependent on bureaucratic discretion, with the exercise of that discretion crucial to maintaining the spirit, as opposed to the letter, of the law. The introduction of caveats and the necessary bureaucratic discretion that they entail have become increasingly important parts of current legal regimes, particularly in domains such as migration law. Such caveats serve as a way to incorporate exceptions in/to the rule and shield decisions on such exceptions from judicial review.26 As with several other contemporaneous legal measures undertaken by different white-settler states, the Continu­ ous Journey Regulation embodied the “open secret” of racial thinking in the law: without knowledge of the particular contexts that shaped laws

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and regulations, their racist rationale was obscured. Moreover, once admitted into legislation, courts and judges largely committed themselves simply to implementing the law rather than interrogating either its motivation or its legitimacy. However, the possibility of such an interrogation always remained, haunting the legitimacy and efficacy of the law. In addition to the Continuous Journey Regulation, Canada pursued the government of India’s suggestion, mentioned earlier, that it follow strategies of selective racial discrimination without naming race as such. In this spirit, and via another order-in-council, Canada imposed a requirement of $200 on Indian immigrants. The Continuous Journey Regulation combined with the monetary requirement made the entry of Indians into Canada virtually impossible. In fact, between 1909 and 1913, only twentyseven Indians managed to enter Canada (Tinker 1976, 29). These immigrants successfully established that they were returning immigrants with Canadian domicile. The Canadian government, however, continued to press for the adoption of a passport system that would limit the number of Indian emigrants, along the lines of its 1907 proposal, since it was evident that the Continuous Journey Regulation constituted a crude, stopgap measure whose efficacy could crumble for a number of reasons.27 But the government of India maintained that it was unable to alter the emigration legislation and declined to be party to measures “which would publicly identify us with the policy of exclusion of Indians from other portions of the Empire.”28 The Unmaking of the Empire-State Two fundamental issues were at stake in the Canadian proposals. The first issue was that they represented a stark divergence from the principle of free movement that characterized the government of India’s position. State control of indentured migration to specific colonies, as I detailed earlier, was an exception to this general principle. The second issue was the very legitimacy of the British Empire, which had come to rest crucially on the definition of the term “British subject.” The conundrum was how to distinguish between British subjects – members of a single, expansionist state – without calling the entire edifice of the empire into question. The regulations implemented attempted to retain the appearance of an unfissured imperial citizenship and keep intact the status of the British subject. As the intricacies involved in using a racist strategy without naming race

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were becoming increasingly complex and impossible to disguise, the difficulties with retaining the juridical appearance of an indivisible, unitary British subject were also exacerbated. Indians in Canada and elsewhere had, of course, seen through the thinly veiled strategies of racial exclusion and had vehemently and repeatedly protested the differential treatment that they received. For instance, directly following the regulations in 1910, Indians in Canada had sent a petition to the colonial government that questioned both the monetary requirement and the Continuous Journey Regulation; argued that “as long as we are British subjects any British territory is the land of our citizenship”; and demanded their “rights as British subjects with all the emphasis it can command.”29 They went further than mere petitioning. Among the Indian immigrants in Canada were several who had been involved in revolutionary politics in India, and many had left India to es­cape arrest for “terrorist” activities.30 The temples, schools, and associations established by the Indian community in Canada also functioned as covers for “seditious” activities, including the publication of several newspapers and pamphlets circulated in North America and sent to India.31 William Hopkinson, the translation officer attached to the Can­ adian Immigration Office in Vancouver, simultaneously gathered inform­ ation on “seditious” Indians and was deeply enmeshed in a web of surveillance and intelligence activity on behalf of the governments of Canada, India, and the United States. The aim of the revolutionaries was unambiguous: to overthrow British rule in India – by violent means if necessary. Hence, these revolutionaries utilized every instance of differential treatment of Indians to undermine the British Empire and whip up support for their cause – not only in Canada but also, more significantly, in India. For others in the diaspora, the migration question revealed the deep contradictions of imperial identity; their loyalties hung on its resolution. Just a few months prior to the voyage of the Komagata Maru, in Sep­ tember 1913, the secretary of state for India in London once again asked the government of India to reconsider the Canadian passport proposal and thereby restrict Indian emigrants to a pre-agreed number.32 Yet again officials in India found Canadian anxiety misplaced, viewing the Con­ tinuous Journey Regulation as an adequate barrier to unfettered migration to Canada. Dismissing the possibility of a direct steamship from Calcutta to Vancouver as purely “hypothetical,” S.H. Slater, undersecretary to the

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government of India, wrote that “we should decline to be drawn into a statement of what we would do in hypothetical circumstances.”33 W.H. Clark concurred: “Apart from any other consideration, it would be a most reckless thing for us to commit ourselves to incurring all the odium of passing restrictive legislation at this juncture merely in view of the possibility of a through steamer communication being established with certain hypothetical results.”34 Thus, until September 1913, the government of India was steadfast in its refusal to participate in a system to restrict emigration to Canada grounded on the principle of “complete freedom for all British subjects to transfer themselves from one part of His Majesty’s dominions to another,” with Slater stating that “we have consistently declined to be parties to such a policy, and there seems no reason why we should abandon our attitude.”35 Reiterating its position from 1908 concerning the “state of public feeling in India,” the government of India warned that “the state of public feeling now [i.e., in September 1913] render[s] any such legislation even more undesirable ... If we attempted it, we should raise a storm of protest all over India; and without legislation we have no power to restrict free emigration.”36 By 1913, the situation of Indian emigrants to Canada and South Africa had become something of a political cause célèbre within India.37 In October 1913, even as officials in India were defending the principle of free movement within the empire, fifty-six Indians arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, aboard the Panama Maru. All claimed prior domicile as the basis for (re)admission into Canada. Hopkinson, the translator who doubled as the intelligence agent, let in seventeen whom he thought he recognized. The remaining thirty-nine immigrants were denied admission on the grounds that they had violated the orders-in-council. One of them escaped from the immigration hall where they were locked up (Johnston 2014, 20). Using the services of lawyer Edward Bird, the Indian community managed to challenge the decision of the Board of Inquiry of the Department of Immigration by demonstrating that the language of the orders-in-council, which had been cited to prohibit the thirty-nine immigrants from entering Canada, did not conform to the language of the Canadian Immigration Act of 1910. Since the orders-in-council had been used as the basis for denying admission to the Indians, and since they were not in consonance with the Immigration Act, the decision of the Board of Inquiry was rendered void.38 Thus, thirty-four of the remaining thirty-eight immigrants were allowed entry. Four were denied admission

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on medical grounds, but they too succeeded in running away from the immigration hall (Johnston 2014, 49). In sum, all fifty-six Indians who had arrived on the Panama Maru managed, in one way or another, to enter Canada. News of the court victory in the case of the passengers of the Panama Maru soon spread and, combined with a host of other factors, firmed the resolve of Sardar Gurdit Singh (a businessman and entrepreneur) to hire the Komagata Maru to sail from Hong Kong to Vancouver with stops at Shang­hai, China, and Moji and Yokohama, Japan.39 In all, the ship gathered 376 passengers, mostly Sikhs, and arrived off the coast of Vancou­­ver on May 23, 1914 ( Johnston 2014, 29–38). By then, the Canadian govern­ment had eliminated the dissonance between the orders-in-council and the Immigration Act that had allowed the passengers of the Panama Maru entry into Canada.40 However, there were still grave risks to test­ing, in court, the absurdity of the Continuous Journey Regulation or the sticky issues regarding the definition and legal entitlements of a British subject. The Komagata Maru as Event A growing body of scholarship has enriched our understanding of the myriad mundane and extraordinary elements that comprise the story of the voyage of the Komagata Maru, tracing the entangled series of events that preceded and shaped the voyage; elaborating the biographies of some of the chief actors, especially Gurdit Singh; exploring its place in relation to white Canadian nationalism and to Canadian immigration policy; delineating its complex articulations to a militant anticolonial Indian nationalism, particularly its links with the Ghadarites; and charting the reverberations of the event in diverse locales.41 I provide here only a sketch to focus our attention on the impact that it had on the legal thinking regarding migration control. The treatment of the passengers by Canadian immigration officials, working in concert with politicians at all levels of government (municipal, provincial, and federal), was inhumane and flagrantly violated legal norms and procedures. Malcolm Reid, the immigration agent at Vancouver, did not allow the ship to dock in Vancouver Harbour. He also disallowed meetings between Gurdit Singh and the Indian community living in British Columbia. However, the community had formed a “shore committee” and, as in the case of the Panama Maru, once again secured the legal services

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of Edward Bird to represent the passengers. At first, in circumvention – if not contravention – of the law, Reid delayed hearings of the Board of Inquiry. He then held hearings, but withheld any decision, regarding acceptance or deportation of the passengers so that there would be no decision to appeal in court. Eventually, at the end of June, more than a month after the Komagata Maru had arrived in Vancouver, Bird was allowed to bring a hastily prepared “test case” before the Board of Inquiry using one passenger as the proxy for all the passengers. That the board would decide against Munshi Singh, the passenger whom Bird selected as the representative, and order his deportation was a foregone conclusion. Bird and Reid agreed to the sequence of events that would follow the decision of the board: Bird would apply for a writ of habeas corpus and then proceed to file an appeal with the British Columbia Court of Appeal.42 (Perhaps further appeals could then be made to the Supreme Court of Canada and finally to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, the apex court that heard appeals from across the empire.) Gurdit Singh, stranded on board the Komagata Maru, was barely consulted about these rapidly changing developments. As was expected, the Board of Inquiry issued a deportation order for Munshi Singh – and thus all the passengers – and, as planned, the case went to the Court of Appeal. Bird lost the appeal, with the panel of judges upholding the Immigration Act and the orders-in-council. The passengers accepted the outcome, if reluctantly, and prepared to leave the Canadian coast. Even their impending departure resulted in complex wrangling about provisioning the ship for its journey back to Asia alongside escalating fears, among Reid and others, that the passengers would somehow attempt to reach the shore. Ultimately, with an array of several hundred armed mil­ itia men lined up on the pier, the Komagata Maru was escorted out of Vancouver Harbour on July 23, 1914, under the guard of the Rainbow and the immigration vessel the Sea Lion. On their return to India, the police confronted the passengers as seditionists, and nineteen were killed in the fracas that followed. Thirty-one were imprisoned, and the police closely watched those released. Twenty-seven, including Gurdit Singh, were fugitives. In 1922, he turned himself in to the police and spent five years in prison. This sketch does not capture the entwined threads of frantic government communication, of surveillance and intelligence, of community mobilization, of personality clashes, of loyalties and betrayals, of alarmist

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racist coverage in the press, and, most importantly, of the daily lives of the passengers stranded on the ship with insufficient food and water for two months in Vancouver Harbour or of their tragic fate in India. It also forgoes the intricate details of the staging and intrigue that attended the legal proceedings. Instead, I wish to turn to the dramatic and lasting changes that the Komagata Maru helped to catalyze in migration regimes. Although the ship had not sailed by continuous journey from India, its arrival indicated, in no uncertain terms, the practical fragility of the Con­ tinuous Journey Regulation as providing a strong bulwark against Indian migration. If not via the establishment of regular steamship service, the audacious journey executed by Gurdit Singh brought into the realm of the plausible that a ship could be chartered in India to sail to Canada. What Slater and Clark of the government of India had dismissed as the “hypothetical” imaginings of Canadian officials was now a real – and threatening – possibility. The Komagata Maru made apparent to officialdom that stronger measures than those embodied in the Continuous Journey Regulation and the $200 requirement needed to be devised to prevent Indian migration effectively. The Komagata Maru also provoked a deep contestation about and a striking redefinition of the terms “British subject” and “land of birth or citizenship,” both in Canada and in India. I alluded earlier to the claim advanced by Indians that, as British subjects, any British territory was the land of their birth or citizenship. This was not an idiosyncratic or tendentious claim; it was a valid interpretation that foregrounded an imperial world and posited the equality of British subjects. Part of the case mounted by Edward Bird (and his co-counsel, Robert Cassidy) was configured around the legal definition and entitlements of British subjects to interrogate the very legitimacy of the law: it posed the material question of whether Canadian law was, in fact, lawful in curtailing Indian migration. In a similar vein, they also questioned the legality of sweeping powers that the Canadian Immigration Act of 1910 delegated to the Board of Inquiry, wherein the legislation debarred appeals to a court of law and the board’s decisions could be appealed only to the minister of the interior. The five judges of the Court of Appeal were unanimous in upholding the Immigration Act and thus the deportation decision of the Board of Inquiry. Although the judges submitted individual judgments, when read collectively it is apparent that they were sufficiently rattled by the case to

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be at pains to establish that the Canadian Parliament did, in fact, have the power to make legislation of such reach. Most importantly, the nature of the judgments sought to alter the management of migration and narrow the conception of the British subject. Providing extensive interpretations of the 1867 British North America Act (which established the Dominion of Canada) and drawing on a range of precedents – collated, ironically, from across the British Empire (including a reading of the infamous, failed case of Phillipe v Eyre, which sought to make Governor Eyre responsible for the massacre during the 1865 Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica) – each judge detailed arguments to establish the sovereignty of the Canadian Parliament in matters of immigration.43 They also affirmed the legality of the lack of appeal to a court of law and proclaimed that Canada was within its rights to discriminate against, and differentiate between, British subjects. Chief Justice Macdonald explicitly asserted the power vested in the Canadian Parliament over immigration and declared that this power “include[d] the right to exclude British subjects not even excepting those born in the United Kingdom.”44 In other words, the court sought to establish – more through assertion than through demonstration – that the Canadian Parliament was within its rights to treat British subjects differentially. This understanding of the (potential) inequality of British subjects constituted a radical shift from the prevailing wisdom, whose justification came from extralegal spheres.45 As a consequence of the decision of the Court of Appeal, the Komagata Maru left Canada and sailed to India. Gurdit Singh planned to file an appeal with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; however, the events that followed his departure from the Canadian coast and the outbreak of the Great War waylaid his plan. According to Hugh Johnston (2014, 101), an argument regarding the equality of British subjects as the basis for free mobility within the empire would have “fared no better in the higher courts than in the BC Court of Appeal because this argument denied the sovereignty of the Canadian Parliament over immigration when law, precedent, and politics put it firmly in its control.” In his view, the only avenue that held the possibility of legal success was an argument based on matters of technicality and consistency, in the manner that passengers on the Panama Maru were allowed entry. In my view, Johnston attributes more stability to the nature of early-twentieth-century migration regimes than the circumstances warrant. Although the Canadian Par­lia­ ment had some control over immigration, the nature, extent, and legitimacy

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of such control were still in flux. Not imposing a clear, outright prohibition on Indian migration cannot be attributed, as Johnston suggests, to Laurier’s (initial) liberal view or to his personal willingness to aid the government of India in curbing the protests and political ramifications that such outright discrimination might have provoked in British India ( Johnston 2014, ch. 1). It is better attributed, I believe, to the recognition that the legitimacy of state control over all movement was a novelty in the early-twentieth-century world; that the category of British subject, though hierarchically organized, simultaneously posited equality as its premise; and that an imperial world constituted the dominant cognitive and political horizon, particularly for those in government. Indeed, if the matter were as straightforward as Johnston suggests, then it is difficult to understand the Komagata Maru as anything other than a completely misguided and misinformed voyage rather than as a serious challenge to an emerging – and still unstable – migration regime. If the legality of the legislation was settled and the outcome of its application guaranteed, then it is likewise difficult to understand the anxiety and uncertainty that beset Reid, the immigration inspector, causing him to select a path bordering on illegality rather than “processing” the passengers, confident in the knowledge that deportation was the assured outcome. Thus, contra Johnston’s view, the Munshi Singh case – we might call it the Komagata Maru case – was a landmark case in seeking to establish, rather than simply to reiterate, that the Canadian Parliament had the powers that the court attributed to it. In a similar line of reasoning, Christopher Moore (2010, 55–56) writes that these [i.e., the decisions of the court] were not entirely obvious conclusions in 1914. Formal Canadian citizenship did not exist until 1947, and the degree of Canada’s independence from Britain remained something of an open question until the Statute of Westminster in 1931 ... In Munshi Singh, however, the Court of Appeal found that Canada’s 1910 Immigration Act had created a Canadian citizenship from which other British subjects could be excluded. Few other judicial decisions of this period so starkly claimed Canadian sovereignty independent of British law and policy, and Munshi Singh would not be widely followed in Canadian constitutional cases.

It is therefore imperative that, as we traverse the legal terrain that structured the fate of the passengers aboard the Komagata Maru, we remain

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deeply cognizant of the extrajudicial determinations at work. Such extrajudicial forces were operative not only in Canada. As a result of the Komagata Maru, there was a volte-face by the government of India on the principle of free migration, particularly of British subjects between parts of the British Empire, which it had hitherto repeatedly invoked as the justification for nonintervention in emigration. In fact, Slater of the government of India, who in September 1913 had vehemently opposed any restriction on emigration, seven months later voiced a diametrically opposed position: Circumstances are now compelling a stricter definition of such phrases as ... “membership of the British Empire.” It is now conceded that such membership does not carry with it the right of free entry to all parts of the Empire. [Therefore,] in this narrower view ... it will no longer be held that every measure of exclusion of Asiatics from territories forming part of the Empire is necessarily and ipso facto an injustice to Indians.46

Slater’s remarks – widely echoed by officials of the government of India – point unambiguously to a radical change in legal and legislative thinking. Until 1914–15, state control of indentured migration to specific destinations was the only exception to free movement, whose object, let us recall, was precisely, if paradoxically, to affirm the general principle. For over seventy-five years, from about 1834 to the early twentieth century, the principle of unfettered movement had shaped the legislation of the government of India, with state control over indenture directed at facilitating and enabling, not constraining, the movement. The regulation of indentured migration, under the overarching principle of free movement, had decisively shaped the decade-long discussions and dissensions between India and Canada on devising mechanisms to prohibit migration to Canada without altering the legislative framework. As a consequence of the Komagata Maru event, the very rationales that organized migration would change. The challenge now was how to give practical and legislative effect to the changed thinking embodied in Slater’s remarks. How could prohibition of migration be achieved while averting widespread political protest of Indians across the globe? The comments of R.W. Gillian, also of the government of India, offer the clearest statement of the rationale to justify broader migration regulations. He pointed out that the government of India’s reluctance to interfere

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with free migration, though resting on the principle that “a British subject [had] a right to go and reside in any part of the Empire,” had a “double aspect.” On the one hand, the government had refused to interfere with free emigration from India; on the other, it had not balked at suggesting that different parts of the empire impose all manner of restrictions on immigration as long as their racist motivations were suitably disguised. This, wrote Gillian, “is what appears to me an inconsistency. We adhere to our policy, while abandoning the principle on which it has always rested.” Moreover, the intransigent position of the government of India could not, in his view, “be defended on its merits, since it denies in effect the right of our Colonies and even of other countries to settle their own affairs.” However, as Gillian continued, “if the right of Canada or Australia to manage their own affairs is admitted, what about India? If the right is denied to her, the result is immediately to emphasize her subjection in an extremely unfortunate manner.” What was required was a mechanism that would “secure some kind of reciprocity.”47 Also required, “above all things,” was “the appearance of giving equal treatment to British subjects residing in all parts of the Empire.”48 It was imperative to hold on vigorously to inscribing the letter of the law as universal while ensuring that, in practice, this universality would function differentially. The sine qua non of a resolution that had the appearance of “reciprocity” was the introduction of a notion of “nationality” into the regime of migration control. In fact, the early twentieth century was a critical moment in what we can call the “nationalization” of migration, whereby national identity becomes an increasingly important axis of and conduit for regulating mobility.49 Mobilizing a notion of nationality as an alibi for race was amenable to arguments of reciprocity and enabled covert racism. Nations could now engage in a reciprocal (if asymmetrical) discrimination against other nations, argue that every nation had the “inherent” right to institute such discrimination, and claim that it bore no relation to racial thinking.50 Encoding this radical transformation in migration control in terms of reciprocity between nations gained traction not only in official thinking. Reciprocity – or, more accurately, a retaliatory sentiment – also shaped nationalist Indian views on migration. For Indian nationalists, national honour and prestige could only be salvaged by imposing similar restrictions on immigration. Ian Fletcher (2014), in his survey of a range of publications, shows how arguments for reciprocity were central to nationalist demands to address the exclusion of Indians from parts of the British

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Empire. Ironically, then, the official and the nationalist views converged. The legal expression of this logic was an interim Reciprocity Resolution, eventually followed by the Reciprocity Act. In other words, the Komagata Maru was a watershed event that impelled rapid change in legal, institutional, and subjective registers that served to nationalize each domain. To be sure, it was not the only event to impel such a transformation. But the Komagata Maru, to borrow a felicitous formulation from Terrance Hopkins, was the “partial outcome of complex causes and the partial cause of complex outcomes” (quoted in Tomich and Zeuske 2008, 95). No “event,” however, is permanently guaranteed its “eventfulness.” Some, such as the Great War, were eventful as they occurred and continue to echo that eventfulness. Others, such as the sack of Rome in 425 CE, though profoundly eventful as they occurred, are now largely eventful only for specialists. The Indian “Mutiny” in 1857 congealed into an event as it unfolded and would haunt the workings of the British Empire – in India and elsewhere – for the next 100 years. The Haitian Revolution, an event (if “unthinkable” [Trouillot 1995]) at the time, was subsequently emptied of its eventfulness. In many ways, the Komagata Maru was a “small” event, with the challenge that it represented resonating with a host of similar challenges at the time. In large part, recent work on the kinds of questions that it throws up have made it amenable to being (re)produced as an event in our time. The spate of commemorative activities marking the centennial has been critical to producing its eventfulness in diverse registers, including as a cautionary tale regarding racial exclusion and migration regimes; as emblematic of global revolutionary activity; as a catalytic node in the formation of a militant anticolonial nationalism in India; and, as I have sought to show here, as a legal event that effected a transformation of the principles and institutional logics of migration control.





Notes 1 For details on the formulation of the “empire-state,” see Burbank and Cooper (2010) and Mongia (1999, 2012). 2 Madhavi Kale (1998, 56–65) suggests that historians have too readily accepted that slave emancipation led to a labour shortage caused by decreased participation of exslaves in plantation labour. By her account, the need for more labour can be attributed to the imperative to enhance sugar cultivation and production rather than to maintain it at the level reached before emancipation. 3 Although Britain had abolished the slave trade in 1808 and France in 1817, the volume of illicit traffic was large and continued for most of the nineteenth century (Schuler 1986).

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4 Petition to the Queen from Planters, Traders, and Other Inhabitants of Mauritius, May 18, 1839, Despatches from Sir W. Nicolay on Free Labour in Mauritius, and Introduction of Indian Labourers, Parliamentary Papers (House of Commons) 37, no. 58 (1840), 7. 5 Statement Showing the Number of Coolies Introduced Into the Colony from Calcutta, August 1, 1834, ibid., 41. 6 Report by Mr. Geoghegan on Coolie Emigration from India, Parliamentary Papers (House of Commons) 47, no. 314 (1874), 2. 7 Edward Lawford, Solicitor to the East India Company, to David Hill, June 12, 1838, Papers Respecting the East India Labourers’ Bill, India Office Library and Records. 8 Secretary to Colonial Office to Law Commissioners, India, May 25, 1836, quoted in ibid. 9 Response of Law Commissioners, quoted in Report by Mr. Geoghegan on Coolie Emigration from India, Parliamentary Papers (House of Commons) 47, no. 314 (1874), 3. It is perhaps worth noting that Thomas Babington Macaulay was the head of the Law Commission at the time. 10 Secretary to the Colonial Office to Law Commissioners, India, May 25, 1836, quoted in Edward Lawford, Solicitor to the East India Company, to David Hill, June 12, 1838, Papers Respecting the East India Labourers’ Bill, India Office Library and Records, 2. 11 For details on these debates and their resolution, see Mongia (2018, ch. 1). 12 Question Whether the Term “Emigrant” Applies to Soldiers Recruited in India Under Agreement With the Colonial Secretary for Service in Africa, February 1899, Home Department (Sanitary/Plague), Proceedings No. 114–17, National Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter NAI). 13 Copy of telegram (dated November 13, 1905) forwarded from Secretary of State, London, to Viceroy of India, November 19, 1906, Department of Commerce and In­ dustry (Emigration Proceedings – A), May 1907, Proceedings No. 7, Serial No. 1, NAI. 14 Ibid. 15 Telegram from Governor General of Canada to Secretary of State for the Colonies, received in the Colonial Office, November 11, 1907, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), February 1908, Proceedings No. 18–33, NAI. 16 Ibid. 17 For details on Chinese and Japanese migration, see Chang (2008) and McKeown (2008). 18 For an examination of the passport as a document of identity in the Indian context, see Singha (2013). For other important treatments of the development of passports, see Robertson (2010) and Torpey (2000). 19 Telegram from Viceroy of India, Calcutta, to Secretary of State for India, London, January 22, 1908, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), February 1908, Proceedings No. 18–23, Serial No. 16, NAI. 20 On these dynamics, see Chang (2008); Johnston (2014); Kazimi (2011); Mongia (1999); and Ward (1978). 21 Telegram from Viceroy of India, Calcutta, to Secretary of State for India, London, January 22, 1908, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), February 1908, Proceedings No. 28, Serial No. 16 (confidential), NAI. 22 Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, Approved by His Excellency the Governor General on 2nd March 1908, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), May 1908, Proceedings No. 6, Serial No. 22, Enclosure No. 9, NAI.

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23 Telegram from Governor General of Canada to Secretary of State for the Colonies, London, January 15, 1908, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Pro­ ceedings – A), May 1908, Proceedings No. 6, Serial No. 22, Enclosure No. 3, Annex 1, NAI. 24 For further details on shipping companies and the Continuous Journey Regulation, see Macklin (2011, 48) and Mawani (2018, 124–25). 25 Secret Agent T.R.E. McInnes to Wilfrid Laurier, March 15, 1908, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), May 1908, Proceedings No. 6, Serial No. 22, Enclosure No. 10, Annex 2, NAI; emphasis added. 26 On the confounding status of the legality of legal exceptions, see Agamben (2005). For an exploration addressing this problematic in a colonial context, see Hussain (2003). 27 For example, Governor General of Canada to Earl Crewe, Colonial Office, January 7, 1909, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), May 1909, Proceedings No. 11, Serial No. 5, NAI. 28 Government of India to Viscount Morley, Secretary of State for India, May 20, 1909, De­partment of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), May 1909, Proceedings No. 11, Serial No. 6, NAI; emphasis added. 29 British Indian Subjects in Canada to Colonial Office, London, April 24, 1910, Depart­ ment of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), October 1910, Proceedings No. 47, Serial No. 8, Enclosure No. 1, Annex 1, NAI. 30 For biographical accounts of revolutionary Indian immigrants in Canada, see Johnston (2014) and Ker (1973). 31 They included the Free Hindustan, the Swadesh Sewak, and the Hindusthanee. The Can­ adian revolutionaries were also in contact and concert with Har Dayal, the founder of the Ghadar Party in the United States, and numerous Ghadarites. For details on the connections between the Ghadar Party revolutionaries and the Komagata Maru, see Puri (1993); Ramnath (2011); and Sohi (2014). 32 Telegram from the Secretary of State, London, September 17, 1913, Department of Com­merce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), October 1913, Proceedings No. 29–30 (confidential, original consultation), NAI. 33 Comments of S.H. Slater, September 19, 1913, ibid. 34 Comments of W.H. Clark, September 20, 1913, ibid. 35 Comments of S.H. Slater, September 19, 1913, ibid. 36 Comments of J.F. Gruning, September 20, 1913, ibid. 37 In South Africa, the “Indian Question” had percolated into an intense race-based issue and, under the leadership of Gandhi, produced several satyagraha (“passive resistance”) protests between 1906 and 1913. For varied analyses of these events, see Huttenback (1971); Mongia (2006); and Swan (1985). 38 Confidential letter from Governor General of Canada to Colonial Office, December 31, 1913, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), June 1914, Proceedings No. 10–11, Enclosure No. 2, NAI. For details on the complex legalities involved, see Walker (1997, 257–58). 39 For a detailed and illuminating discussion of the multiple rationales that informed Gurdit Singh’s decision to undertake the voyage, see Mawani (2018). 40 Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, approved February 23, 1914, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), June 1914, Proceedings No. 10–11, Enclosure No. 11, NAI.

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41 Though adopting very different analytic frames, two especially useful accounts are Johnston (2014) and Mawani (2018). 42 For a careful analysis of the proceedings before the Board of Inquiry and the British Columbia Court of Appeal, see Mawani (2018, ch. 3). 43 See, for example, “Judgment of Justice J.A. McPhillips in the Matter of Munshi Singh,” in Reports of the British Columbia Court of Appeal, July 6, 1914, 5–6. 44 “Judgment of the Honourable Chief Justice Macdonald in the Matter of Munshi Singh,” in ibid., 6. 45 For an astute discussion of the legal complexities and ambiguities involved, see Macklin (2011). 46 Comments of S.H. Slater to R.E. Enthoven, May 26, 1914, Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A), September 1914, Proceedings No. 18–20 (confidential, original consultation), NAI. 47 Comments of R.W. Gillian, June 23, 1914, ibid. 48 Comments of R.E. Enthoven, June 13, 1914, ibid.; emphasis added. 49 For a discussion of processes of “nationalization,” see Balibar (1991). 50 Unlike analyses that point to the racialization of national entities and subjectivities presumed to be pre-existing, my analysis here points to how the “national” emerged and took robust shape through the conduit of racial thinking and, in the process, under­ mined imperial subjectivities and entities. Put otherwise, rather than write a national history, I seek to foreground a history of the national.

References Archival Sources Department of Commerce and Industry (Emigration Proceedings – A). National Archives of India, New Delhi. Home Department (Sanitary/Plague). National Archives of India, New Delhi. Government Publications Papers Respecting the East India Labourers’ Bill. 1838. London: J.L. Cox and Sons. India Office Library and Records. British Library, London. Parliamentary Papers (House of Commons), United Kingdom. Reports of the British Columbia Court of Appeal. Books and Articles Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Translated by Kevin Attell. Chicago: Uni­ versity of Chicago Press. Balibar, Etienne. 1991. “The Nation Form.” In Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, edited by Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, 86–106. New York: Verso. Burbank, Jane, and Frederick Cooper. 2010. Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chang, Kornel. 2008. “Enforcing Transnational White Solidarity: Asian Migration and the Formation of the US-Canadian Boundary.” American Quarterly 60, 3: 671–96. Eltis, David. 1997. “Seventeenth Century Migration and the Slave Trade: The English Case in Comparative Perspective.” In Migration, Migration History, History: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives, edited by Jan Lucassen and Leo Lucassen, 87–109. New York: Peter Lang.

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Fletcher, Ian Christopher. 2014. “‘In Exercise of Their Rights of British Citizenship’: The Komagata Maru and the Paradox of Imperial Citizenship before the First World War.” Paper presented at Charting Imperial Itineraries, 1914–2014: Unmooring the Komagata Maru, University of Victoria, May 12–14. Hussain, Nasser. 2003. The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Huttenback, Robert A. 1971. Gandhi in South Africa: British Imperialism and the Indian Question, 1860–1914. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Johnston, Hugh. 2014. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar, Expanded and Fully Revised Edition. Vancouver: UBC Press. Kale, Madhavi. 1998. Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Migration in the British Caribbean. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Kazimi, Ali. 2011. Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru: An Illustrated History. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. Ker, James C. (1917) 1973. Political Trouble in India. Delhi: Oriental Publishers. Macklin, Audrey. 2011. “Historicizing Narratives of Arrival: The Other Indian Other.” In Storied Communities: Narratives of Contact and Arrival in Constituting Political Community, edited by Hester Lessard, Rebecca Johnson, and Jeremy Webber, 40–67. Vancouver: UBC Press. Mawani, Renisa. 2018. Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. McKeown, Adam. 2008. Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders. New York: Columbia University Press. Mongia, Radhika. 1999. “Race, Nationality, Mobility: A History of the Passport.” Public Culture 11, 3: 527–55. –. 2006. “Gender and the Historiography of Gandhian Satyagraha in South Africa.” Gender and History 18, 1: 130–49. –. 2012. “Interrogating Critiques of Methodological Nationalism: Propositions for New Methodologies.” In Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Research Methodologies for CrossBorder Studies, edited by Anna Amelina et al., 198–218. New York: Routledge. –. 2018. Indian Migration and Empire: A Colonial Genealogy of the Modern State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Moore, Christopher. 2010. The British Columbia Court of Appeal: The First Hundred Years, 1910–2010. Vancouver: UBC Press. Puri, Harish K. 1993. Ghadar Movement: Ideology, Organisation, and Strategy. Rev. ed. Am­ ritsar, India: Guru Nanak Dev University. Ramnath, Maia. 2011. Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Robertson, Craig. 2010. The Passport in America: The History of a Document. New York: Cam­bridge University Press. Schuler, Monica. 1986. “The Recruitment of African Indentured Labourers for Euro­ pean Colonies in the Nineteenth Century.” In Colonialism and Migration: Indentured Labour before and after Slavery, edited by P.C. Emmer, 125–61. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. Sewell, William Jr. 1996. “Three Temporalities: Toward an Eventful Sociology.” In The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences, edited by Terence Mcdonald, 245–80. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

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Singha, Radhika. 2013. “The Great War and a ‘Proper’ Passport for the Colony: BorderCrossing in British India, c. 1882–1922.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 50, 3: 289–315. Sohi, Seema. 2014. Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America. New York: Oxford University Press. Swan, Maureen. 1985. Gandhi: The South African Experience. Johannesburg: Raven. Tinker, Hugh. 1974. A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830– 1920. London: Oxford University Press. –. 1976. Separate and Unequal: India and Indians in the British Commonwealth, 1920–1950. Vancouver: UBC Press. Tomich, Dale, and Michael Zeuske. 2008. “Introduction, the Second Slavery: Mass Slavery, World-Economy, and Comparative Microhistories.” Review: A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center 31, 2: 91–100. Torpey, John. 2000. The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State. New York: Cambridge University Press. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. New York: Beacon Press. Walker, James. 1997. “Race,” Rights, and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada: Historical Case Studies. Toronto: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History; Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Ward, W. Peter. 1978. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Orientals in British Columbia. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

5

Borders, Boats, and Brown Bodies Reading Tamil “Irregular Arrivals” through the History of the Komagata Maru Nadia Hasan, Sailaja Krishnamurti, Omme-Salma Rahemtullah, Nayani Thiyagarajah, and Nishant Upadhyay

At one of several events in Canada commemorating the centennial of the arrival of the Komagata Maru, we were part of a discussion in which a participant made a problematic distinction between the experiences of the (mostly) Sikh Punjabi migrants aboard the ship and the Tamil migrants who arrived on the BC shore aboard the MV Ocean Lady and MV Sun Sea in 2009 and 2010. He argued that the passengers on board the Komagata Maru were good, industrious, hard-working, economic migrants who had served the British Empire well and would have been model migrants in Canada, whereas the Tamils on board the Sun Sea and Ocean Lady were “terrorists” who deserved to be turned away. In other words, the Canadian state’s denial of entry to the Komagata Maru passengers was a mistake, whereas the denial of entry to the Tamil passengers almost 100 years later was legitimate and justified. Our reading of the more recent arrival of Tamil migrants through the history of the Komagata Maru reveals how this construction of a good migrant/bad migrant dichotomy is symptomatic of the persistent racialized and colonized mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in Canada. The discussion at this event also illuminated a dynamic at work in narratives about the Komagata Maru. The colonial and racial logics that underpinned the historical moment of the ship continue today in how the collective memory of Canadian settler society has marginalized the incident. More recently, historians, educators, artists, and community activists of colour have organized and struggled against this marginalization in various sites, including state policies, national history, curriculum development, community events, and media (including but not limited 121

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to CASSA n.d.; Hameed and Vukov 2007; Kazimi 2004, 2012; Mawani 2012; and Somani 2011).1 As a result, the Komagata Maru story has become an important part of narratives about the inclusion and exclusion of South Asians, particularly Sikh Punjabis, in and from Canada. Although many of these narratives foreground the complexities of continuing practices of exclusion, some culminate in the successful inclusion of Punjabi migrants in the Canadian settler body politic, as was the case in the encounter that we had at the commemorative event. That narrative situates the Komagata Maru as an exceptional story about a South Asian Canadian past, dovetailing with Canadian multicultural national discourse and its scripts of Canadian subjecthood. By amplifying the ways in which Punjabi migrants fit the model minority mould, such narratives obscure the ongoing and continuous processes of racial exclusion that sustain the settler state. To disrupt national historiography of the Komagata Maru incident that supports the Canadian nation-building project (see the introduction to this volume), we contextualize the past history of exclusion in relation to the recent exclusion of Tamil migrants. To connect the embodied history of the Komagata Maru with the experiences of the new Tamil arrivals would appear, to some, to undermine the narrative of successful inclusion of Punjabi migrants. The 76 Tamil migrants aboard the Ocean Lady arrived on the Vancouver coast in October 2009, followed by another 492 migrants on the Sun Sea in August 2010. The passengers were fleeing from intense violence against Tamil people during Sri Lanka’s civil war, and they arrived in Canada intending to establish claims for refugee status. The arrival of these asylum seekers was met with vociferous opposition by the government of Canada and many members of the public who decried them as “illegal” and “irregular.” Echoing the Canadian state’s approach to the arrival of the Komagata Maru, the government of Stephen Harper mobilized a number of discursive and legislative mechanisms to obstruct the entry of Tamil asylum seekers.2 Although Punjabi, Tamil, Muslim, and other South Asian migrant communities are complex and diverse, they are also connected through their relationships with settler colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism in Canada. In this chapter, we consider the importance of the Komagata Maru in thinking about the current state of immigration, the enforcement of border control, and the relationship between racialized people and the Canadian state. As Harsha Walia (2013, 38) argues,

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the management of racialized migration operates through the institution of “controls against migrants, who are displaced as a result of the violences of capitalism and empire, and subsequently forced into precarious labor as a result of state illegalization and systemic social hierarchies” or what she calls “border imperialism.” To trace the colonial networks of power that connect these “itinerant subjects,” we begin by looking briefly at the history of immigration policy and racial exclusion in Canada. We then situate our analysis of these migrations in relation to colonial and postcolonial histories of conflicting claims to sovereignty in India and Sri Lanka. Turning to public and political responses to the arrival of the Tamil migrants, we elucidate the discursive structures that led to these migrants’ exclusion. We conclude by analyzing the Harper government’s apology for the Komagata Maru incident, which illustrates how the discourse of the model minority attempts to wedge these histories apart in the interest of consolidating the Canadian settler state. Although we address particular mechanisms of racial exclusion of South Asians, it is important to situate our analysis in the context of Indigenous struggles for sovereignty and self-determination against white supremacy and settler colonialism. Canada stands on stolen lands – Indigenous lands that, by treaty and by force, have been colonized and occupied by the Canadian state. Incidents such as the arrivals of the Komagata Maru, Sun Sea, and Ocean Lady take place within a continuum of settler, colonial, racial, gendered, and capitalist processes. The colonization of Indigenous nations in North America is connected to South Asia through the Euro­ pean project of empire and colonial expansion. However, this connection does not dismiss the complicity of South Asians and other racialized people in processes of settler colonialism in Canada (Bhandar and Dhamoon, this volume). Although all people of colour can be oppressed through one logic of white supremacy or another, they can become structurally complicit in other logics (Smith 2006). Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang (2012, 17) argue that every person of colour who enters or is brought into the settler colonial nation-state is included or excluded given her or his investments in and aspirations to whiteness. It is through processes of colonialism and white supremacy that certain racialized minorities can become “model and quasi-assimilable,” for instance constructs of Asians as model minorities or the intentional racial ambiguity of “Hispanic,” whereas others are

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rendered “enslavable, criminal, murderable,” for example black enslavement, Japanese internment, and Islamophobia (Tuck and Yang 2012, 18). Although processes of colonialism and racism have “affected everyone at various points along their transits with and against empire,” they create the conditions of possibility to “coerce struggles for social justice for queers, racial minorities, and immigrants into complicity with settler colonialism” (Byrd 2011, xxxix, xvii). Thus, for so-called model minority groups, “becoming a subordinate settler is an option even when becoming white is not” (Tuck and Yang 2012, 18). Canadian Histories of Exclusion By the late nineteenth century, South Asians were migrating to parts of the British Empire through the system of indenture, service in the British military, and other means. As British subjects, they were allowed by law to settle in any part of the empire. As part of this process, retired Punjabi British Indian Army soldiers started arriving in British Columbia in 1903 in an effort to seek economic opportunities away from, in part, the imposition of colonial taxes in Punjab. By 1906, just over 2,500 South Asians, mostly Sikh Punjabis, lived in British Columbia (Kazimi 2012). Although they were unwelcome within a bourgeoning Canadian identity, South Asian men were exploited in lumber mills and railways. These terms of inclusion, reinforced and maintained through immigration policies that controlled access along the lines of labour needs, restricted family reunification and made it difficult for South Asians and other communities of colour to establish rooted communities and systems of support in Canada. Immigration policy in the period before the First World War was thus “riddled by the contradictory demands of capitalist expansion and a racialized nationalist project” (Dua 2007, 448). The threat to the white body politic posed by the presence of single Asian male labourers was further amplified by fears about interracial sexuality. As Enakshi Dua (2007, 458) argues, proponents of Asian women's migration to Canada were driven by a fear of miscegenation. Allowing a limited number of Asian women entry was seen as a way to mitigate the perceived threat of mixedrace relations and maintain the nation's racial purity. This refined strategy of "exclusion through inclusion" demonstrates how the white settler colonial project was simultaneously gendered. An interplay between inclusionary and exclusionary immigration discourses was therefore needed

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to ensure that South Asian migrants were in Canada either temporarily or not at all. Building on measures already imposed to limit Chinese and Japanese immigration, the government of Canada began to block South Asian entry through measures intended to subvert the guarantees of British subjecthood and mobility that migrants from the Indian subcontinent believed they had. In 1908, two orders-in-council were added to the Immigration Act of 1906, targeting South Asian immigration to Canada. The first stated that “all immigrants must come to Canada via a through ticket and by continuous journey from their country of birth and citizenship” (quoted in Kazimi 2012, 66). The second stipulated that immigrants from Asia had to possess $200, whereas white migrants were required to have only $25 (Kazimi 2012). The effectiveness of these new regulations is evident in the decline in South Asian immigration in subsequent years; in 1907–08, 2,623 South Asian immigrants were allowed into Canada. In 1908–09, the number plummeted to 6, and in 1909–10 it rose only to 10 (Kazimi 2012). In contrast, in 1913 more than 400,000 white immigrants from Western Europe and the United States were admitted into Canada. These changes to immigration policy, in addition to the changes and social contexts out­ lined in the introduction to this volume, set the stage for the Komagata Maru incident. Canadian immigration policy has undergone many changes since 1914, but in various ways mechanisms of racial exclusion remain central to the nation-building project. Before 1967, immigration was restricted based on race and “suitability” (Shakir 2008). In 1951, a quota system was established that effectively limited racial immigration while maintaining a cheap supply of labour. Under these restrictions, South Asian immigration was limited to 300 people a year. In 1967, the Canadian government introduced the “points system” to prioritize the recruitment and immigration of skilled workers. Under this system, a version of which still exists today, points were awarded based on education, work experience, language proficiency, Canadian job prospects, and age. Although the points system removed explicit references to race or country of origin, Canadian embassies and consulates were still concentrated in traditional source countries in Europe, and immigration officers were given discretionary powers of selection in the source country and at the point of entry. The immigration system thus acquired a façade of neutrality that enabled racialized forms

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of exclusion and inclusion to continue (Shakir 2008). In fact, the nationstate has relied on the logics of multiculturalism to include racialized migrants, on the one hand, but to reify them as cultural outsiders, on the other. Thus, integration of racialized immigrants has been enforced by denying their struggles against racism. The state also uses racialized labour to “further the political marginalization and economic underdevelop­ ment of Aboriginal peoples, even during periods of economic growth” (Thobani 2007, 174). Another important change to immigration policy in Canada was the establishment of a policy regarding people seeking asylum. In 1969, Can­ ada finally signed the International Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. After this change, Canada began admitting refugee claimants under various programs. In 1972, 4,420 carefully selected South Asians from Uganda, mostly trained and educated professionals expelled by the dictator Idi Amin, were admitted into Canada as refugees after being screened and approved in Uganda (Kazimi 2012). Asylum seekers also started arriving in Canada at ports of entry from Latin America. In the late 1970s, the arrival of more than 50,000 Vietnamese “boat people” and other refugees from Asia brought debates about Canada’s role as a haven for those seeking asylum into sharp relief. In 1983, when nearly 5,000 people fleeing ethnic violence in Sri Lanka arrived in Canada, many attempted to make their claims on landing. In response, in part because of the intensive efforts of Tamil Sri Lankans already in Canada, Minister of Immigration John Roberts introduced a special program under which Sri Lankans who had already arrived could apply for landing inside Canada (Aruliah 1994). Subsequent arrivals from Sri Lanka, however, continued to face visa requirements and other restrictions that made immigration and refugee applications challenging. The 1985 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Singh case ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should apply to people with­out status in Canada. In part because this decision made it possible for undocumented arrivals to make a claim for refugee status, Canada began to receive a much larger cohort of racialized migrants arriving through “irregular” means (Aruliah 1994). In 1986, 150 Tamil migrants who had left Germany arrived off the coast of Newfoundland. The German ship’s captain had loaded them onto lifeboats and then cut them adrift. All were eventually granted permanent residency, and many settled in Montreal, where a large Tamil population already existed. Another boat arrived in

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Nova Scotia in 1987, this one carrying 174 Sikhs fleeing the aftermath of the anti-Sikh pogroms in India in 1984. Four boats of Chinese migrants followed in the 1990s. Many of these arrivals were able to get permanent status, and some made successful refugee claims. The means of their arrival does not appear to have been grounds for rejection (Waldman and Macklin 2010). Despite this apparent welcome granted to these irregular arrivals, in practice institutional barriers and structural realities historically have prevented nonwhite immigrants from becoming part of the national narrative (Bannerji 2000; Shakir 2008; Thobani 2007). Attempting to address this demographic shift, in 1971 Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau announced that the policy of multiculturalism would be implemented in Canada, and it was eventually made law under the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1988 (Haque 2012). The act aimed to “recognize and promote the understanding that multiculturalism reflects the cultural and racial diversity of Canadian society and acknowledges the freedom of all members of Canadian society to preserve, en­ hance and share their cultural heritage” (1985, 3.1a). Although the act was intended to demonstrate Canada’s willingness to include racialized people in its national imagining, the discourse of multiculturalism masked the ways in which Canada continued to discipline and contain difference and to exclude racialized bodies through the promotion of “tolerance and ‘diversity’” as national values (Bannerji 2000). These values were deeply tied to the parallel notion of Canada as a humanitarian haven and a safe place for those seeking asylum. In the past decade, these concepts – multiculturalism, tolerance, and humanitarianism – have become central in debates about Canada’s national identity and international role. After September 11, 2001, Canada’s treatment of detainees under “security certificates” and participation in US-led antiterrorism initiatives brought these concepts under greater scrutiny. After coming to power in 2006, the Conservative government under Harper advanced several changes to immigration and refugee policy that made it increasingly difficult to make claims. When the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea arrived in 2009 and 2010, they were received with more outward hostility than the irregular arrivals of the 1980s. The tightening of immigration restrictions corresponded to a shift in public opinion that emphasized the need to protect Canada’s borders from unwanted visitors. One crucial change in 2004 was the Safe Third Country Agreement, an arrangement between Canada and the United States stipulating that a

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refugee claimant must make a claim in the first port of arrival. Under this arrangement, an asylum seeker arriving in Canada would require a visa in most cases – already challenging in terms of the financial requirements and the need for documents – and would then be required to plan a journey that would not involve first landing at a US port of entry. This requirement made it much more challenging for people from Sri Lanka and other war-torn places to arrive through regular means. Government and public voices differentiated between travelling “terrorist” migrants who might pose a threat and migrants who were truly abject and deserving of humanitarian compassion. Crucially, a condition of landing in the latter group seemed to be that one also had to arrive through regular channels and not be seen as a “queue-jumper” – someone who, by arriving “irregularly,” had violated the limit of compassion (Krishnamurti 2013). The problem of these irregular arrivals was addressed by Bill C-31, the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, which became law in 2012. This law specifically took aim at mass “irregular arrivals” such as those on the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea and criminalized the actions of those who facilitated their travel. In practical terms, the Immigration Act reforms of 2012 and the Safe Third Country Agreement are echoes of the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908. In both cases, though discrimination on the basis of race or country of origin is not explicit, it is clear that the limitations imposed have far more serious impacts on the travelling bodies of people coming from great distances, travelling by water, and travelling under conditions of duress that make official documentation difficult or impossible. In considering the parallels between immigration policy more than a century ago and these recent provisions, it becomes apparent that the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea cases and the circumstances of their migration to Canada are in many ways echoes of the Komagata Maru. Colonialism, Sovereignty, and Migrating Brown Bodies Those who undertook these difficult journeys across the ocean shared an investment in the notion of Canada as a receptive host. In both cases, the passengers were leaving homelands that had been occupied by another power and seeking relative safety and security. “Unmooring” the Komagata Maru, as Bhandar and Dhamoon ask us to do in this volume, can help us to see that political and public responses to these arrivals, nearly 100 years apart, are structured in part by an imperial narrative and the fear of a

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racialized “terrorist” threat. This narrative is tied to Canada’s colonial proximity to the anticolonial histories of India and Sri Lanka. Some of these dimensions of colonialism and sovereignty in colonial Canada’s reception of the Komagata Maru are discussed in detail by other contributors to this volume (Bhandar; Chattopadhyay; Dua). The passengers aboard the Komagata Maru, like those aboard the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea, were connected with communities that had claims of sovereignty against the British Empire and the postcolonial Sri Lankan state, respectively. Some of the passengers on the Komagata Maru had political ties to the Ghadar Movement and anticolonial organizing (which led to the massacre of many of the passengers at Budge Budge). In the case of the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea, passengers were presumed to be associated with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) (Krishnamurti 2013). Many factors shaped the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and the emergence of the LTTE. The current instability and the decades-long war were undeniably affected by colonial legacies that began with the Portuguese in the early 1500s, followed by the Dutch in the mid-1600s, and finally by the British in the early 1800s. During the British rule of Sri Lanka (1815– 1948), Tamils were granted a “disproportionately high number” of positions within the civil service, along with other elite positions in the government (Thurairajah 2011, 134). After gaining independence from British rule in 1948, the Sinhalese majority were vocal about the discrimination that they had faced prior to independence and demanded that the government make changes that were rooted in a project of anticolonialism but that reflected the deep level of Sinhala nationalism still to come. This type of anticolonial nationalism is an expression of “a need so great that it reneged on its promise of self-determination, delivering criminality instead of citizenship” (Alexander 2006, 260–61). Postcolonial decision making rooted in ethnonationalist sentiment resulted in language, education, and employment policies of successive Sinhalese-dominated governments that discriminated against the Tamil minority (Kanaglingam 2010). These changes coincided with an increase in riots and violent attacks on Tamil people. After years of peaceful attempts at civic engagement trying to create change within the government, members of the Tamil community became disenchanted and turned to the idea of a separate homeland known as Tamil Eelam. Many groups began to spring up, organizing nonviolently for the goal of Tamil autonomy and the right to self-determination. In

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1976, the LTTE, a militant separatist movement, was officially formed. Although it was not the only one of its kind, it lasted the longest. The July 1983 pogrom targeting Tamils, commonly remembered as “Black July,” is often regarded as the start of the civil war between the LTTE and the government. More than 3,000 Tamil civilians were killed, and thousands more fled the country during and after the riots. After decades of non­violent mobilization among Tamils, the 1983 riots against the Tamil community served as a catalyst for growing militant struggles for selfdetermination against the Sri Lankan government, including the LTTE. The mass internal displacement of Tamils and other minority groups and their exodus from Sri Lanka after 1983 are entangled in this fraught history of civil war and extreme forms of state violence. In 2008 and 2009, the war escalated with a relentless military assault by the Sri Lankan army on locations claimed to be LTTE strongholds in northern Sri Lanka. These claims gave the Sri Lankan state, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, licence to kill, assault, detain, and “disappear” Tamil people populating these areas with impunity. These lethal military attacks included airstrikes, ground assaults, and scorched-earth tactics resulting in 40,000 civilian deaths (United Nations 2011) and widespread devastation (Heilprin 2009). Soldiers belonging to the Sri Lankan army engaged in mass systematic rape, sexual assault, and torture of Tamil women (Chandrashekar 2015; United Nations 2011). The Sri Lankan army conducted tactical assaults on schools, hospitals, and established “no fire zones” where it had encouraged civilians to go for safety (United Nations 2011). The state’s actions in 2008–09 have been variously described as “genocide,” “crimes against humanity,” and “war crimes” by international and human rights organizations. Thousands of Tamil people were internally displaced during this time, and they continue to be denied access to basic human rights and live in deplorable conditions awaiting safe return to their homes (Human Rights Watch 2014). The LTTE was also complicit in the atrocities committed against Tamil civilians through targeted killings of people trying to escape from the conflict zones, disappearing detractors and critics, and sexual assaults against Tamil women (Human Rights Watch 2013). Large numbers of people fleeing the immediacy of violence went to nearby Australia and India, and many tried the long journey to Europe and North America, travelling by boat, often under arduous and unsafe circumstances, as in the case of the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea.

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Many Tamil refugee claimants from 1983 onward, and particularly in 2008–09, came as “convention” refugees, intending to make claims for status on their arrival. Often those arriving by “irregular” means were not able to meet visa requirements or did not have adequate documentation. Those arriving in Canada and those still in Sri Lanka were supported in a variety of ways by Tamils in Canada. By some estimates, the Sri Lankan Tamil population in Canada is around 200,000 (English 2009). In 2009, moved by the horrific violence perpetrated against Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka, Toronto Tamils demonstrated the size and strength of this community when they staged massive public protests, even halting traffic on the busy urban highway, the Gardiner Expressway (Jeyapal 2013). Political and Public Responses It was during these crucial months of the civil war in 2009 and 2010 that the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea arrived in Canada. In both cases, the passengers on board had feared for their lives and been so desperate to flee Sri Lanka that in many cases they had paid outrageous fees to the boats’ operators to secure passage (Quan 2010). The Canadian response to these arrivals was multilayered. As mentioned, the Harper government took a notably strong position against these “illegal” and “irregular” arrivals, detaining all the passengers at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, Alouette Correctional Centre, and Burnaby Youth Custody Services Centre in British Columbia while the state verified their identities. Critics of immigration reforms expressed concerns in the media about the unfair treatment of the passengers. Opposition critic Olivia Chow, a former NDP MP and immigration critic, maintained that all refugee claimants deserved a fair hearing: “Whether they arrive by boat, or by plane, they should have the same rights under the refugees law” (quoted in Spencer and Stone 2010). The Canadian Council for Refugees (2015) expressed concern that the government was “demanding more proofs of identity than usual, investing significant energy and resources in a search for adverse information about the passengers, advancing weak arguments for inadmissibility based on tenuous alleged connections with the LTTE (Tamil Tigers), vigorously opposing release by the Immigration and Refugee Board, and contesting orders of release in the Federal Court, even in cases involving children” (Derosa 2012). In fact, a memo obtained by the Canadian Coun­ cil for Refugees through Access to Information legislation shows that the

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Canada Border Services Agency was going to take a “more aggressive” approach ahead of the Sun Sea’s arrival in August 2010 than it had taken ten months earlier with the Ocean Lady (Cohen 2013). While various politicians and analysts debated immigration policy and the detention of asylum seekers, the response from communities on the ground was direct. Community-focused groups such as the Canadian Tamil Congress, the National Council of Canadian Tamils, and the Tamil Refu­ gee Coordinating Committee were quick to organize and respond to the arrival of Tamil asylum seekers. They engaged in advocacy work with government officials, media agencies, and other institutions while helping to bring together a collective of lawyers, counsellors and psychologists, and English-language teachers to support the approximately 400 men, 60 women, and 30 children ( Jackson 2010; Luk and Karp 2010; Moreau 2010; Valiante and Hansen 2010). The Tamil asylum claimants aboard the Sun Sea also received support and solidarity from multiple First Nations communities, including former political prisoner Wolverine, who spoke with Vancouver activist group No One Is Illegal members about asserting Indigenous laws to protest refugees facing deportation (Walia 2013). Harsha Walia (2013, 135–36), an organizer with No One Is Illegal, writes that, while the asylum seekers on the Sun Sea were detained, “Indigenous elders opened the weekly demonstrations outside the jails by welcoming the refugees. As their contributions toward a national day of action to support the detained Tamil refugees, the Lhe Lin Liyin of the Wet’suwet’en nation hung a banner affirming, ‘We welcome refugees.’” Whereas community and some opposition political reactions to the arrivals of the Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady were supportive, and even critical of the Conservative government’s actions, the popular discourse surrounding these asylum seekers was negative. Media reports drew attention to suspicions about the migrants’ legitimacy and potential ties to terrorism; 48 percent of Canadians polled in August 2010 agreed that the Sun Sea passengers should be immediately deported regardless of proof (or lack of proof) of terrorist ties (Krishnamurti 2013). Although such ties have not been proven in most cases, many of the refugee claims have been rejected. According to statistics from the Immigration and Refugee Board in June 2014, of the seventy-six men who arrived on the Ocean Lady in 2009, thirty have been granted refugee status, and twenty-seven had their claims rejected and are now under review. Seven of the men have been

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issued deportation notices, but information regarding their deportation status was unavailable (Brosnahan 2014). As of January 2017, the Globe and Mail reported that, “of the Sun Sea passengers who have had their claims finalized, 230 people were accepted. The spokesperson said 108 people had their claims rejected, while 24 were withdrawn. More than 100 cases have not been finalized” (Dhillon 2017). Of the twenty-nine deportation orders issued for Sun Sea claimants, two of the men who returned to Sri Lanka were subsequently detained by the government; one was beaten in prison, and the other disappeared after being released (Woodward 2013). These incidents have prompted immigration lawyers in Canada to appeal for the reopening of failed refugee cases, claiming that the detention of these deported Tamil men is evidence that deported Tamils will face prosecution if they are forced to return to Sri Lanka (Wagner 2013). In both the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea cases, refugee claims were sometimes rejected on the grounds that the claimants had engaged in people smuggling by acting as cooks or watchkeepers on the ships. One couple was rejected because they were recruited on the ship to navigate the vessel when the Thai crew abandoned ship (CBC News 2014). These often coerced or unavoidable situations underscore the problems inherent in the government’s antitrafficking regulations. The human smuggling law developed by the Harper government effectively criminalizes the migrants themselves in a number of ways. A similar discourse about the smuggling of humans abounded at the time of the arrival of the Komagata Maru 100 years earlier. Chinmoy Banerjee (2014), a Vancouver activist, writes that Gurdit Singh, the man who chartered the boat, would clearly have been identified as a smuggler under the 2012 law. The Harper government itself made this connection explicit: in 2011, a Harper re-election campaign advertisement employed an unidentified image of the Komagata Maru to raise fears of “human smugglers” on board the Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady. Harper’s Con­serv­ atives won the election with a majority government, and the 2012 immigration law was passed. In January 2013, the BC Supreme Court struck down the federal government’s 2012 human smuggling law, arguing that it was unnecessarily broad in its definition of a smuggler, a decision that led to the dismissal of charges against several of the Tamil arrivals (Burgman 2013). The government appealed the decision, and ultimately the BC Supreme Court ordered a

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new trial. In 2017, the BC Supreme Court found seven men accused of human smuggling in the Sun Sea and Ocean Lady cases not guilty; only one man has been convicted in this case (Quan 2017). Model Minority – Multicultural Citizen-Subject The explicit connection made by the Conservative government between the Komagata Maru and the Sun Sea in their advertisement elucidates how the Komagata Maru becomes a trope deployed in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways in political discourse about immigration. In 2008, for example, Prime Minister Harper issued a formal apology for the Komagata Maru incident in which he referred to the importance of immigrants in building the Canadian nation. This apology was delivered at the Gadri Babian da Mela in Surrey, British Columbia, an annual festival celebrating the revolutionary anticolonial work of the Ghadar Party. In his speech, Harper referred to this festival in a multicultural tenor, mentioning the Punjabi community’s strong work ethic and “vibrant dance and musical traditions, exquisite art and timeless literature.” Canada, he said, “now shares this rich cultural legacy; it has become an integral part of our own cultural diversity” (quoted in Somani 2011, 15). This speech can be read as an affirmation of depoliticized multiculturalism (Somani 2011). As critics of multicultural discourse argue (see Bannerji 2000; Hage 1998; Haque 2012; and Thobani 2007), the language and practice of multiculturalism discursively emphasizes cultural differences to divert discussion away from racialized inequalities, thus attempting to limit the political and economic agency of communities of colour. Although some celebrated the gesture, many South Asian activists and community organizers rejected Harper’s apology on the basis that it was not offered in the officially recognized political public space of Parliament. The Harper government, via Jason Kenney, subsequently made statements refusing to issue another apology (Somani 2011). The government’s refusal to grant the Komagata Maru the political meaning that the community demanded demonstrates its unwillingness to deviate from the discourse of multiculturalism and risk engagement with migrant bodies as political subjects. By centralizing multiculturalism in his apology, Harper attempted to interpellate (Bannerji 2000, 16) the Sikh Punjabi body as the good, depoliticized, multicultural citizen-subject, simultaneously redeeming Canada by capitalizing on the façade of the inclusion of racialized bodies that multiculturalism affords.

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The so-called apology also suggests state efforts to establish a practice of interpreting the Komagata Maru as an aberration located in the past to mobilize and re-entrench the redemptive work of multiculturalism. This redemption banked on legitimizing the “South Asian” (read Sikh Punjabi) community as model multicultural subjects through Harper’s half-hearted apology. In a remarkable display of what Bannerji (2000, 96) has called the “power of definition that [white] ‘Canadians’ have over ‘others,’” the Harper government attempted to appease the Sikh Punjabi community by dangling the promising discourse of tolerance and legitimacy in its apology. Harper’s apology reflects the state’s discursive project to legitimize and secure some brown bodies over others. Through the apology, the state attempted to gain allegiance from the Sikh Punjabi community in Canada by retroactively rendering the Komagata Maru passengers legitimate. The apology is an example of a discursive method of categorizing migrant subjects as either legitimate or illegitimate that further flourished and gained momentum in the state-sanctioned moral panic that ensued on the arrival of the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea. In 2009, a year after the apology for the Komagata Maru was (un)made, the same government detained the seventy-six Tamil migrants aboard the Ocean Lady. The disingenuousness of the Harper government’s apology was made even clearer in the 2011 advertisement, which represented the Komagata Maru, Ocean Lady, and Sun Sea passengers as queue jumpers who did not follow legal and acceptable methods of immigration (Cader 2011; Krishnamurti 2013). Contradictory discourses of criminality and victimhood coalesced in legitimizing the denial of the Tamil refugee claimants in this advertisement. Slipping between smuggling and trafficking, the Conservative Party ad attempted to play on the sympathies of public opinion by casting the “human smuggler” as a criminal and the trafficked body as a victim to be pitied, protected, and saved, thus casting itself as principled, righteous, and benevolent in its rejection of Tamil refugee claims and in its proposal for legislation against human smuggling. Criminality was also extended to the “breeders” – the Tamil women’s pregnant bodies – perceived to be taking advantage of the Canadian state’s generosity and putting the state in an awkward bind by bearing children on Canadian soil and claiming their birthright – the denial of which would dismantle the state’s selfdelusions of colour-blind inclusivity and openness. Drawing on and entrenching the putative war on terror discourse, state officials also evoked the figure of the terrorist through claims that members

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of the LTTE were on board these ships. This evocation of the LTTE effaced the genocide of Tamil people and human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE and criminalized those sympathetic to the struggle for self-determination for Tamil Eelam. The LTTE has been a difficult topic for many Tamils; although many are critical of its tactics and actions, it has been a prominent face of Tamil people’s re­ sistance to state power and desire for sovereignty. Many people might support the organization’s ideas about sovereignty and independence with­out having direct ties to or even supporting the organization itself (Krishnamurti 2013). The demonization of the Gardiner protests in 2009 by the state, mainstream media, and public opinion and the dismissal of the protesters’ concerns about the genocide and human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government are evidence of the effacement of these political nuances. Later, in a seemingly paradoxical move, the Harper government boycotted the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka in 2013 on the basis that the Sri Lankan government was guilty of “violations of human rights” (Prime Minister’s Office 2013). There was an insidious absence of any direct reference to Tamil people in Harper’s statement about these violations. Read within the discourse of multiculturalism, this paradox shows how the Canadian government displaced its own complicity in the violence of exclusion through an opposition to the Sri Lankan government. In other words, the exclusion of the Tamil refugees arriving by boat and the boycott of the Commonwealth summit in Sri Lanka operated in tandem to strengthen Canadian claims to espousing fairness and humanitarianism while maintaining border imperialism (Walia 2013). Not only does this narrative rely on homogenizing and dehumanizing the Tamil people on board the ships, but also it relies on depoliticizing their reasons for seeking refuge, which in turn are constructed as part of a terrorist/criminal conspiracy or greedy subterfuge. These three interwoven tropes (queue jumpers, breeders, and terrorists) formed the basis of casting Tamil bodies as bad multicultural subjects (Krishnamurti 2013). On the one hand, these tropes appear to discriminate against specific actions that conjure up images of individuals engaging in illegitimate activities (smuggling, queue jumping, breeding, terrorizing). On the other, they render the passengers on board the ships an inscrutable mass that must be detained and denied entry.

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These narratives of criminality furnish self-perceptions of a discerning and careful Canadian state and public, perceptions strengthened through the relief afforded by the presence of other legitimized brown bodies within the Canadian nation-state. For example, mobilizing the discourse of Canada as a compassionate country in reference to the detention of the Sun Sea passengers, David Poopalapillai, spokesperson for the Can­ adian Tamil Congress, said that, “as Canadians, it is important to ensure that these newcomers have an opportunity to be heard and assessed as to their suitability to stay in Canada – in effect we need to ensure that due process is adhered to and they are given a fair hearing” (quoted in Bolan and Tebrake 2009). His assertion of himself as a “Canadian” subject is contrasted with his question about the migrants’ suitability, in effect reproducing the good migrant/bad migrant dichotomy that serves to reinforce the discourse of benevolent Canadian multiculturalism. The discourse of multiculturalism and its constructions of good and bad racialized subjects underwrite the state’s discrimination against these refugee claimants while maintaining Canada’s self-perception as “tolerant,” “open,” and “generous” in its relations with racialized bodies. Harper’s apology failed, ultimately, to assimilate the Komagata Maru story into a narrative of Canadian multiculturalism. No attempt was made to assimilate the Tamil “irregular arrivals.” No reference was made by the government in response to the Tamil boat arrivals about their contributions to Canadian (multi)culture through their work ethic or “vibrant dance and musical traditions, exquisite art and timeless literature.” There was no public attempt to rehabilitate these subjects as “good migrants” in the service of the nation. This lack is a reminder of the failure of such gestures to address fully how the systematic marginalization of racialized bodies is foundational to the Canadian nationalist project. These brown bodies, then and now, are irredeemable within the multiculturalist discourse of the Canadian nation-state.



Notes 1 See the introduction to this volume for more on academic and community productions about the Komagata Maru. 2 Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter, the Canadian state has also engaged in other forms of exclusion of South Asian migrants, such as the Islamophobic Bill C-51 and the elimination of paths to citizenship for temporary foreign workers (see Bhandar, this volume).

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Dua, Enakshi. 2007. “Exclusion through Inclusion: Female Asian Migration in the Making of Canada as a White Settler Nation.” Gender, Place, and Culture 14, 4: 445–66. doi:10.1080/09663690701439751. English, Kathy. 2009. “The Truth about Tamil Statistics.” Toronto Star, April 4. http:// www.thestar.com/opinion/columnists/2009/04/04/the_truth_about_tamil_statistics. html. Hage, Ghassan. 1998. White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society. Annandale: Pluto Press. Hameed, Ayesha, and Tamara Vukov. 2007. “Animated Exclusions: Ali Kazimi’s Continuous Journey and the Virtualities of Racialized Exclusion.” Topia 17: 87–109. Haque, Eve. 2012. Multiculturalism within a Bilingual Framework: Language, Race, and Belonging in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Heilprin, John. 2009. “First Grim Tour of Sri Lanka’s Scorched Earth.” Toronto Star, May 24. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2009/05/24/first_grim_tour_of_sri_ lankas_scorched_earth.html. Human Rights Watch. 2013. “We Will Teach You a Lesson: Sexual Violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces.” Human Rights Watch. http://www.hrw.org/ node/113790. –. 2014. “World Report 2014: Events of 2013.” Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw. org/world-report/2014. Jackson, Emily. 2010. “Tamils Stretch Workload of Legal Services; Arrival of 492 Mi­ grants Means Some Staff Are Working Nights and Weekends; Additional Lawyers on Contract.” Vancouver Sun, August 19. ProQuest. Jeyapal, Daphne. 2013. “‘Since When Did We Have 100,000 Tamils?’ Media Rep­ resentations of Race Thinking, Spatiality, and the 2009 Tamil Diaspora Protests.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 38, 4: 557–78. Kanaglingam, Srivany. 2010. “‘We Want Justice!’ Transnational Political Activism amongst Second Generation Tamil Youth and Identity (Re) Construction within Transnational Spaces.” MA thesis, Ryerson University. Kazimi, Ali, dir. 2004. Continuous Journey. Produced in association with TVOntario with the assistance of the South Asian Heritage Foundation. Peripheral Visions Film and Video, Toronto. –. 2012. Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru – An Illustrated History. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. Krishnamurti, Sailaja. 2013. “Queue-Jumpers, Terrorists, Breeders: Representations of Tamil Migrants in Canadian Popular Media.” South Asian Diaspora 5, 1: 139–57. doi:10.1080/19438192.2013.722386. Luk, Vivian, and David Karp. 2010. “Detention Hearings for Tamils Begin Today; Team of Lawyers from Toronto, Vancouver Will Represent Them.” Vancouver Sun, August 16. ProQuest. Mawani, Renisa. 2012. “Specters of Indigeneity in British-Indian Migration, 1914.” Law and Society Review 46, 2: 369–403. Moreau, Jennifer. 2010. “Tamil Migrant Children to Be Taught English in Burnaby Prison.” Vancouver Sun, September 24. ProQuest. Prime Minister’s Office. 2013. “Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada.” October 6. http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2013/10/07/statement-prime-minister -canada.

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Quan, Douglas. 2010. “As Children Play, Puzzled Tamils Wonder Why They’re Being Detained; Their Fate Rests with the Immigration and Refugee Board, Which Must Follow Due Process.” Vancouver Sun, August 21. ProQuest. –. 2017. “Years after Two Ships Brought 568 Migrants to Canada, Seven Acquittals and one Conviction.” National Post, July 27. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ years-after-two-ships-brought-568-migrants-to-canada-seven-acquittals-and-one -conviction. Shakir, Uzma. 2008. “Demystifying Transnationalism: Canadian Immigration Policy and the Promise of Nation Building.” In Organizing the Transnational: Labour, Politics, and Social Change, edited by Luin Goldring and Sailaja Krishnamurti, 67–82. Van­ couver: UBC Press. Smith, Andrea. 2006. “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing.” In Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology, edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 66–73. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Somani, Alia. 2011. “The Apology and Its Aftermath: National Atonement or the Management of Minorities?” Postcolonial Text 6, 1. http://postcolonial.org/index. php/pct/article/view/1216. Spencer, Christina, and Laura Stone. 2010. “Canadian Soldiers Board Tamil Migrant Ship; Federal Minister Says Those on Vessel Include ‘Suspected Human Smugglers and Terrorists.’” Vancouver Sun, August 13. ProQuest. Thobani, Sunera. 2007. Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Thurairajah, Kalyani. 2011. “The Shadow of Terrorism: Competing Identities and Loyalties among Tamil Canadians.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 43, 1: 129–52. doi:10.1353/ ces.2011.0010. Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. 2012. “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society 1, 1: n.p. http://decolonization.org/index.php/ des/article/view/18630. United Nations. 2011. Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka. http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/Sri_Lanka/POE_Report_Full.pdf. Valiante, Guiseppe, and Darah Hansen. 2010. “Migrants Claim Mass Murders Forced Them to Flee Sri Lanka; ‘We Are Innocent Civilians; We Are Not Terrorists,’ Tamils Write.” Vancouver Sun, August 17. ProQuest. Wagner, Dana. 2013. “Canada’s Sri Lanka Case and the Trouble with ‘Whitelists.’” Huffington Post, October 24. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dana-wagner/canada-sri -lanka_b_4156934.html. Waldman, Lorne, and Audrey Macklin. 2010. “Why We Can’t Turn Away the Tamil Ships.” Letter to the editor. Globe and Mail, August 17. http://www.theglobeandmail. com/globe-debate/why-we-cant-turn-away-the-tamil-ships/article1377276/. Walia, Harsha. 2013. Undoing Border Imperialism. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Woodward, Jon. 2013. “Second Migrant Deported by Canada Jailed in Sri Lanka: Court.” CTV News, Vancouver, October 10. http://bc.ctvnews.ca/second-migrant -deported-by-canada-jailed-in-sri-lanka-court-1.1492553.

6

Temporary Arrivals The Komagata Maru Passengers and Migrant Labour Davina Bhandar

“Welcome to this historic moment as we commemorate permanently here at Burrard Inlet the tragically unjust voyage of 1914,” Kenney told the crowd. “Everyone who is here knows this story, and we know that the policy that resulted in the refusal of the passengers of the Komagata Maru was the ‘continuous journey’ policy that was designed specifically to prevent people, Canadians, of South Asian origin – excuse me, people of South Asian origin – from migrating to Canada. These brave people sought to challenge that injustice and they were not welcome.” – MP Jason Kenney, July 23, 2012 (quoted in Burrows 2012)

Unfree labour was of crucial importance to the evolution of the modern world system. The key European mercantile powers underwrote their trading empires by the production of tropical commodities and the extraction of precious metals. The means they chose was the introduction of mass slavery and coerced labour to the Americas. –Robin Cohen (1987, 63)

At first glance, the significance of the commemoration of the Koma­ gata Maru to contemporary experiences of migration and resettlement is not easily discernible. What does the act of commemoration mean in a political climate that has increasingly thrived on a phobic response to immigrants, migrant workers, and refugees (Knott 2016; Ma and Bhandar 141

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2015, 175)? It seems impossible to imagine that current mass deportations – the treatment of temporary foreign workers or the experiences of countless thousands of displaced refugees seeking asylum – could one day be commemorated by the nation-state. Reading the Komagata Maru as an event allows for a temporal connection between past and present that highlights a story of the refusal of entry into Canada and subsequent deportation rather than a celebration of immigrant resettlement or a vision of a multicultural nation of belonging.1 In this chapter, I compare the departure of the Komagata Maru and debates about the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) in Canada between 2006 and 2015 through three central elements: the specific historical contexts for the development of an international migration network of control, the production of a racialized and gendered subject viewed as “cheap labour,” and the status of immigration – “temporary” versus “permanent” – in the context of a white settler Canadian society.2 The passengers on board the Komagata Maru were understood to be foreign migrants entering Canada as labourers. Their ambition to become permanent settlers was largely unknown.3 Their underpaid and precarious labour and their conditions of arrival and/or deportation are similar to the forms of labour currently conscripted through the TFWP. It has played a role in Canadian immigration policy and labour assessment needs since the 1970s (Sharma 1997). Through this program, employers are able to establish needs for foreign labour that cannot be satisfied by a Canadian labour supply. Specific needs can be based on particular skill sets, language requirements, or a lack of qualified employable Can­adians. Although the TFWP is often associated with low-skilled labour in domestic service and agricultural sectors, there has been a steady growth in the program to include a variety of sectors, including highly skilled work, arts and culture, white-collar work, and the service industry. The 100-year commemoration of the Komagata Maru in May 2014 officially marked the Canadian state’s regulation of transnational migration through the Asia Pacific corridor: preventions, restrictions, and deportations. The narrative of commemorating the Komagata Maru “event” beyond its national Canadian borders is read through the complex network that regulated migration from India through the Pacific Ocean. Historical work in this area has led to a greater appreciation of the networks of trans­ national and colonial administrative connections (see Chang 2012; Lowe 2015; Mawani 2012; Mongia 2004; and Price 2011). Here I explore how

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the legal formation of Indian emigration and indentured labour systems informed the segmented labour markets in British Columbia. I am concerned with two questions: first, to understand how migration systems and laws established in the service of indentured labour contracts had effects on the manifestation of segmented labour markets in Canada, even when the labourers travelled free from labour contracts; second, how the historical manifestation of this labour segmentation is animated in contemporary debates about the TFWP in Canada. Although there is a specific geospatial relationship here, by tracing migrants arriving through the TFWP through the Asia Pacific regions I emphasize how the event of the Komagata Maru reveals the politics of a segregated and tiered labour market in British Columbia relevant to the context of the crisis surrounding the TFWP. I therefore examine the relationship between the historical and the contemporary formation of the subjectivity of cheap labour. The commemoration marks this history, but what does it mean in a contemporary moment when the efficacy of temporary foreign labour is vigorously challenged in Canadian and global contexts (Preibisch 2010)? Although many commemorate the historic voyage of the Komagata Maru as a fight against imperial control and suppression, the event might also be understood as part of an international network established to monitor the mobility of and to maintain restrictions on migration throughout the Pacific region (Chakraborty 2016; Sohi 2014). The commemoration a century after the voyage of the ship typically memorializes the event as an episode of past injustice that affected the migration of Indians to Canada and their settlement there. This narrative promotes a sense of struggle for inclusion and universality within a rights-based framework. In this particular narration, recognition and commemoration of a past injustice promote a settled sense of inclusion, recognition, and belonging. The matter of rights for migrants is far from settled, however. Low-skilled temporary foreign workers and their advocates undertake a similar argument for the rights of mobility today. These advocates petition the government for a pathway to permanent residence.4 So, rather than taking the nation-state as the contained place where the act of injustice occurred, and by looking at migrant acts as sets of mobility on a continuum, commemoration of the Komagata Maru entails other lines of flight, sites of investigation, and modes of reflection. Investigating outside the historical narrative borders of the Komagata Maru illustrates how migration is a complex network largely managed

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through sophisticated technologies of the state. What is contemporarily referred to as the international migration regime is historically evident in the relations of the commonwealth, imperial nation-states (Hindess 2000). The Komagata Maru and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program reveal the qualities of international negotiation that take place between nations to patrol and regulate migration. The terms and conditions that governed Indian emigration at the time of the Komagata Maru are a counterpoint to the conditions structuring temporary foreign migrant labour by the Canadian state today. By examining the conditions of emigration and mobility, we come to see the concealed relations and transecting power networks between nation-states. The concept of cheap labour is the link between the historical migration of the passengers on board the Komagata Maru and contemporary foreign workers. The TFWP in Crisis Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program has been formally in place since the 1970s.5 Since its inception, the program has been the source of many controversies, including the treatment of workers, their exploitable conditions, and potential abuse of the program by employers. However, media attention increased between 2008 and 2014 following the expansion of the TFWP and the diminished role of government oversight of industries applying for workers under the program. By the spring of 2014, there was increasing visibility of the extensive abuse of the program when the fast-food industry in British Columbia was criticized for its use of temporary foreign workers at several outlets. The TFWP was primarily associated with low-skilled worker categories to satisfy seasonal agricultural labour markets and domestic labour and caregiving labour shortages (Fudge and MacPhail 2009). The current crisis was precipitated by significant policy changes by the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper, responsible over the preceding decade for the exponential expansion of the program.6 The negative media attention and the growing pressures of a slowing economy propelled the former Conservative government to reform the program. In some instances, this led to a full-scale moratorium on temporary foreign workers in the low-skilled categories, though exemptions were made in Alberta. This shift in policy led to what was called a “mass exodus” of temporary foreign labour by the April 1 deadline in 2015. Workers in the low-skilled category, once they reached their “four year cumulative

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duration limit, [would] not be granted another work permit in Canada for an additional four years. After that time has elapsed, the worker will be able to apply again.”7 This shift in policy led to hundreds of thousands of mass deportations at the deadline. It also provided the government with a new mechanism to ensure the provisional temporality of the workers’ relationships in Canada. Prior to this shift in policy, labourers on low-skilled temporary foreign worker permits were granted the ability to apply for work internally once the time had expired on their original contracts. This sometimes led to a longer duration for the worker in Canada. The changes put in place for the TFWP affected many migrant workers, who now advocate for a remedy to their lack of security by arguing for a pathway toward permanent residency.8 This pathway would offer the migrant worker the ability to reunite with family members, security of political status, and limitations on deportability. However, this change in political status does not necessarily result in increased economic status or security. A recent longitudinal study details the distinction in earning potential between high-skilled and low-skilled temporary foreign workers who gain valuable Canadian work experience (Hou and Bonikowska 2015). The data indicate that those temporary foreign workers in low-skilled jobs who did become permanent residents did not benefit economically from their Canadian work experience. The Transpacific Migration Network: Restrictions, Temporality, and Reframing The management of immigration and labour markets historically has informed transpacific migrants’ mobility. The event of the Komagata Maru is significant in its attempt to circumvent and challenge restrictions imposed through the international migration regime. In May 1914, Canadian public opinion regarding the arrival of the ship, carrying 376 passengers of British Indian origin to British Columbia, was generally very low. The pages of various local newspapers carried headlines warning of a possible “Hindu Invasion” and sensationalized the issue of all Asian immigration within what was deemed a “white Canada.” With a classic exclusionist mentality, British Columbians viewed the Asian or Asiatic body as external and ontologically foreign to the territory of British Columbia and synonymous with cheap labour.9 The racial construction of the bodies of cheap labour that fuelled early-twentieth-century anti-immigrant politics

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operate similarly to the logics of exclusion and border management that inform the policies of immigration and the uses of the TFWP in Canada today. For example, at the time of the centenary commemoration of the Komagata Maru, there was a raging debate in British Columbia and the rest of Canada about the use of temporary foreign workers in the face of a slowing economy and increasing jobless rates among “Canadians.” How the Komagata Maru is remembered 100 years later is intimately connected to how passengers’ bodies were framed as foreign cheap labour and temporarily situated. It is not coincidental that low-skilled immigrant labour in Canada remains racialized and gender segmented (Creese 1988–89). There is very little class mobility in this group of workers. The language of cheap labour remains linked to the migrant, racialized, and gendered bodies of the Canadian working class (Galabuzi 2006). For instance, the TFWP has been specifically gendered, whereby primarily women are hired in the Live-In Caregiver Program and primarily men are hired in the Temporary Foreign Migrant Farm Worker Program (Bakan and Stasiulis 1997; Sharma 2006). Although citizenship status or permanent residency permits a greater sense of security, it does not translate into a better economic reality. The similarities between the past and the present are compelling since the transition to nation-statehood over the years witnessed the emergence of a strong nation-state protectionist position within the globalized marketplace. However, the rhetorical use of the concept of cheap labour is deeply entrenched. The fear of Asian immigration in the early 1900s was social, cultural, and economic. This fear was manufactured and supported through various pieces of legislation, such as the Indian Emigration Act and the Continuous Journey Regulation, which ultimately prevented or controlled migration routes across the Pacific Ocean and the north-south border regions of the west coast of Canada (Chang 2008; Mongia 2004). Migration was intimately connected to the projected economic success of the newly formed dominion. This success was founded on the socially and culturally cohesive image of a white settler society. Since the early twentieth century, the migration of Indians and other Asians perpetuated a fear in North America about a class of labourer who would work for any wage and be treated in any manner seen fit by employers (Creese 1988–89). This fear was fuelled by both a xenophobic resistance and the notion that Asian immigration would bring a sea of cheap labour and drive the average wage price down in North America (Creese 1988–89). Following the

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arrival of the Komagata Maru, the headlines did not immediately reveal that the ship was anticipated by the Canadian authorities and that negotiations regarding its ultimate fate were under way among the Canadian government, the British government, and the British Indian government. Since the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908, Canada had established, in consort with the network of Commonwealth nations, various manoeuvres regarding the flow of Asian labour and migration. The structure and composition of the subjectivity of cheap labour are necessarily related to a variety of elements in the shift of a wage labour economy. In particular are the transition from the abolition of slavery and the formation of a system of indentureship: The historical occasion for migration of Indian labour was the 1834 abolition of slavery in British plantation economies. Beginning as a process for meeting the demand for a cheap labour force in the ex-slave colonies of Mauritius and the Caribbean, this practice would, in the course of the next few decades, become a more generalized system of providing labour to a range of British, French and Dutch colonies. (Mongia 2004, 752–53)

The management of Indian emigration was concomitantly developed to support a system of indentured labour (Bonacich 1972; Mongia 2004). Although Canada was not directly involved in receiving indentured labour, the mechanism through which emigration took place from India was organized through this system of labour market development. Formation of the “coolie” system of emigration from India therefore had an effect on how the Indian subject was moving throughout the British Empire, not as a “free” imperial subject but as racially and subjectively informed by this labour market structure.10 Canada was not formally invested in a sys­ tem of indentured labour from India, yet this system affected the labour market of these racialized bodies. The racialization of Indian migrants was deeply connected to the “coolie” subjectivity and a significant aspect of how labour market wages were established and hence “cheapened” in the process. A specific instance of how this discourse contributed to policies that directly affected the passengers of the Komagata Maru can be gleaned from the diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King. His diaries contain detailed accounts of international diplomatic missions in Washington, DC, with Presi­dent Theodore Roosevelt and many political and government

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dignitaries in London in 1908. As historian Kirk Niergarth (2010, 599) comments, “he [King] became a conduit of communication between the highest political and imperial powers in Washington, Ottawa and London.” According to Niergarth, King “also believed, sincerely it seems, that he could play a part in fostering world peace by brokering an agreement that would promote and preserve racial segregation on a global scale” (599). Niergarth’s observations suggest that it was through the technologies of border control and immigration policies that a form of “global racial segregation” could essentially reaffirm the racial foundations of both Canada and the United States. During this mission, King met with Roosevelt in Washington, and various dignitaries in London, to engage the question of a combined and networked effort to control or outright limit the movement of “Oriental” races to North America. These were the nascent stages of the anglosphere pact that established the colour line of national borders. Roosevelt underscored the importance of this commitment to racial solidarity to King by talking about “not merely an understanding for today, but some kind of convention between the English speaking peoples. Whereby in regard to these questions it would be understood on all sides that the Asiatic peoples were not to come to the English speaking countries to settle” (quoted in Niergarth 2010, 604). Although the continuous journey restrictions are often viewed as an agreement carefully arranged between Canada and the United Kingdom, it is clear from King’s rendition of his international missions that this arrangement was in direct relation to an anglosphere alliance. The 1908 mission essentially established the lengths that Canada would be able to go to prevent Indian immigration while remaining comfortably loyal to Britain in the process. King’s earlier meeting with Roosevelt confirmed agreement between Canadian and American interests over the im­ migration of “Asiatics.” King’s diaries during his missions are rich records of his engagement with high-ranking officials. For example, in one meeting, King was in conversation with Lord Elgin (representative of the British government) and Viscount John Morley, secretary of state to India from 1905 to 1910. King, acting on behalf of the Canadian government, made several references to the potential use of the Indian Emigration Act to halt the movement of Indian subjects to Canada. In particular, he referred to the kinds of restrictions placed on the emigration of Indians through contract labour schemes (or indenture systems), even though Canada did

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not engage in these systems of labour. Morley, a Liberal committed to the value of a traditional concept of imperialism, cautiously discussed moral and political boundaries. Although King tried to remain diplomatic in tone, it is evident that the idea of “individual liberty” that Morley raised in relation to the question of the free movement of British Indians was a topic that King was hesitant to engage. Rather, he made several comments arguing that underlying differences, racial and cultural in nature, would make it impossible to assimilate Indians into the Canadian nation-state. These discussions point to the system of emigration administered through the Indian Emigration Act and its centrality to the potential of limiting Indian immigration to Canada. The following comments are taken from “On His Mission to England to Confer with the British Authorities on the Subject of Immigration to Canada from the Orient, and Immigration from India in Particular” (King 1912). Addressing Morley, King wrote that I inquired if the government of India might not have some of its agents act in an advisory capacity to persons thinking of emigrating, who would point out the many requirements and explain the probable situation in British Columbia. Mr. Morley seemed to approve of this idea, and said it was certainly desirable that the Indians should be protected from false representations ... Later I inquired as to whether the Indian Emigration Act did not contain provisions which might be construed as prohibiting contract labour to Canada. I said I would not pretend to say what the provisions of the countries really were, but from my reading of the measure, I judged that the emigration of indentured labour, save to countries named in a schedule, and to which the government of India gave its consent, was prohibited, at all events the recruiting of such labour was prohibited. Lord Elgin said: “But you have never had any question of indentured labour.” I replied that indentured labour in the sense in which the term had been used in regard to labour in South Africa we had not had, though some persons might endeavor to advocate it, but that what I had in mind was the possibility of the provisions of the Indian Emigration Act being sufficiently broad to include labour to Canada under contract or agreement. Mr. Morley then said: But the men who have come in have not come in under contract. I can see where it is desirable to prevent contract labour in certain instances, but to endeavor to restrict men from selling their farms and going where

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they please is an interference with individual liberty, and prohibition of this kind would be obnoxious. I might have my legal adviser go through the Indian Act and see just to what extent it can be held as applicable to Canada. I replied that I would be obliged if he would kindly have this done. Mr. Morley said: “What you want me to do is to see whether the Indian Act as it stands could be made applicable?” I replied that that was precisely what was desired. (King 1912, n.p.)

It is not difficult to see how King was interested in the various aspects of the Indian Emigration Act as a government strategy to limit British Indian subjects from moving freely throughout the empire. Although the indenture system of contract labour similar to the role of the head tax for Chinese labourers was not fully implemented with British Indian migrants, it is clear that lives were intimately regulated through a variety of immigrationrelated schemes. Edna Bonacich (1972, 550) argued that split labour markets can be linked to specific technologies of organizing migration and labour: “One capitalist device for keeping wages low at least for a time is to bind immigrants to contracts before they leave the old economy. The Indian indenture system, for example, rested on such an arrangement.” Extensive cooperation between nation-states organized the flow of labour through migration regulations. The question of freedom that Morley raised takes on an important weight when we consider the links to contemporary questions of freedom of mobility. The twinning of migration regimes and the mobility of labour established the global “colour bar.” This network of national and imperial government regulations established and structured the various itineraries of transpacific and “Oriental” migrants. The labour migration schemes between the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean Sea regions were deeply connected to these practices. In 1914, the Continuous Journey Regulation, an amendment to a nascent immigration policy made in 1908, was challenged by the British Indians on the Komagata Maru on the basis of British imperial citizens’ en­titlement to travel freely within the boundaries of the Commonwealth. It is clear that this challenge was specific to the white settler nations and not necessarily at the behest of the imperial governing authorities. How­ ever, Canada – asserting its sovereign determination to establish and maintain its borders – argued that it would not allow any migrants to enter

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Canada unless they could prove a continuous passage from their country of origin. This provision of the immigration policy was considered to be out of step with the laws of the day. It was a perverted attempt to prevent or put a stop to immigration from India to Canada. This exclusionary act, similar in process to the Chinese Exclusion Act, effectively limited the number of South Asian immigrants during this period. The Department of Immigration and Colonization that oversaw the Komagata Maru event repeatedly used covert measures to spy on the South Asian community in British Columbia (Sohi 2014). This history is rife with surveillance measures, covert operatives, and disguised agents of the empire (Chattopadhyay 2016; Sohi 2014). South Asians were held as a suspect community and stereotyped as dangerous, inassimilable, and morally corrupt. In addition, this production of the suspect foreigner was foundational to the formation of a segmented labour market, whereby racialized and gendered labouring bodies were perceived as holding less value than white masculine bodies. Notwithstanding the challenges to these deeply held perceptions, as discussed by Gillian Creese (1988–89), the formation of a segmented labour system has not been deterred (Galabuzi 2006). Furthermore, by maintaining a precarious form of status for Indian migrants in the early twentieth century, labour exploitation was managed through various border and migration schemes. Cheap Labour Then and Now Contemporary controversies about the TFWP have targeted the spread of this program across increasing low-skilled sectors of employment, which leads to the depression of wages in those sectors and increasingly degraded working conditions. Many labour unions and organizations, for instance the BC Federation of Labour, have argued that “more and more employers are applying to bring Temporary Foreign Workers into Canada to fill a variety of jobs, and increasingly are using the program for low-wage positions. This trend only serves to depress wages and invite exploitation of workers who are granted no rights on the TFW program.”11 It is important to highlight the historical links between foreign labouring bodies and the role of wages. The notion of a guest worker program and the place of foreign labour and ethnic difference have been persistent in what some have called a cheap labour strategy, since the 1970s a structured approach to guarantee a stream of labourers not entitled to the rights and protections of citizens (Sharma 2006; Swanson 2001). However, there is a much

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longer history of the production of the category and the naturalization of the relationship between foreign labouring bodies and cheap labour. The discourse of cheap labour emerged with the birth of the indentured labour system used in the post-abolitionist colonial period. By 1834, the slavery economies in British plantations had been abolished, and a system of indentured labour was established. Systems of Indian migration were tied to the birth of this system, which not only established a process of free and unfree migration but also put in place a regulatory apparatus that could control the ebb and flow of Indian migration and the global demand for a cheap and mobile workforce. In 1914, the inclusion of South Asian immigrants in the fabric of the Canadian nation, and their adaptability therein, were routinely questioned and often denied. A wedge was created between “Canadian” labourers and Asian or South Asian labourers. A segregated labour market existed in which particular jobs were reserved for people of certain ethnic and racial backgrounds. Resource sectors such as mining and lumber also reserved preferential positions for white labourers. There was clear evidence at that time of a “split labour” market (Bonacich 1972). Who was deemed a foreign labourer and who was deemed a Canadian worker were firmly delineated, and the foreigner was viewed as someone who should be considered lucky to be given a job at all, let alone someone who deserved equal pay for equal work. The founding of Canadian white settler society depended on the segregation of the labour market (by which certain ethnic groups were situated historically as outside or external to the nation-state or the local community). In this racialized economy of labour, Indigenous communities were slowly regulated as external to the modernizing labour market and hence were destined to occupy a peripheral position in it. Although Indigenous communities were instrumental to the wage economy in industries as diverse as fisheries, lumber, and mining in the late nineteenth century, Indigenous and other racialized groups were relegated to minority and external status by the twentieth century. This regulation involved a process of dispossession, intimately connecting the loss of land and the loss of wage labour. This transition was not simply the result of an established “wage” labour system – a distinct racialized capitalism that took root was codified in both immigration processes and laws and the treatment of Indigenous nations. Indigenous communities at the time of the arrival of the Komagata Maru in British Columbia were being engaged in

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a process of determining land acquisition and economic independence through the Royal Commission on Indian Affairs for the Province of British Columbia 1913–16 (also known as the McKenna and McBride Commission). Simultaneously, the settler communities of the Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island were growing exponentially. James K. Burrows (1986, 28) argues that, as increasing numbers of European settlers arrived, there was increasing pressure on Indigenous communities, yet they remained an “important part of the labour force in many sections of the province.” His study of Indigenous people’s labour market involvement relies on a regional analysis within the province and highlights the distinct forms of settlement across the territories. In Cheap Wage Labour: Race and Gender in the Fisheries of British Columbia, Alicja Muszynski (1996, 132) traces the shift from Indigenous labourers in the canneries to Chinese labourers organized under the Chinese contract system. She argues that this transition resulted from the lack of complete subordination of Indigenous workers – they were given work only when it was available – controlled minimally through this labour system, whereas “Chinese contractors or middlemen ... supplied, supervised and provisioned the bulk of [the] labour force for each cannery.” A dual act of dispossession took place through government legislation that limited the control of and access to salmon fisheries by Indigenous populations and limited their labour in the canneries (Harris 2001; Mawani 2012). As the increasing use of contracted labour from the new Asian migrants took hold in British Columbia, the foundation for labour market segmentation was firmly established. According to Bonacich (1972, 552), that initial price discrepancies in labour should ever fall along ethnic lines is a function of two forces. First, the original wage agreement arrived at between business and new labor often takes place in the labor group’s point of origin. This is more obviously a feature of immigrant labor, but also occurs within a territory when conquered peoples enter their conquerors’ economy. In other words, the wage agreement is often concluded within a national context, the nationalities coming to comprise the ethnic elements of the new labor market.

A cursory examination of the history of Canadian immigration policy and various temporary worker schemes illustrates the nature of the split labour market and its coterminous development with the capitalist

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interests of the white settler Canadian state. The politics of dispossession is central to this racialized economy. Both the displaced and the relocated Indigenous populations and migrants of colour are implicated in the articulation of complex racial hierarchies. In the case of the labour values, Indigenous communities are maintained at the periphery of the Canadian labour market, not even identified as cheap labour. Alternatively, the historical relationship of the Indian migrant subject’s dispossession and later on the Global South’s migrant population (the majority of the lowskilled temporary workforce) are closely linked to the experience of dislocation and dispossession. The Indian migrant was not a pioneer or settler in Canadian society but a sojourner or temporary migrant. However, in the practice of memorialization, this narrative of Indo-Canadian settlement has been redefined as a community of pioneers forging strong ties to the development of the Commonwealth of Nations and Canada. Commemoration of the Komagata Maru is an odd reminder of how Indians were external to the Canadian nation. The “accidental” (i.e., accidental in the eyes of the Canadian government) settlement of Indian labourers is evident even in the commemoration speech of MP Kenney at the ceremony to unveil the Komagata Maru commemoration plaque (quoted in full at the chapter’s opening). He identified the past wrong against Canadians of South Asian origin and then corrected himself by designating the passengers as South Asians hoping to make Canada their home. The relationship between the role of indentured labour in the British colony of India and what shaped the larger history of the South Asian diaspora cannot be jettisoned in the story of the Komagata Maru or the early migration histories of South Asians to Canada. Although there was no known formal system of indenture for Indian labourers along the west coast of North America, there existed a global Indian diaspora of indentured labour, a system developed in the 1830s and used to supply cheap labour to the British West Indies. By placing the story of the Komagata Maru and its passengers in relation to the contemporary story of the TFWP in Canada, the implicit connection between current and historical migration regimes determined through the process of indenture and the production of cheap labour is made evident. In particular, the questions about both the freedom of movement and the costs of this freedom for racialized migrants are revealed through the history of the passengers of the

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Komagata Maru. These passengers were not officially contracted for labour purposes. However, many of them had connections, either family or extended village connections, in the larger South Asian community already in Canada. In some instances, it might be possible to follow these relationships to understand how these labourers paid for their passage. Such relationships point to the larger question of how contracted labour and systems of indenture remain significant parts of the migration process and industry.12 Today this logic is formalized through the system of the TFWP. With recent criticisms of this program under public scrutiny, similar divisions are at play. Labourers who have entered Canada through this program are overwhelmingly scapegoats in this repetitive narrative that pits Canadians against foreign labourers. The labour unions that charge the Canadian government with ethical bankruptcy for failing to recognize industry’s corruption of the TFWP also fail to recognize the corruption of a system that pits “citizens” against those with temporary status in the country. Although Canada today – marked by its multicultural and ethnic diversity – makes the early-twentieth-century notion of a “white Canada” more difficult to delineate clearly through public policy, there are farreaching consequences of an increasingly racially divided society in Canada. The violence of poverty and the lack of opportunity that racialized migrants and Canadians face are calculated through demographic breakdowns that easily display what appears to be a growing economic apartheid. Permanent/Temporary Migrants versus Immigrants The first generation of Asiatic workers is ordinarily very much under the control of labor contractors and employers, hence it is easier for the employer to frustrate any plans for their organization. Clearly this cultural bar helped antagonize white workers against the Asiatics. The latter were conceived of as being in alliance with the employer. It would probably have taken two or three generations before, say, the East Indian low-caste worker on the Coast became sufficiently American­ ized to adjust easily to the policies and aims of organized labor. – Oliver Cox (quoted in Bonacich 1972, 554)

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In the remarks by former MP Jason Kenney at the commemoration ceremony for the Komagata Maru, the parapraxis in which he misidentified who was being remembered and for what reason suggests a giant chasm in the status of those who are citizens and those who are migrants. Kenney referred to “the ‘continuous journey’ policy that was designed specifically to prevent people, Canadians, of South Asian origin – excuse me, people of South Asian origin – from migrating to Canada.” This slip in speech reveals the distinction between those who arrived and those who were permitted to stay – a distinction between temporariness and permanence. In the current struggles of temporary foreign workers, the same chasm persists. Since the radical overhaul of the TFWP, low-skilled workers are no longer eligible to remain in Canada beyond four years. This change has led to demands made by various labour organizations and migrant justice activists for a path to permanence. Although the conditions of permanent residence, and indeed citizenship, allow for the security of personhood and the ability to reunite with family long term, the path to permanence does not necessarily lead to greater economic security or a way out of the split labour market. That market and its generational impacts on racialized immigrants in Canada are significant documented realities. A 2015 study by Statistics Canada shows that, in the low-skilled worker category among temporary foreign workers, people do not benefit from the work experience attained while working in Canada. The data do not reflect a gain in employment standards among this group of workers once they receive permanent status. This is in direct contrast to the data showing that high-skilled workers and foreign students do benefit from Canadian work experience once they receive permanent residence status (Hou and Bonikowska 2015). Commemoration of the Komagata Maru is not simply a way to remember and recognize the challenges that earlier generations of immigrants faced in entering Canada and establishing themselves. It is also a moment to reflect on how an immigrant community came together to fight for the rights of all. The community of South Asians throughout the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island organized through the Khalsa Diwan Societies to raise funds in support of those stranded on the ship. Even though members of this community of South Asians in Canada in the early 1900s themselves had highly precarious and marginal lives, they organized to support the rights of those on the ship to land in Canada.

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In the spring and summer of 2014, the Canadian government, the BC government, and municipal governments were involved in the com­ memoration of the Komagata Maru incident. The emphasis in the national narrative was on reconciliation between the past wrongdoings and the current Canadian society – in the national imagination at least – as a multicultural and diverse nation welcoming to all immigrants. But the misstep in Kenney’s commemoration speech speaks volumes about the provisional and precarious historical belonging of South Asians, among other racialized migrants making the transpacific journey, to the Canadian nation-state. It speaks to the difficulty that Kenney had in positioning himself as an apologist for the detention and eventual deportation when such tactics were mainstays of his governance strategy in the portfolio of citizenship and immigration policy in Canada. With this in mind, commemoration of the Komagata Maru must be read in relation to contemporary issues in immigration policy and forms of political status. The media spotlight on Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program resituates the forms of exploitation and racist discourse witnessed 100 years ago.











Notes 1 See Mongia (this volume) for a detailed analysis of how the Komagata Maru is read as an “event” that led to ruptures in the practices of migration. She says that “the Komagata Maru constitutes an ‘event’ that transformed the logic and the institutional axis on which migration was controlled. It was an event, moreover, crucially shaped by a set of path dependencies that constrained and enabled particular outcomes” (page 97). 2 See Chapter 5 (this volume) for a discussion that underscores the relationship between “irregular arrivals” and the deportation of Tamil refugees, and passengers of the Komagata Maru. This connection was also made in the documentary Continuous Journey (Kazimi 2004). 3 See the Komagata Maru: Continuing the Journey website for an incomplete passenger database at http://komagatamarujourney.ca/km_passengers. Where possible, statements indicate the passenger’s intention to remain in Canada. 4 See Justicia 4 Migrant Workers at http://justicia4migrantworkers.org/justicia_new.html and Coalition for Migrant Worker Rights in Canada at http://migrantrights.ca/en/home/. 5 Nandita Sharma (1997) traces the development of current TFWPs through the NonImmigrant Employment Program established in 1973. See also Kelley and Trebilcock (1998). 6 In fact, “elemental workers and labourers” accounted for just over 2 percent of temporary foreign workers. In contrast, about one-quarter were “intermediate and clerical workers,” another one-quarter were “professionals,” and “about a fifth did not state their skill level” (Ramos 2012). The former Conservative government saw an unprecedented growth both in the number of jobs and the types of employment undertaken through the program. The TFWP by 2011 was overseeing the contracts of more than 400,000 temporary foreign workers.

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7 “Temporary Foreign Worker Mass Exodus Expected April 1,” CBC News, February 25, 2015, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/temporary-foreign-worker-mass -exodus-expected-april-1-1.2970833. 8 Justicia 4 Migrant Workers, a grassroots social movement organization, has helped to convey the labour and political demands of temporary foreign workers in the agricultural sector. 9 A large literature traces the historical, social, and political contexts of Canada’s racially stratified labour market. Here I am trying to understand the contemporary politics of the foreign temporary worker through the historical lens of Canada’s relationship with indentured labour systems. 10 Mongia (this volume) discusses in detail the distinction between the category of “labourer” contracted to emigrate from India and the “free” Indian not contracted to provide labour under a system of indenture. This distinction is evident in the exchange between King and Morley, who discuss the attempt by Canada to curtail the movement of free British Indian subjects in the Commonwealth. 11 See BC Federation of Labour, http://bcfed.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/1520 -16sub%20KC%20HUMA%20TFWP.pdf. 12 “The concept ‘price of labor’ refers to labor’s total cost to the employer, including not only wages, but the cost of recruitment, transportation, room and board, education, health care (if the employer must bear these), and the costs of labor unrest. The degree of worker ‘freedom’ does not interfere with this calculus; the cost of a slave can be estimated in the same monetary units as that of a wage earner, from his purchase price, living expenses, policing requirements, and so on” (Bonacich 1972, 549).

References Bakan, Abigail, and Davia Stasiulis, eds. 1997. Not One of the Family: Foreign Domestic Workers in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bonacich, Edna. 1972. “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labour Market.” American Sociological Review 37, 5: 547–59. Burrows, James K. 1986. “‘A Much-Needed Class of Labour’: The Economy and Income of the Southern Interior Plateau Indians, 1897–1910.” BC Studies 71: 27–29. Burrows, Matthew. 2012. “Jason Kenney Shows Up at Unveiling of Komagata Maru Memorial,” Georgia Straight, July 23, 2012. http://www.straight.com/news/jason -kenney-shows-unveiling-komagata-maru-memorial. Chakraborty, Subhas R. 2016. “The Journey of the Komagata Maru: Conjuncture, History, and Memory.” Journal of South Asian Diaspora 8, 2: 111–24. Chang, Kornel. 2008. “Enforcing Transnational White Solidarity: Asian Migration and the Formation of the US-Canadian Boundary.” American Quarterly 60, 3: 671–96. –. 2012. Pacific Connections: The Making of US-Canadian Borderlands. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Chattopadhyay, Suchetana. 2016. “Closely Observed Ships.” South Asian Diaspora 8, 2: 203–22. Cohen, Robin. 1987. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. Florence, KY: Routledge. ProQuest. Creese, Gillian. 1988–89. “Exclusion or Solidarity? Vancouver Workers Confront the Oriental Problem.” BC Studies 8: 24–51.

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Fudge, Judy, and Fiona MacPhail. 2009. “The Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Canada: Low-Skilled Workers as an Extreme Form of Flexible Labour.” Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 31: 101–39. Galabuzi, Edward Grace. 2006. Canada’s Economic Apartheid: The Social Exclusion of Racialized Groups. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Harris, Doug. 2001. Fish, Law, and Colonialism: The Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hindess, Barry. 2000. “Citizenship in the International Management of Populations.” American Behavioural Scientist 43, 9: 1486–97. Hou, Feng, and Aneta Bonikowska. 2015. The Earnings Advantage of Landed Immi­ grants Who Were Previously Temporary Residents in Canada. Ottawa: Minister of Statistics Canada. Kelley, Ninette, and Michael Trebilcock. 1998. The Making of the Mosaic: History of Can­ adian Immigration Policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. King, William Lyon Mackenzie. 1912. “On His Mission to England to Confer with the British Authorities on the Subject of Immigration to Canada from the Orient, and Immigration from India in Particular.” Department of External Affairs, Facilities for British Indian Subjects and General Question of Hindoo and Asiatic Immigration, File 66-1912, January 6, 1912–December 19, 1912. Knott, Christine. 2016. “Contentious Mobilities and Cheap(er) Labour: Temporary Foreign Workers in a New Brunswick Seafood Processing Community.” Canadian Journal of Sociology 41, 3: 375–97. Lowe, Lisa. 2015. The Intimacies of Four Continents. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ma, Michael C.K., and Davina Bhandar. 2015. “Phobia in the Age of Post-Migrant Rights: The Criminalization of Tamil Refugees.” In Manufacturing Phobias: The Political Production of Fear in Theory and Practice, edited by Hisham Ramdan and Jeff Shantz, 175–208. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Mawani, Renisa. 2012. “Racial Violence and the Cosmopolitan City.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30: 1083–1102. Mongia, Radhika. 2004. “Impartial Regimes of Truth: Indentured Indian Labour and the Status of Inquiry.” Cultural Studies 18, 5: 749–68. Muszynski, Alicja. 1996. Cheap Wage Labour: Race and Gender in the Fisheries of British Columbia. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Niergarth, Kirk. 2010. “‘This Continent Must Belong to the White Races’: William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canadian Diplomacy, and Immigration Law, 1908.” International History Review 32, 4: 599–617. Preibisch, Kerry. 2010. “Pick-Your-Own Labor: Migrant Workers and Flexibility in Canadian Agriculture.” International Migration Review 44, 2: 404–41. Price, John. 2011. “Orienting” Canada: Race, Empire, and the Transpacific. Vancouver: UBC Press. Ramos, Howard. 2012. “Do Canadians Know How Increasing Numbers of Tempor­ ary Foreign Workers Is Changing Immigration?” CCPA-Nova Scotia in Focus, January 31. http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/ Nova%20Scotia%20Office/2012/02/tempforeignworkersinfocus.pdf. Sharma, Nandita R. 1997. “Cheap Myths and Bonded Lives: Freedom and Citizenship in Canadian Society.” Beyond Law 6, 17: 35–61.

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–. 2006. Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of “Migrant Workers” in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Sohi, Seema. 2014. Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swanson, Jean. 2001. Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion. Toronto: Between the Lines. “Temporary Foreign Worker Mass Exodus Expected April 1.” CBC News, February 25, 2015. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/temporary-foreign-worker-mass -exodus-expected-april-1-1.2970833.

Part 3 Colonial Temporalities of Memory and Cultural Production

7

The Komagata Maru Incident as Described in Two Japanese Works Kaori Mizukami

The Komagata Maru incident of 1914 has been documented as an event in which Canadian authorities restricted the immigration of Indians who sought to land in Vancouver. The passengers were prevented from doing so by an order-in-council that required a continuous journey from the passengers’ home country. The passengers complained that they were not allowed to land in Canada, even though they were British subjects, and that white British subjects could freely move about the British Empire. The result was criticism of British colonialism and increased sympathy for the Indian revolutionary movement. In the contexts of British colonialism, Canadian immigration racism, and Indian resistance, the existence of Japanese witnesses on board the Komagata Maru is often overlooked in memories of its transnational journey, yet it is important to note that it was a Japanese vessel and that its officers and sailors were Japanese (see Figure 7.1). They were involved in the Komagata Maru incident and certainly witnessed the significant events that took place between Hong Kong and Vancouver and the return to Budge Budge, India. The existence of the Japanese, as a third party, truly added complexity to the Komagata Maru incident since the presence and activities of the Japanese crew show that the events went beyond the typical Canadian focus on South Asians and Canadian officials; the Japanese also interpreted the incident from their unique viewpoint (both during and after the ship’s departure and forced return), different from Indian, Can­ adian, and British viewpoints. Yokichi Shiozaki, the Japanese owner of the Komagata Maru, was on board when the incident occurred. In 1936, Shiozaki wrote a short essay 163

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Figure 7.1  Left to right: the ship’s owner Yokichi Shiozaki, the chief engineer Masayoshi Kajiyama, the captain Tokujirō Yamamoto, and Gurdit Singh. | AM1584: CVA 7-128, City of Vancouver Archives.

on the incident based on his own experience. It is entitled “Sekai no Jimoku o Shōdōseshi Komagata Maru Jiken no Shinsō” (The Actual Facts of the Komagata Maru Incident That Attracted Attention around the World).1 After the publication of Shiozaki’s essay, nonfiction author Sadao Yoshida interviewed Shiozaki and wrote Komagata Maru Jiken (The Komagata Maru Incident), also in 1936. By examining these two works, I have three goals in this chapter, all of which push beyond the Canadian national focus and expand contexts in which the Komagata Maru incident is discussed. First, I reveal how the story of the ship came to be written in some media in 1936 Japan. This basic information will help us to explore Japanese interpretations of the incident. Second, I present how the Komagata Maru incident is remembered and interpreted in Japan. This perspective is important because the Japanese crew of the ship were unique witnesses in that they had observed the Indian passengers throughout their voyage, not just in Vancouver or Budge Budge; as such, interpretations of the incident by the Japanese crew were not formed in one place, or at one point, or from one national perspective but shaped throughout their itinerancy, which extended across the Pacific Ocean while being affected by colonial political discourses of the

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time. Shiozaki’s memoir is particularly valuable in this respect. In addition, it is important to reflect on how the Komagata Maru incident was interpreted in the context of 1936 Japan. Yoshida’s account lends itself to this contextualization. Yoshida’s Komagata Maru Jiken is well known among Japanese researchers (Hosokawa 2012; Kuwajima 2003), and Michihisa Hosokawa (2012, 34), a Japanese historian of Canadian history, has evaluated it as a work of entertainment. Although the book does include some dramatized descriptions, they do not preclude its usefulness in reconsidering the incident because they put it in the context of its interpretation in Japan by a Japanese writer twenty-two years after the incident. The existence of Japanese interpretations of the incident in 1936 demonstrates that it does not fit neatly into the framework of Canadian or Indian national historiography but can serve as a mirror that reflects the imperialism of Japan in 1936. Third, I explore in this chapter what can be reconsidered about the facts of the Komagata Maru incident and the larger colonial context when a Japanese perspective is adopted. By focusing on the memories of the Japanese crew, first I shed light on the nature of the relationship between the crew and the passengers during the voyage; then I show how the crew and the Komagata Maru as a Japanese vessel constituted a third party in the incident, adding complexity to it. These points are crucial in reassessing the international complexity of the incident, the transnational colonial context that limited the itinerant passengers, and the historical implications of Japanese involvement and memory. Japanese Texts on the Komagata Maru Incident The Essay by Yokichi Shiozaki, Owner of the Komagata Maru Shiozaki’s essay is a five-page chronological account of the Komagata Maru incident. It was published in a Japanese monthly magazine, Yūshū, in Janu­ ary 1936. Yūshū was the organ of the Kaigun Yūshū Kai, an incorporated foundation of the Imperial Japanese Navy Reserve. The aim of the organization was to convey naval information to former sailors and to arouse public interest in maritime affairs. The circulation of Yūshū in the 1930s is estimated to have been about 4,500 (Arima Ryōkitsu Den Hensan Iinkai 1945, 106). Shiozaki wrote for Yūshū because he had an enduring relationship with the Japanese navy. When the Komagata Maru anchored at Vancouver, the

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Japanese naval training group, conducting ocean navigation in North America, also arrived there. Shiozaki (1936, 134) reflected on this fact: “During these troubles [between Indian passengers and Can­adian authorities], two training vessels named the Asama and Azuma under Com­ mander Kuroi entered. Looking at the gallant appearance of the flag of the Rising Sun flying, all the crew members [of the Komagata Maru] were unexpectedly overwhelmed with emotion and shouted ‘hurray for the Great Empire [of Japan].’” Although the training ships departed for Seattle after a mere two days, Shiozaki and other Japanese crew mem­bers were encouraged by the Japanese naval men and thanked them (134). Shiozaki expressed gratitude to the Japanese navy even after the incident. Yutaka Arima, one of the military staff members on Japanese training ships in 1914, mentioned Shiozaki’s enduring contribution to the Japan­ ese navy: “Some officers [of the Japanese navy] who have entered Osaka port by ship would be reminded of the name of Shiozaki because of his volunteer activities for vessels in his fast craft, the Itosaki Maru. He has continuously expressed his deep sense of gratitude to the Japanese navy since the Komagata Maru incident” (Arima 1936, 137). As this quotation shows, Shiozaki had maintained a good relationship with the Japanese navy since 1914, and this positive relationship enabled him to present his experience of the Komagata Maru incident in Yūshū. One of Shiozaki’s contacts in the Japanese navy, Arima directly connected Shiozaki with Yūshū. Arima was not just one of Shiozaki’s acquaintances since 1914 but also carried a lot of influence as a vice-admiral of the Japanese navy in 1936. Moreover, his adoptive father, Ryōkitsu Arima, was the second president of Kaigun Yūshū Kai (Arima Ryōkitsu Den Hensan Iinkai 1945, 131) and had significant influence on Yūshū. There­ fore, it is natural to consider that the status of Yutaka Arima and his connection with Yūshū enabled Shiozaki to write about the Komagata Maru incident in 1936. In other words, Arima was the direct reason that the incident was recalled in Japan in 1936. Article by Nonfiction Writer Sadao Yoshida Sadao Yoshida’s articles were printed in serial form in the newspaper Nippon Kōgyō Shimbun (Japan Industry Newspapers) from February to May 1936 and then published in book form in August 1936 (Yoshida 1936a, 1). They total 267 pages. Yoshida seems to have used Shiozaki’s essay as a

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blueprint for parts of his account of the Komagata Maru incident because some of the recounted scenes are parallel. Yoshida wrote Komagata Maru Jiken as a success story, depicting the incident as one of the most severe trials that Shiozaki ever faced. Fifty-eight pages of the book describe his childhood and the hardships that he experienced before the incident. Shiozaki was born in 1881 in the poor fishing village of Shioya in the Wakayama prefecture (Yoshida 1936a, 10). Early in his adult life, he worked as a fireman for a small salary (34–35). He worked hard and obtained a chief engineer’s licence (39–43), eventually founding the Shin Ei Kisen Gōshi Gaisha (the Shin Ei Steamship Limited Partnership Company) with Sumiya Genzaburō in Osaka (51). The book presents Shiozaki as one of the most successful engineers and businessmen in Osaka. His life story as a successful businessman would have resonated with the largely business readership of Nippon Kōgyō Shimbun, in which it was published in serial form. Nippon Kōgyō Shimbun was a national daily, founded in Osaka in 1933. Its founding was inspired by the remarkable success story of Nikkan Kōgyō Shimbun (Business and Technology Daily News), which expanded along with the development of industry in the Kansai region, mainly around the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe (Ono 1956, 309). The circulation of Nippon Kōgyō Shimbun in the late 1930s is estimated to have been between 35,000 and 55,000 (Kobayashi 2011, 211–12). A survey of the articles published from May 15 to 30, 1936, reveals recurring concerns about daily changes in industry staples, such as iron and steel, shipbuilding, chemical products, cotton, and ceramic wares. They also reported on new industry technologies. It can be assumed that the newspaper’s readers included engineers and businessmen who would have felt an affinity for the success story of a businessman from Osaka. After Komagata Maru Jiken, Yoshida continued publishing other biographical accounts in Nippon Kōgyō Shimbun, some of which were also published in book form. These texts were based on the life histories of Osaka’s successful engineers and businessmen: Gonshirō Kubota, founder of the Kubota Corporation, who worked in the iron industry; the Tokunaga brothers, involved in the glass industry; and Tokuji Hayakawa, inventor of the mechanical pencil and founder of Sharp Corporation, the multinational producer of electronic products (Yoshida 1936b, 1938). The Koma­ gata Maru incident received renewed attention in Japan because Komagata Maru Jiken was one of Yoshida’s early works in a biographical series on

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successful engineers in Osaka. Such Japanese texts are typically not considered in Canadian national historiographic accounts. Another feature of Yoshida’s Komagata Maru Jiken is its emphasis on the dignity of the Japanese navy and Shiozaki’s affinity for it. The encounter of the Komagata Maru with the naval training group in Vancouver is rendered in a particularly dramatic style (Yoshida 1936a, 108–17). The account stressed the relationship between Shiozaki and Makoto Saitō, an admiral of the navy from 1906 to 1914, the thirtieth prime minister of Japan from 1932 to 1934, and the lord keeper of the privy seal from 1935 to 1936. Komagata Maru Jiken starts with the chapter entitled “[Shiozaki’s] Relationship with the Late Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Saitō” (1) and ends with “The [Shiozaki’s] Affection for Late Vis. Saitō” (259). Their relationship is also emphasized in the episode in which Saitō named the ship Komagata Maru after the Komagata Shrine located in his hometown, Mizusawa, in the Iwate prefecture, following a request from Shiozaki (264). So the journey of the Komagata Maru as such starts in Japan, on land, and at a shrine, not – as in the Canadian accounts – in Burrard Inlet with only Indian subjects. Saitō was assassinated in an attempted coup d’état staged by young army officers on February 26, 1936, and Yoshida ends his book by speaking of Shiozaki’s sadness over Saitō’s death. Yoshida remarks that the assassination of Saitō deserves special mention in his account of events at the time (1), and this contemporary affair undoubtedly affected his description of the relationship between Shiozaki and Saitō. This is important because it shaped the context in which the Komagata Maru was remembered and written about in 1936 in Japan. Emphasis on the Japanese navy also had special meaning for Nippon Kōgyō Shimbun at the time. The founder of the newspaper recalled that, after the Manchurian Incident of 1931 (when the army staged an attack on a Japanese railway in Manchuria as a pretext to invade the region), he came up with the idea of establishing a newspaper for the growing number of Japanese industry leaders since he thought that promoting industrial production would be important in the event of war (Maeda 1953, 89–90). This was especially true because Japanese industries at the time developed close relationships with the army through the production of military equipment, and the newspaper was equally keen to promote the navy. This also shaped writing about the Komagata Maru in 1936 Japan.

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The Komagata Maru Incident Remembered in Japan Shiozaki’s Interpretation Shiozaki, owner of the Komagata Maru, explains the 1914 detainment of the ship in relation to the Indian national movement. His memoir starts with the following sentence: “The modern Indian history is truly one of great agony” (Shiozaki 1936, 132). He goes on to recount how anti-British sentiment had become increasingly radical among Indians since India had been subjected to British rule. Following the history of the Indian anti-British movement, Shiozaki notes that Indian anti-British revolutionaries had established strong centres in London, Paris, and the United States at the beginning of the First World War (132). He does not directly mention the relationship between the transnational anti-British movement and the Komagata Maru incident, but it is implied: At that time [around the beginning of the Great War], there was a group that intended to enter the United States by way of Siam, Burma, and South China and then raise support for a revolution in India with the help of the USbased Ghadar Party. The participants in the scheme were Sikhs and Muslims from Punjab, the birthplace of the revolutionary movement. Although it was the most powerful group in the movement, the scheme came to nothing in the end because of the failure of the contact man, and it resulted in the spreading of this bloody tragedy. During this time, the so-called Komagata Maru incident occurred, and it attracted attention around the world. When the incident happened, I encountered it as a person who transported Indians, and I also took part in its resolution. Now I recall this old incident, and I wish my writing, as an eyewitness account, would contribute to the research of the Indian nationals’ history. (132)

The members of the Indian national revolutionary movement that Shiozaki mentions were not, in fact, known. Although they were similar to the participants in the Ghadar Movement, most of the adherents were already emigrants, so they were not trying to go to the United States to foment a revolution. It is reasonable to suppose that Shiozaki received information about the Ghadar Movement and misinterpreted it. In any case, he associates the Komagata Maru incident with the Indian national movement. He sees the incident as one moment in the Indian struggle for independence

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against British rule rather than as a problem between Indian migrants and Canadian authorities. As his title suggests, Shiozaki tries to provide “the real facts of the Komagata Maru incident,” and he regards the connection between the event and the Indian national movement as a crucial aspect of what occurred. Shiozaki experienced the full voyage of the Komagata Maru, and his view of the incident might reflect the wider Japanese view on it. The chain of troubles and stresses that the Japanese crew faced might have given them the impression that the incident was an event in the Indian national movement rather than an event in the immigrant history of Canada. We can assume as much because Shiozaki’s brief account chronicles almost the entire journey, including the circumstances in Hong Kong and Vancouver, the return voyage, and the events in Budge Budge. The first trouble occurred at the commencement of the voyage. Shiozaki describes how the clearance permit was delayed by Hong Kong customs, which then delayed departure of the ship. He recalls the Indians getting angry about the situation: “Both the Indian groups on board and on land were furious over the stress caused by the British authorities. Using turbulent words, some appealed to direct action, and others carried out a fierce demonstration parade in the city of Hong Kong. The general atmosphere grew increasingly tense” (Shiozaki 1936, 133). This was only the beginning of their troubled journey. When examined from the perspective of the Japanese crew, it appears that the migrating Indians had to face stressful situations not just in Canada, but throughout their journey. The resentment of the Indian passengers is described as reaching its peak when they were turned away from Vancouver. Shiozaki (1936, 134–35) recounts a skirmish between Indian passengers and Canadian authorities that happened right before the Indians left Vancouver: The disturbed atmosphere that had pervaded the ship all night did not dissolve in the morning, and at around four in the morning a 300-ton steam launch with about 300 [Canadian authorities] preparing a fire hose came close to us in order to arrest radical elements. The outraged Indians did not simply comply. One of the policemen who arrived first had his wrist cut off when he placed his hand on the gunwale to get onto the ship. Others had lumps of charcoal thrown at their faces. They fought each other for a while, until things fell into uncontrollable confusion.

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Even after this skirmish calmed down and the Komagata Maru departed from Vancouver, the stress remained for the Japanese crew. Shiozaki recalls that crew members thought that there was a plot by the Indian passengers to threaten the crew to make the ship secretly go aground. The crew prepared 56 rifles and 2,000 cartridges with the permission of Canadian authorities (135). The trouble that they feared never materialized, but they were certainly beset with fear and doubt on the return trip from Vancouver. When the Indian passengers disembarked at Budge Budge, the Japanese crew thought that they would finally be released from the troubles that they had endured during the half-year journey (Shiozaki 1936, 135), but this was not to be. Shiozaki witnessed the riot at Budge Budge: “When we had our dinner, suddenly we heard the sound of a gun. We could see the situation from a bridge of the Komagata Maru and knew that the Indians, who had left the ship a while ago, were clashing with British servicemen. The sound of gunfire became increasingly fierce, and we knew the circumstances were dangerous” (135). As his description shows, Shiozaki observed not only the confrontation between Indian passengers and Canadian authorities in Vancouver but also conflicts between Indian passengers and local authorities in places such as Hong Kong and Budge Budge. This led him to conclude that the Komagata Maru incident reflected a problem between colonial India and Great Britain rather than a problem only within Canada. Because the Indian national movement had gained momentum in the 1920s and 1930s, Shiozaki’s narrative was acceptable to readers in 1936, especially since Gandhi had started the noncooperation movement in India after the First World War, and it had become known to the world through events such as the Salt March or the Salt Satyagraha in 1930. In a review of Shiozaki’s essay, Yutaka Arima showed his interest in the Komagata Maru incident in the context of the Indian national movement and British imperial policy on it while connecting the incident with the concurrent Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Arima’s opinion was that the Second Italo-Ethiopian War represented the broader conflict between the so-called white race and the so-called coloured races that could also be connected to the British government’s opposition to the Italian invasion. The British Empire, which presided over 400 million nonwhite people, feared that antipathy between races would create serious problems, especially in light of the growing Indian independence movement. Arima

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(1936, 136) remarked that, when Shiozaki contributed his essay, as a member of a so-called coloured race, he had great interest in this aspect of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Arima interpreted the Komagata Maru incident in this way: “I think this was one of the most outstanding among numerous bloody altercations of the Indian independence movement. Moreover, the incident tells us something about British colonial policy. I was especially interested in the incident when the Italo-Ethiopian War was at its height” (136). According to Arima, the incident still influenced his observations of contemporary race antagonisms and British imperial policy. In this way, a colonial analytic situates the incident within the larger context of a global racial divide that affected Indians, Ethiopians, Japan­ ese, and other nonwhite peoples. Yoshida’s Interpretation In his work, Sadao Yoshida represents Gurdit Singh and other passengers on the Komagata Maru as forming a revolutionary group, a view that contrasts with the treatment by Shiozaki, who does not mention a direct link between the incident and radical political arrangements. Yoshida (1936a, 64–65) depicts Gurdit Singh as an active leader of the revolutionary party who was wanted by officials and had a huge reward on his head. He represents Gurdit Singh as an Indian revolutionary who travelled to North America with a group of like-minded individuals from Hong Kong and Shanghai to foment the anti-British Indian revolution in the United States (68). Although it is known that Gurdit Singh had sympathy for the Indian revolutionary movements, such as the Ghadar Movement (Johnston 1979, 24–25), he did not in fact charter the Komagata Maru to incite a revolution. Probably mistakenly, Yoshida alters Shiozaki’s explanation and creates a fictional link between the incident and Indian revolutionary movements. Additionally, Yoshida’s work emphasizes the militant character of the Indians, and the battle scenes at Vancouver and Budge Budge are described as bloody calamities. The description of the battle between Canadian officers and Indian passengers at Vancouver serves as an example of the kind of prose that predominates in his account: A [Canadian] police officer and Indian [passenger] fell into the sea from the ship while grappling with each other. Blood spewed from the place where they fell, and the surface of the sea turned red. The Indian loomed out of

The Komagata Maru Incident as Described in Two Japanese Works 173

the sea of blood with a white cloth around his head. He shouted and brandished a dagger with blood dripping from it, but suddenly that ghastly figure was drawn under the sea of blood. Shouts, screams, cascades of falling blood ... It was like a picture of horrible hell that appeared in this actual world. (Yoshida 1936a, 137)

The vivid descriptions occasionally differ from the facts. For example, Yoshida says that the number of dead among the Indian passengers in the Budge Budge riot was 286 (249), but actually it was 20 (Johnston 1979, 111–12). Thus, though his book is based on the memoirs of Shiozaki, it also includes fictional accounts. But Yoshida did not necessarily aim to record facts for research the way that Shiozaki tried to do. Yoshida’s book depicts Japanese sympathy for the Indian passengers but only because they were denied entry into Canada. Canadian immigration law and British colonialism are not criticized for the mistreatment of the passengers or the systemic racism against Indians across the globe. On the contrary, Canadian authorities also win his sympathy: If people are bullied, they become more strongly resistant. If people are denied landing, they want to land even more. That is human nature. Besides, the Indian passengers have lived at sea for about 120 days, since they boarded the Komagata Maru in late March ... It is natural that Indian passengers were more brutalized day by day. They are pitiful. However, it is also natural that the Canadian authorities could not permit them to land because there are immigration acts, and the Canadian authorities cannot break the law. It is no wonder that if Indian passengers reacted furiously then the Canadian authorities took steps to suppress them to protect the dignity of the law. The Canadian authorities are not necessarily tyrannical, as the Indian people say. It cannot be said that the Canadian authorities are cold-blooded people. (Yoshida 1936a, 160–61)

In lieu of criticizing them, Yoshida draws the following moral lesson from the event: “‘The Komagata Maru Incident’ vividly showed the sorrow and agony of a weak country [to Mr. Shiozaki]. A country must be strong. To protect our island country, Japan and its navy must be strong ... Such a belief would be at the bottom of Shiozaki’s heart” (263). In this sense, the Komagata Maru offered lessons not only to Indians and Canadians but also to the Japanese nation.

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The “weak country” refers to India. Yoshida links the incident to Shiozaki’s closeness to the Japanese navy. The international situation in 1936 likely also influenced his representation of the incident; Arima connects the Second Italo-Ethiopian War with the Komagata Maru incident, and Yoshida mentions the end of the war and Ethiopia’s annexation by Italy in the preface of Komagata Maru Jiken. He describes his reaction this way: “I keenly realize that countries must be strong, and a nation’s power is the greatest happiness for members of that nation. I am lucky enough to be born Japanese” (Yoshida 1936a, preface, 2). This opinion is similar to the moral lesson that he draws from the Komagata Maru incident, believing that the weakness of a country will lead its people into a bad situation. In the international environment of 1936, when colonialism had expanded and Japanese militarism was growing, the incident made Yoshida consider Japan’s future and its national strength. He contextualizes the incident as the tragedy of a weak country. In the end, the incident included complicated international relationships still being interpreted and reinterpreted in Japan twenty-two years later, demonstrating its impact beyond 1914. Remembering Japanese Involvement in the Komagata Maru Incident In contrast to the previous section, which discussed how the Japanese remembered the Komagata Maru incident, this section presents how Japanese involvement in the Komagata Maru incident might be remembered. What was the experience of the Japanese crew with Indian passengers on board the ship? What kinds of relationships developed during the more than six months that they spent on board together? According to Yoshida’s Komagata Maru Jiken, about five Indian passengers who embarked at Yokohama were students who had been studying in Japan and were accustomed to wearing the Japanese kimono. They talked to the sailors in fluent Japanese and made them laugh at their jokes (Yoshida 1936a, 85–86). Contact between the Indian passengers and the Japanese sailors extended to social occasions. For example, the sailors were invited to dinner by the Indian passengers when they made special dishes; the sailors apparently did not like the taste very much, but they appreciated the Indian passengers’ consideration (87). Yoshida explains that the long voyage bored the Indian passengers, and as time went on they became friendly with the sailors. Sometimes

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passengers visited the engine room, at the bottom of the ship (Yoshida 1936a, 87–88). Yoshida records these recollections of Rokurō Hirayama, on board as the second engineer: When I [Hirayama] was working at the bottom of the ship with metalwork tools, some Indian passengers came close and stared at me. Then one of them asked me to lend him the tools. I lent them to him, and he eagerly made something like a spearhead, something like a short sword, and something like an iron hammer with leftover iron pieces. When he finished making them, he happily brought them to his cabin. He must have thought those objects would come in useful. Later they were a big help when they fought in Vancouver ... I think the idea of revolution was always in the Indian passengers’ minds. (88)

Although Hirayama’s narrative might include some dramatization, it also indicates that the Indian passengers and the Japanese sailors saw each other in day-to-day circumstances, indicating a transnational human quality in their itinerant relations. If Hirayama’s comments are accurate, then the Japanese sailors might have allowed the Indian passengers to prepare tools for battle. In this context, the Japanese crew could have been remembered favourably by the Indian passengers. Importantly, this transnational perspective complicates the dynamics – the relationships are not only between passengers and colonizers but also between nonwhite British Indian subjects and nonwhite Japanese crew members. In Yoshida’s Komagata Maru Jiken, Shiozaki is depicted as having had the hardest time when he was in Vancouver. The Japanese sailors faced a dilemma. On the one hand, the Canadian authorities had urged the Komagata Maru to go back to Hong Kong. On the other, the Indian passengers resisted this directive and went to the engine room and the captain’s cabin to prevent the sailors from unmooring the ship (Yoshida 1936a, 103). Yoshida indicates that the Japanese sailors were sympathetic to both the Indian passengers and the Canadian authorities but otherwise adopted the position of a neutral third party. Shiozaki’s recollection of the Canadian-protected cruiser the HMCS Rainbow illustrates this position: It was a situation of great tension. The Rainbow trained a gun on the Komagata Maru. If a shell had been fired, it would have made things more difficult. To

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avoid such a situation, we hoisted the national flag of Japan in a place where the Canadian authorities would notice it and prepared everything in the case of an emergency. I [Shiozaki] spent nights unable to sleep. (168)

Hoisting the flag of Japan to avoid being shelled indicates the Japanese stance as a neutral third party acting in the interest of peace. In this sense, the binary of colonizer-colonized excludes the significance of other actors relevant to the journey of the Komagata Maru. Yoshida (1936a, 136) mentions that Canadian authorities prepared a high-powered fire hose rather than firearms to intimidate those aboard the ship because there was the potential for international discord if they opened fire on the Japanese vessel. As a third party, the Japanese sailors played an important role in maintaining some equilibrium during the Komagata Maru incident. If the ship had been an Indian vessel and its sailors all Indians, then it seems likely that the Canadian authorities would have had a stronger initial reaction, and the ship might not have been detained for so long but instead forced back to India much sooner. The Japanese crew aboard the ship were not merely passive witnesses, and in many ways their presence made the undesirable arrival of British Indian subjects more difficult for the Canadian authorities to govern. Conclusion In this chapter, I have considered the Komagata Maru incident beyond Indian, Canadian, and British narratives to encompass historical Japanese memories. Three insights about the Komagata Maru can be drawn as a result. First, it was the relationship between the Japanese navy and Shiozaki that led to the writings in Japan in 1936 about the incident. In particular, the relationship between Shiozaki and Arima, a vice-admiral of the Japan­ ese navy whom Shiozaki encountered when the Komagata Maru was in Vancouver, allowed Shiozaki’s memoir to be published in Yūshū magazine, the organ of the Imperial Japanese Navy Reserve. In a different genre, Yoshida reconstructed the incident in a biography of Shiozaki for the readers of Nippon Kōgyō Shimbun. He emphasized the relationship between Shiozaki and the Japanese navy, a tactic well suited to the agenda of the newspaper. Second, examining these texts reveals unique Japanese interpretations of the incident. Shiozaki, as the owner of the Komagata Maru and an eye­

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witness to the events of 1914, regarded the incident as part of the Indian national movement. The tense situations that he experienced throughout the journey led him to suppose that the incident was a problem of colonial India rather than just a Canadian immigration policy on Indians. Yoshida’s interpretation of the incident reflected the Japanese atmosphere of 1936. It emphasized Japanese national strength, indicating that, when read beyond the Canadian narrative, the journey of the Komagata Maru had implications for Japanese imperialism and not just Indian anti-colonialists. Yoshida argued that the Indian passengers faced an agonizing situation because India was weak in contrast to Japan, particularly in the context of Japan’s expanding colonies and its growing military power. Third, the historical meaning of Japanese involvement in the Komagata Maru incident can be clarified through the texts. Yoshida highlights that the Japanese sailors on board the ship had contact with the Indian passengers on a daily basis during the voyage and that, on the whole, relations between the two groups were amicable. His work even suggests that Japanese crew members assisted Indian passengers in their struggle. In addition, it is evident that the Japanese wanted to position themselves as a neutral third party. That role might have actually lessened the heated tensions between passengers and authorities while the ship was detained in Vancouver, especially since Canadian authorities were forced to adopt a cautious approach in dealing with a Japanese vessel and its Japanese crew because of British and Canadian relations with Japan. Ultimately, when we take into account the significance of the vessel as a Japanese ship, the presence of the Japanese captain and crew, and Japanese memories of the journey, it becomes clear that the Komagata Maru incident was much more complex than national historiographies of Canada reveal.



Note 1 I have translated all Japanese texts cited in the chapter. References Arima, Yutaka. 1936. “Shiozaki-shi jutsu ‘Sekai no Jimoku o Shōdōseshi Komagata Maru Jiken no Shinsō’ o Yomite” (A Review of “The Actual Facts of the Komagata Maru Incident that Attracted Attention around the World” by Mr. Shiozaki). Yūshū 23, 1: 136–37. Arima Ryōkitsu Den Hensan Iinkai (The Committee for Publishing the Biography of Ryōkitsu Arima). 1945. Arima Ryōkitsu Den (The Biography of Ryōkitsu Arima). Tokyo: Arima Ryōkitsu Den Hensan Iinkai.

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Hosokawa, Michihisa. 2012. “Komagata Maru Jiken Shiryō: Tairiku Nippō no Hōdō Kiji (1)” (Historical Sources on the Komagata Maru Incident: Reports of the Continental Daily News [1]). Kagoshima Daigaku Hōbun-gakubu Kiyō (Cultural Science Reports of Kagoshima University) 75: 31–54. Johnston, Hugh. 1979. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kobayashi, Masaki. 2011. Zasshi Shinbun Hakkō Busū Jiten: Showa Zenki, Fu: Hakkin Bon Busū Sōran (Encyclopedia of Circulation of Books and Magazines: The Early Period of Showa, Appendix: The Comprehensive Bibliography of Circulation of Banned Books). Kanazawa: Kanazawa Bumpōkaku. Kuwajima, Shō. 2003. “The Komagata Maru, Singapore, and Japan: The First World War and Asia.” Ajia Taiheiyō Ronsō (Bulletin of Asia-Pacific Studies) 13: 3–16. Maeda, Hisakichi. 1953. Hibi Kore Shōbu: Shinbun Seikatsu 40nen (My Every Day Is a Struggle: Forty Years in Journalism). Osaka: Sōgensha. Ono, Hideo. 1956. “Osaka Fu Shinbun Shi: Kōron” (The History of Newspapers in Osaka Prefecture: The Second Part). In Chihōbetsu Nihon Shinbun Shi (The History of Newspapers in Japan by Region), edited by Nihon Shinbun Kyōkai (The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association), 301–10. Tokyo: Nihon Shinbun Kyōkai. Shiozaki, Yokichi. 1936. “Sekai no Jimoku o Shōdōseshi Komagata Maru Jiken no Shinsō” (The Actual Facts of the Komagata Maru Incident that Attracted Attention around the World). Yūshū 23, 1: 132–36. Yoshida, Sadao. 1936a. Komagata Maru jiken (The Komagata Maru Incident). Osaka: Yatsuhashi Shuppansha. –. 1936b. Kansei e no Michi Dai Isshū (The Road to Accomplishment Vol. 1). Osaka: Yatsuhashi Shuppansha. –. 1938. Hayakawa Tokuji Den (The Biography of Tokuji Hayakawa). Osaka: Yatsuhashi Shuppansha.

8

(Mis)Representing the Komagata Maru in Indian Print Cultures Irina Spector-Marks

Even before the Komagata Maru left Hong Kong in April 1914, reports of the ship were spreading across the globe.1 From its earliest inception, then, the ship was transnational not merely in its physical movement through space but also in its circulation through imperial, white settler, and Indian nationalist print cultures. The ship’s passengers used print culture and communication technology (including telegraphs, newspaper interviews, and letters) to seek a transnational, imperial audience for their cause. At the same time, Indian periodicals across the British Empire reported on and appropriated the Komagata Maru for their own political purposes. Here I examine the fraught and contested representations of the Komagata Maru in a diasporic Indian print archive that includes letters, periodicals, and pamphlets from the Indian subcontinent, England, North America, and South Africa. I argue that Indian nationalist memorialization of the Komagata Maru was less about the ship itself than about how activists used the ship as a symbol of a shared struggle against immigration restriction. These strategic representations often required them to ignore substantial political differences between conflicting nationalist visions. In particular, though Indian periodicals in South Africa and Canada frequently reported on immigration restriction in the other country, editors and activists in the two colonies avoided material forms of political interaction.2 Rather than hailing reports of the Komagata Maru as evidence of solidarity among diasporic Indian nationalists, my reading attends to the tensions and fractures that characterized their response to immigration restriction. 179

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The Komagata Maru has been eagerly claimed by both politicians and historians as part of Canadian or Indian national history.3 More recent scholarship, such as that in this volume, rightly insists on restoring a trans­ national interpretation to what was a global event (Price and Bains 2014; Ramnath 2011; Sohi 2011). In the early twentieth century, Indians within and beyond the subcontinent understood Indian migration and antiIndian immigration restriction to be a global, and particularly a British imperial, problem (Lake and Reynolds 2008, ch. 5; Sinha 2011).4 Through the circulation of print culture, imperial citizenship emerged as a central tenet of Indians’ opposition to immigration restriction from the 1890s to the interwar period. There was no legal status such as “imperial citizen,” only British subjects (Karatani 2003). Nonetheless, Indian nationalists, British imperial officials, and white colonial politicians all recognized imperial citizenship as a powerful claim of political and cultural belonging.5 However, though the discourse of Indian imperial citizenship appeared across political and geographical borders, the meaning of that discourse was deeply affected by local political contexts. Memory of the ship has been characterized from the first by disjunctures of knowledge shaped by political agendas. In particular, one can see a contrast between the radical Ghadar Party, which called for the violent overthrow of the Raj and complete Indian independence, and the more moderate Indian National Congress, which advocated self-government within the empire. Although Indian nationalists of all political backgrounds reported sympathetically on the Komagata Maru and supported the passengers’ claim of imperial citizenship, they were interested more in using the incident to support their own political struggles than in understanding the local context and experience of the passengers. In these nationalist imaginaries, the details of the ship and its passengers mattered far less than their rhetorical import. Recent transnational histories have been particularly invested in bringing into view anticolonial activism obscured by nationalist and area studies historiography (Horne 2008; Pennybacker 2009; Ramnath 2011; Zimmer­ man 2010). I use the Komagata Maru as a case study from which to argue for transnational history that recognizes the tensions and missed connections generated by political and geographical distance (Boehmer 2006). Tracking press coverage of the Komagata Maru reveals that transnational print culture was politically effective precisely because it privileged ostensibly shared political discourse over accuracy and complexity.

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Diasporic Nationalism: Defining Indian Print Culture Representations of the Komagata Maru circulated globally through diasporic Indian nationalist print cultures. I focus on four Indian nationalist newspapers from North America, South Africa, and England, supplemented by a few newspapers from the subcontinent. I also include letters, petitions, and pamphlets from activists in North America and South Africa. These papers constitute a transnational archive not only because they were printed in many different locations but also because they circulated across national and even continental borders and because the editors self-consciously reported on immigration restriction as a transnational problem. This print culture connected nationalists across great distances, and diasporic nationalists in particular emphasized the importance of transnational activism. I use the word nationalist here to indicate any newspapers or activists who expressed a desire for self-government, either within or independent of the empire. I also focus on those who recognized Indian nationalism occurring in and affected by events beyond the subcontinent. I use this expansive definition of nationalism because activists across a wide range of political opinion agreed that immigration restriction was detrimental both to Indian national honour and to Indians’ rights as imperial citizens. As Sukanya Banerjee (2010) and Mrinalini Sinha (2011) have recently argued, imperial citizenship was a crucial component of moderate Indian nationalism until the 1920s. By using a wide definition of nationalists, I can trace both the similarities and the ruptures between radical and moderate uses of imperial citizenship. Diasporic periodicals articulated very different versions of Indian nationalism. The Ghadr newspaper was produced in San Francisco by the radical nationalist Ghadar Party, which advocated “revolution,” or ghadr, against the British Raj and complete independence for India (Ramnath 2011).6 Lala Hardayal, the founder of Ghadr, explicitly connected it with revolutionary violence, calling it a “straight fighting newspaper” and declaring in the first issue that Ghadr was “a fort from which a Cannonade on the English raj will be started” (quoted in Ramnath 2011, 36–37). In stark contrast, India was printed in London by the British Committee of the Indian National Congress and supported greater self-government for India within the British Empire. The Indian National Congress (INC), founded in 1885 by British and Indians alike, used methods of constitutional agitation that more radical nationalists found too moderate (Seth

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2009). Ghadr and the INC therefore differed in both political goals and tactics. The African Chronicle was printed in Natal by P.S. Aiyar, founder of the Natal Indian Patriotic Union and the Colonial-Born Indian Association, both of which were modelled on the INC (Bhana and Vahed 2005, 114– 15; Swan 1985, 192, 248). Aiyar was fiercely critical of South Africa’s white settler government but nonetheless believed that Indians would achieve greater rights under the beneficent aegis of the British Empire. The Hindustanee was published in Vancouver by Husain Rahim, a Ghadar Party member and socialist, so the paper offered a more radical critique of the empire than India or African Chronicle, but as an English-language publication it was less incendiary than Ghadr (Johnston 2014, 26). Each of these periodicals consciously strove to reach a transnational audience, but the circulation of each reflected and was shaped by its political orientation. Ghadr was distributed globally but operated primarily in North America and within the Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans (Ramnath 2011, 44–45, 77). This predominantly extra-imperial circulation, as well as the paper’s publication in Punjabi and Urdu, reflected the radically anti-imperial politics of the Ghadar Party. In contrast, the Hindustanee was written by Ghadar Party members but intended to appeal to a white, English-speaking audience.7 India was written entirely in English to be accessible to British politicians and the public as well as Indians across the subcontinent.8 Aiyar originally intended to publish the African Chronicle only in Tamil but was convinced to publish it in English as well to include a wider South African, British, and Indian Ocean audience.9 Each paper had a distinctive target audience – decisions that inflected and were responsive to the editors’ transnational politics. The periodicals that I analyze here recognized immigration restriction as a transnational problem that affected both the British Empire and the Indian nation. Their reports on the Komagata Maru conceptualized it not as a singular event but as part of an ongoing, transnational struggle by diasporic Indian nationalists against immigration restriction in white settler colonies. From the declaration by the passengers’ lawyer, J.E. Bird (quoted in Waraich and Sidhu 2005, 52), that Gurdit Singh had organized the voyage “believing as a British subject that he and his passengers were entitled as of right to come into Canada,” the language of imperial citizenship framed the Komagata Maru journey. One of the key defences in the test case of the passengers was that, as imperial citizens and British subjects,

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they had obeyed Canadian regulations to come by continuous journey from their point of origin, since Hong Kong, as a British territory, could be con­sidered their country of citizenship. That the judges in the case rejected this argument does not negate the fact that the passengers and Bird believed that imperial citizenship was a legal category and a valid defence (Tatla 2007, 143–79). The assertion of imperial citizenship was echoed by Indian nationalists in South Africa, embroiled in their own battle against immigration restriction, and by INC supporters in England and India who understood immigration restriction as an imperial and national problem.10 According to the Indian Emigrant of November 30, 1914, the “Moral of the Komagata Maru” was that it “is more than a local incident and involves issues vital to the harmonious working of the different parts of the Empire.” The transnational coverage of the Komagata Maru reflected both the diasporic nature of Indian immigration and Indian activists’ conceptualization of immigration restriction as an imperial and global issue. Making the Komagata Maru Travel: Print Culture and Communication Technology in Diasporic Activism Throughout the journey of the Komagata Maru, the passengers and their supporters focused on disseminating their story to a diasporic Indian nationalist community and to a white imperial audience. As a result, they created pamphlets, articles, speeches, and petitions designed to appeal to Indian nationalists in the subcontinent on the one hand and white imperialists in Canada and Britain on the other (Canada India Committee 1915; Hindu-Canadian 1915).11 Despite the attempts of imperial authorities in India, Canada, and Britain to monitor and control radical Indian nationalist publications, publishers repeatedly evaded censorship laws and circulated forbidden documents throughout and beyond the empire (Barrier 1974, 35–41; Ramnath 2011; Sohi 2011, 420–36). The transnational circulation of Indian print culture, like the mobility of Indian subjects, challenged white settler attempts to enforce national and racial boundaries. Canadian immigration officials monitored newspapers, letters, and telegrams to prevent Indians on board the ship and on the shore in Vancouver from disseminating their story to a wider audience. While on board, passengers were not allowed to speak directly with journalists, legal counsel, friends, or onshore relatives.12 Immigration officials opened, delayed, and even confiscated passengers’ letters.13 Ghadr described these

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restrictions as “an electric shock,” asking “are we murderers that our mouths must be shut?”14 Passengers understood the denial of media access as a violent act by the Canadian state. During the crisis, Immigration Officer and part-time India Office spy W.C. Hopkinson used the telegraph office himself but asked the local operator to “place every difficulty in the way of [Indians] using the telephones especially. The telephones being denied them, they ... confined themselves to sending two telegrams [, and he] took advantage of this to listen and read the telegrams which were sent over the wires.” Hopkinson emphasized that any Indian must “write his messages which would be forwarded by telegraph,” underlining the im­ portance of English literacy in utilizing communication technology.15 Whereas on the telephone Indians might speak in vernaculars that Hopkinson did not understand, any message written in English could be (and was) read by him.16 Canadian officials colluded with telegraph agencies before, during, and after the Komagata Maru affair to limit Indian activists’ access to media and technology (Chang 2008, 686).17 In the midst of the crisis, the Raj banned the Hindustanee, further restricting the information about Canadian Indians available in the subcontinent.18 This control of communication technology marked an (ultimately doomed) attempt by imperial officials to maintain a monopoly over global perceptions of the Komagata Maru.19 This attempt failed because Indian activists in North America, South Africa, Britain, and India understood and responded to opposition to immigration restriction as both a national and a global movement. They worked hard to ensure that the transnational press coverage of the incident mirrored and amplified the defiantly transnational mobility of the passengers. In the face of government restrictions, Indian activists used letters and telegrams and circulated pamphlets and periodicals to communicate with each other, to petition the imperial government for redress, and to broadcast their arguments to a wider audience. Despite being confined to the ship, the passengers sent appeals to the Canadian and British governments and wrote letters to politicians and the press to get their version of events in public view.20 Often petitions or letters to the imperial government were also published in various newspapers. For example, India reproduced a Reuters report that quoted a United India League resolution from Van­ couver protesting the “brutal and unlawful treatment of British subjects” on board the Komagata Maru. This resolution was also telegraphed to the Canadian prime minister and the secretary of state for India.21 This

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tactic expanded the impact of such appeals by making them available to a transnational public rather than imperial officials only. Gurdit Singh, the organizer of the trip, warned Immigration Officer Malcolm Reid that “your ... cruel treatment towards us will flash in the world [sic], when a book of those [cruelties] will be in the hand of the public.”22 Emphasizing the importance of public perceptions of the Komagata Maru, Singh used private correspondence to threaten Reid with global exposure in the form of a book. Like other Indian nationalists, Singh saw the Komagata Maru as an imperial concern, rather than strictly a national concern, and he intended to use the media to create a global audience. When passengers did get to speak to the press, they fretted about their ability to communicate adequately with a British audience. One passenger worried that “many of us speak English, but some of us do not use the right accent. We want to talk to the pressmen so that you can write about us and let the British Government know.”23 Concerned about the racism and class prejudice that they faced as non-British immigrants, the passengers were nonetheless adamant about the need to gain publicity for their story. Constrained as they were, the passengers turned to their onshore comrades who could more easily communicate with the government and the public. The Komagata Maru shore committee, headed by several Ghadar Party members and Sikh temple leaders, was crucial in organizing public meetings, newspaper articles, and petitions in support of the passengers, in addition to fundraising and obtaining a lawyer (Isemonger and Slattery 1998, 42; Johnston 2014, 74–76, 86–87, 98–99). Onshore Indians asked the Khalsa Akhbar, a Sikh newspaper in the Punjab, to “give wide publicity” to the case.24 Bird, the passengers’ socialist lawyer, undertook an extensive publicity campaign in Canadian newspapers and public meetings (Johnston 2014, 76).25 Imprisoned on the ship and unable to see their family members and friends, the passengers turned to letters as physical proof of onshore Indians’ support. One letter to the shore committee sheds light on the intersection between private correspondence and public appeals. Gurdit Singh’s secretary, Daljit Singh, wrote that “it is better for you to write or wire to the Governor General all about this trouble ... We are writing a letter which we have not finished but when we do and you get it copy it and sign it and send it to the newspapers and copies to the Governor General and minister of the Interior.” Daljit Singh also asked the shore committee to send “a strong wire” to the press and government to “stop

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this tyrants [sic] work.” He added that “I have received your registered letter. I am glad I received one letter in your handwriting.” But he asked for another letter for the passengers. “If you can’t write much write a few lines and put the stamp of the Diwan so that we can believe. Without letters it is very hard.”26 Letters were important for activists because of the information that they contained, information transferred from private correspondence to newspaper articles and public speeches. But the materiality of correspondence mattered as well. Familiar handwriting or the stamp of the Diwan, a Sikh religious centre in the Punjab, offered emotional solace and tangible mementoes for activists separated by time and space. Blurring the lines between private correspondence and public print culture still further, an additional page read thus: “Dear bearer: Kindly give it over to some daily papers or send it over to the Sikh Temple.”27 The emotional appeal contained in the letter was intended for activists and co-religionists at the Sikh temple, but the author also intended it for publication. Daljit Singh sent his letter out into the world for political purposes, not distinguishing between publication in newspapers and private reading. His directions to send multiple telegraphs and letters to government officials and newspapers reveal how essential publicity was to the strategy of the passengers. They were determined to get their message out to Indian, Canadian, British, and even global audiences. How­ ever, the presence of Daljit Singh’s letter in government archives, rather than in newspapers, reveals how little control the passengers had over their representation. Despite all the passengers’ hard work generating material for public consumption (petitions, letters, articles), press coverage in Indian nationalist (and white settler) print culture had less to do with their experiences or words and more to do with local political concerns. Passengers and their onshore allies in Vancouver were successful in making the Komagata Maru, and immigration restriction more generally, an international cause célèbre among Indian nationalists of all political backgrounds. However, transnational reports of the ship did not correspond to a shared political movement. Moderate Indian nationalists in England and South Africa reported on the Komagata Maru and declared their support for the passengers. They claimed the incident as part of a global battle for recognition of Indians’ imperial citizenship, ignoring important differences between their version of imperial citizenship and Ghadr calls for Indian independence. Even in the making of a transnational

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archive of the Komagata Maru, the ship’s appearance in diasporic Indian print culture reveals more about the divergent political visions of the nationalist authors than it does about the ship itself. Strength in Failure: Divergent (Trans)Nationalist Print Cultures and Politics The Komagata Maru was reported in Indian newspapers from San Francisco to Calcutta and Durban to London. However, rather than signifying a universally shared political cause, the circulation of periodicals and the different political discourses that they contained was stratified by language, geography, and politics. Merely to point out mentions of the Komagata Maru in Indian nationalist papers throughout the empire would be to ignore the sharp differences between Ghadar Party and INC politics – which shaped and were shaped by the different print culture networks within which the two parties operated. The political orientation of each newspaper is reflected in editorial decisions such as which language(s) it was published in, where it circulated, and which sources it used for quotations. Ghadr, intended for an Indian anticolonial audience, frequently reprinted articles from nationalist papers from Ireland, Russia, Egypt, and elsewhere (Ramnath 2011, 28–29, 114, 116, 131–32). In their English-language publications (such as the Hindustanee), however, Ghadarites framed their opposition to immigration restriction in terms designed to appeal to whites. Notably, Indians’ imperial citizenship was a recurrent theme. Taraknath Das (1923, n.p.) even headed one pamphlet with a quotation from Benjamin Disraeli, whom he described as “the ablest of British Imperialists.” Ghadarites were willing to invoke British imperial authority when it served their interests. As the London mouthpiece for the INC, India publicized Indian political issues for a British audience and alerted nationalists in the subcontinent to parliamentary debates affecting India. For example, India had a special weekly column reporting parliamentary debates on Indian questions. Quotations from imperial commissions and parliamentary blue books were common in both India and African Chronicle.28 Both papers also quoted extensively from English, Indian, Anglo-Indian, and white settler papers, creating an implicitly imperial print culture in contradistinction to the Ghadr’s anticolonial networks. In this context, it is not surprising that moderate Indian nationalist re­ ports of the Komagata Maru, dependent on settler and imperial sources,

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were rife with inaccurate information. India observed that “all kinds of stories appear to be abroad” about the ship and then reported on three of those stories, speculating on the passengers’ plans, the immigration officials’ responses, and the Japanese government’s potential involvement.29 Periodicals doubled the number of Indians aboard the ship and reproduced alarmist reports of other ships of Indian migrants bound for Canada.30 Newspapers conjectured wildly about the government’s response, stating that there might be a royal commission or that Gurdit Singh was travelling to Ottawa to make his case to the government.31 When the Raj attempted to return the passengers forcibly to the Punjab, shooting broke out, and at least twenty-six people were killed in what became known as the Budge Budge riot (Tatla 2007, 41, 74–76). Indian newspapers acknowledged that initial government reports of violence at Budge Budge were confused and imprecise but then proceeded to quote them anyway.32 Likewise, they reported rumours that Germany had financed the Komagata Maru while also denying those allegations (Singh 1917, 372).33 Rumours, confirmed reports, and semi-accurate information were jumbled together, making discerning the truth difficult. This was of little consequence to the INC, interested more in producing a discursive politics of shared imperial citizenship than in the material politics of protecting the passengers.34 These newspapers’ reproduction of inaccurate information about the Komagata Maru was exacerbated by their political biases and consequent sources. Whereas the Ghadar Party maintained relatively close ties with passengers on the ship and activists in Canada, INC-affiliated papers in South Africa and England were at geographical and political removes from North American and Ghadar Party circles.35 The travels of the Komagata Maru aligned with the party’s Pacific Ocean circuits, travelling through Hong Kong and Japan to western North America. Party publications were distributed on the ship on its outward and return voyages (Isemonger and Slattery 1998, 42; Tatla 2007, 59, 64). In contrast, the Indian Ocean and imperial networks of India and African Chronicle were far removed from the political and geographical networks of the passengers. Although the passengers used Ghadar Party, Sikh, and imperial channels to rouse public opinion in India, INC-affiliated activists and editors relied on imperial and settler sources for their information on the ship. Although they were frequently critical of these sources, supporting the passengers and critiquing Canadian racism, they carefully maintained

(Mis)Representing the Komagata Maru in Indian Print Cultures 189

their distance from the more radical politics of Komagata Maru supporters.36 Although Ghadr contained many quotations and documents from the passengers, African Chronicle and India reported only second- and third-hand accounts of some of Gurdit Singh’s speeches.37 Although Ghadr circulated in Britain and South Africa and was almost certainly available to Aiyar and Henry Cotton (editor of India), both papers appear to have been wilfully oblivious of the Ghadar Party’s politics or its association with the Komagata Maru.38 This political distance allowed moderate Indian nationalist papers to claim the passengers as part of a shared struggle for imperial citizenship, obscuring the more radical nationalist politics of at least some of the passengers and creating a deceptively unified and universal image of the discourse of Indian imperial citizenship. That contemporaries hailed the Komagata Maru as evidence of a global Indian struggle against immigration restriction should not obscure the fact that this ostensibly transnational memorialization of the ship was driven in fact by divergent nationalist agendas. Imperial Citizenship and Indian Nationalism: A Shared Discourse? The case of the Komagata Maru reveals both the extent and the limit of imperial citizenship as a shared discourse. Indians of all political stripes embraced the ship as part of their nationalist project, couching their defence of the passengers in terms of imperial citizenship. Even radical anticolonial Ghadarites used the language of imperial citizenship in their opposition to immigration restriction.39 Ghadr quoted Komagata Maru passengers saying to the king “save us, we are your loyal subjects.”40 At the other end of the political spectrum, Conservative MP Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree stated that the Komagata Maru had raised the question of immigration restriction and imperial citizenship “in its acutest form ... Were these Indians subjects of the British Crown to be allowed to exercise the first and elementary right of a British subject?”41 The claim to be imperial citizens, at first glance, seems to have been shared across geography and political party. Yet imperial citizenship had distinctive connotations depending on who invoked it. INC members emphasized the gap between what they saw as British ideals of justice and fair play and the use of racial discrimination laws to shame the British government into protecting Indian rights.42 For the Ghadar Party, the claim to be members of the British Empire revealed

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the Raj as a racist and despotic rule that persecuted Indians overseas as much as in the subcontinent (Ramnath 2011, 25; Sohi 2011, 427). Ghadr described England’s indifference to the Komagata Maru passengers by saying “what tyranny; just consider O friend ... Had the English Gov­ ernment spoken a word for us, no one in Canada would dare disobey but she was silent.”43 Strikingly, the “tyranny” that Ghadr objected to here was the British government’s inaction rather than any act of oppression. Even if only as leverage against the Canadian government, Ghadr advocated British intervention on behalf of Indian subjects. This reveals the extent to which the Ghadar Party participated in the discourse of Indians as imperial citizens and British subjects. Ghadarites emphasized the mistreatment of Indians to reveal the undesirability of being imperial subjects and to advocate the overthrow of the Raj. In this regard, Ghadarites’ use of “British subjects” more than “imperial citizens” is noteworthy. Whereas most Indian nationalists used the terms interchangeably, Ghadarites more often referred to Indians as British subjects, stressing their dependency, as opposed to imperial citizens, which implies enfranchisement. Playing on the relationship between subject and subjection, Ram Chandra (1916, 18) demanded “let our countrymen be recognized in fact as citizens, and not merely as subjects ... The subjection was there unquestionably ... Where was the citizenship?” As downtrodden British subjects, therefore, Indians had no choice but to revolt. Balwant Singh argued that Canadian immigration restriction proved that the Raj was too weak to protect its Indian subjects (or, implicitly, to stand against Indian revolutionaries). Singh then stated that the feeling in India was akin to that of the Revolt of 1857.44 For Ghadar Party members, identifying Indians as British subjects was a necessary precursor to their revolt against British rule. With the outbreak of the First World War and the violence at Budge Budge, the distinctions between Ghadar Party and INC invocations of imperial citizenship became clear. Ghadarites responded to the departure of the Komagata Maru with internecine violence in Canada and plans to return to India to foment rebellion (Johnston 2014, ch. 13; Ramnath 2011, 148). These developments were rarely acknowledged by moderate Indians overseas. The newspapers reported instead on the loyalty of those Canadian Indians who volunteered for army service, ignoring or minimizing the role of hundreds of North American Ghadar Party members who returned to India to rebel against the Raj.45 At the start of the war,

(Mis)Representing the Komagata Maru in Indian Print Cultures 191

INC-affiliated papers leapt to express their loyalty to the empire and their willingness to put aside grievances for the duration of hostilities.46 Even Bal Gangadhar Tilak, one of the more radical INC leaders, argued that “the present ... was not the time to press for reforms.” India called this a “patriotic utterance.”47 Punjabi Sikhs in Calcutta and Amritsar responded to Budge Budge by condemning the passengers’ actions and asserting their own loyalty to the Raj.48 The Indian Social Reformer differentiated between the Komagata Maru voyage, “part of a large national and Imperial question,” and the riot at Budge Budge, which involved “no political or imperial issue.”49 The violence at Budge Budge, which the Ghadar Party interpreted as part of a nationalist rebellion, INC nationalists dismissed as meaningless violence by frustrated passengers. Meanwhile, the Ghadar Party castigated moderate Indian nationalists, and particularly the nationalist press, for their cowardice (Nia Zamana, quoted in Isemonger and Slattery 1998, 30).50 With the outbreak of the First World War, South African Indians, including P.S. Aiyar, organized Indian volunteers for military service.51 In contrast, Ghadr criticized military volunteers as bringing “calamity” to the Indian community.52 For INC nationalists, imperial citizenship and Indian nationalism were intertwined practices, and imperial obligations were an important part of their patriotism. For the Ghadar Party, imperial citizenship was a useful rhetoric with which to embarrass the British government and prove the necessity of independence. Ghadar Party and INC rhetoric of imperial citizenship overlapped for a period, but their political orientations remained different. Print culture was essential to contemporaries’ experience and understanding of the Komagata Maru. Indian activists, though constrained by financial and other material limitations, used diasporic and imperial print cultures to turn the Komagata Maru (and the wider conflict over immigration restriction) into a transnational media event. However, the transnational circulation of reports on the ship did not coalesce into any kind of shared political goal, mutual understanding, or even increased accuracy of information. From the beginning, then, nationalist memory making of the ship was more about serving political agendas than about understanding the passengers’ intentions and desires. Particularly among moderate Indian nationalists, claiming the ship as part of their political project of imperial citizenship depended on not knowing the details of the passengers’ experiences or political inclinations. Indian nationalists

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across political and geographical divides shared the discourse of imperial citizenship, but that shared language never developed into any kind of transnational solidarity. Everyone involved agreed that the Komagata Maru was an event of global significance; the actual meaning at stake was and remains a matter of dispute.













Notes 1 The ship’s voyage was advertised in Hong Kong, Calcutta, and elsewhere in Punjabi newspapers and circulars (Gurdit Singh, poster, translated, [1914], cited in Waraich and Sidhu 2005, 37; Tatla 2007, 6–7). The first report of the ship came to Canada via a German newspaper, a fact later interpreted by Canadian and British officials as evidence that the Komagata Maru was a German plot prepared in advance of the First World War (Canadian Gazette, quoted in “Canadian Minister’s Statement,” Indian Views, July 10, 1914; Report of the Komagata Maru Committee [henceforth Report], 1915, 58). From the beginning, therefore, the medium and the message of news reports on the ship carried meanings reinterpreted in light of different political contexts and agendas. 2 This is in stark contrast to North American activists’ ties with Pacific Ocean and Punjabi networks or South African activists’ connections to London, East Africa, Gujarat, and Madras, where direct exchanges of money as well as information were common (Aiyar 2011; Huttenback 1967; Johnston 2014; Ramnath 2011; see also “The Indian National Congress,” African Chronicle [henceforth AC], February 10, 1910; Madras Standard, quoted in “Indian Press Opinion,” AC, February 15, 1913; and “India’s Help for the South African Indian,” AC, April 18, 1914). 3 See Somani in this volume for an analysis of the Canadian government’s memorialization of the Komagata Maru. 4 See also “Canada and Asiatic Immigration,” AC, July 20, 1912; “Truth Will Out,” India, November 28, 1913; and “Indians in America,” Indian Opinion [henceforth IO], April 15, 1914. 5 See, for example, “The Rights of Entry,” India, December 12, 1913; “More of the Komagata Maru,” Bengalee, May 27, 1914; “Minutes of a Hindu Mass Meeting Held in Dominion Hall, Vancouver,” June 21, 1914, Library and Archives Canada, Immigration Branch, RG76, Vol. 601, File 879545, part 3 [hereafter LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/3]. When colonial politicians such as Conservative MP Henry Herbert Stevens argued that Indians were subjects, not citizens, Indian activists were quick to reject this distinction. “Hindus Indignant at H.H. Stevens, M.P.,” Vancouver Sun, October 20, 1913; “Mr. H.H. Stevens, M.P., Imposes His Ignorance on the Federal House on the Hindu Question,” Hindustanee, April 1914. 6 Transliterations of ghadr differ depending on the translator; I have used Ghadr to refer to the newspaper but Ghadar and Ghadarites to refer to the political party and its constituents. 7 “Annual Subscriptions,” Hindustanee, January 1914; “Policy and Practice of the Dominion of Canada on Hindu Immigration,” Hindustanee, January 1914. 8 “Annual Subscriptions,” India, September 4, 1914. 9 “Ourselves,” AC, June 27, 1908; “Rates of Subscription,” AC, October 10, 1908; “Cor­ respondence,” AC, March 13, 1909; “Ourselves,” AC, May 20, 1915.

(Mis)Representing the Komagata Maru in Indian Print Cultures 193

10 “Indians in Canada,” IO, May 27, 1914; “Knocking at the Door,” India, May 29, 1914; “Canada and the Asiatics,” AC, May 30, 1914. 11 See also B. Maharaj, “Correspondence,” AC, July 11, 1908; “Dr. Sundar Singh,” Sansar, June 1914; “Press Note,” Indian Emigrant, November 30, 1914; and “Ourselves,” AC, May 20, 1915. 12 Malcolm R.J. Reid, Immigration Inspector, to W.D. Scott, Superintendent of Immigration, May 23, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/1; Gurdit Singh to Sato (ship agent), June 10, 1914, cited in Waraich and Sidhu (2005, 44); Bird to Connaught, Governor General of Canada, June 19, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/3; “Editorial,” Hindustanee, June 1914. 13 Bird to Reid, June 2, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/2; Dalgit [sic] Singh to Reid, June 2, 1914, ibid.; Gurdit Singh to Reid, June 16, 1914, quoted in Reid to Scott, June 16, 1914, ibid.; Bird to Reid, July 6, 1914, Vancouver City Archives, H.H. Stevens Papers, 509-D-7, File 2 [hereafter VCA/SP/509-D-7/2]. 14 Translation of the original by an anonymous government translator, Second Echo of the Ghaddar, VCA/SP/509-D-7/2. 15 Hopkinson to Reid, May 24, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/1. 16 During his years as immigration officer, Hopkinson was repeatedly challenged by Indian immigrants on his ability to speak relevant, or indeed any, Indian languages. See G.D. Kumar, Secretary of Hindustani Association, July 29, 191[0], LAC/IB/RG76/561/ 808722/1; J.H. MacGill, Immigration Agent, Vancouver, to Scott, August 22, 1910, ibid.; Hopkinson to W.W. Cory, Deputy Minister, Department of the Interior, September 29, 1912, LAC/IB/RG76/384/536999/5; “Canada as a Hindu Saw It,” Hindustanee, February 1914; Hopkinson to San Francisco British Consul, August 29, 1914, LAC/ IB/RG76/388/536999/British/1. 17 See also Reid to Cory, May 6, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/1; and “Ships which Must Carry Wireless,” Province, May 6, 1914. 18 “Notes and News,” India, July 17, 1914. 19 An observation by Robert Darnton (2001, 168) is salient here: “That the Indians sometimes outplayed them at their own game made no difference, for the British had the ultimate answer: force.” The fact that the Canadian government was unable to control representations of the Komagata Maru does not negate the fact that the Canadian, Indian, and British governments were still able to control the physical mobility of the passengers and ultimately to enforce their will with violence. Thanks to participants at the Charting Imperial Itineraries workshop for helping me to articulate this point. 20 “Notes and News,” India, June 26, 1914; K.H.S. Sandho, “Nonsense Talks about the Komagata Maru,” Province, July 2, 1914; Komagata Maru passengers to Connaught, quoted in Reid to Scott, July 20, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/4; Komagata Maru passenger to Editor [newspaper unspecified], n.d., ibid.; Shore Committee to Daily News Advertiser, n.d., ibid.; Report 1915, 44–45. 21 “Notes and News,” India, June 26, 1914. 22 Singh to Reid, June 16, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/2. 23 Pall Mall Gazette, quoted in “Komagata Is Held at William Head,” Victoria Times, May 22, 1914. 24 “Notes,” Modern Review, July 1914. 25 See also “Hindus Hold Mass Meeting and Preach Sedition and Treason,” Vancouver Sun, June 22, 1914; Reid to Scott, July 8, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/3.



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26 Daljit Singh to Tarn Singh or Mitt Singh (Sikh Temple, Vancouver), July 19, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/4; copy in VCA/SP/509-D-7/2. An otherwise identical letter is cited as Daljit Singh to Balwant Singh in Report 1915, 197. 27 This appears only in the Vancouver City Archives copy. 28 “Towards Peace in South Africa,” India, April 17, 1914; “Knocking at the Door,” India, May 29, 1914; “The South African Immigration Bill,” India, June 12, 1914; “Deadlock in British Columbia,” AC, June 13, 1914; “Union Parliament,” AC, June 13, 1914; “Union Parliament,” AC, June 20, 1914; June 27, 1914; July 11, 1914; July 18, 1914. 29 “Notes and News,” India, June 26, 1914. 30 “Indians in Canada,” India, May 22, 1914; “Notes and News,” India, July 10, 1914; “Notes,” Modern Review, July 1914. 31 “Knocking at the Door,” India, May 29, 1914; “Telegrams,” Bengalee, May 29, 1914; “Notes and News,” India, June 5, 1914. 32 “The Return of the ‘Komagata Maru,’” India, October 9, 1914; “Notes and News,” India, October 16, 1914; Maharatta, quoted in “A Deplorable Riot,” AC, November 28, 1914. 33 Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Great German Plot,” Daily Chronicle, quoted in “Notes,” Modern Review, November 1914; Times, quoted in “Conspiracy Trial in India,” AC, July 13, 1915. 34 They did not, for instance, raise money for the passengers, as Sikh and Ghadar Party circles did and as INC-affiliated papers did for South African passive resisters. 35 The Ghadar Party’s role in the ship is still debated, but at a minimum party members spoke with passengers, distributed copies of their paper, and served as members of the shore committee appointed to defend the passengers (Johnston 2013; Ramnath 2011, 38–49). 36 “Notes and News,” India, June 5, 1914; Maharatta, quoted in “A Deplorable Riot,” AC, November 28, 1914. 37 “Telegrams,” Bengalee, May 24, 1914; “Indians in Canada,” AC, June 13, 1914; “Notes and News,” India, July 17, 1914. 38 Minute SECRET AND URGENT from Viscount Gladstone, Governor General of South Africa, March 18, 1914, National Archives Repository, South Africa, GG/LEER, Vol. 899, 15/666. 39 Swadesh Sevak Home Petition, April 24, 1910, India Office Records, L/PJ/6/1064, File 568 [hereafter IOR/L/PJ/6/1064/568]; Kumar, quoted in Hopkinson to Cory, March 29, 1911, IOR/L/PJ/6/1064/568; Das, “Mr. H.H. Stevens, M.P., Imposes His Ignorance on the Federal House on the Hindu Question,” Hindustanee, April 1914. 40 Translation, Second Echo of the Ghaddar, VCA/SP/509-D-7/2. 41 “Indians in London,” India, June 26, 1914. 42 Times of India, quoted in India, January 9, 1914; “Great Meeting in Calcutta,” IO, January 14, 1914; “Indians in London,” Indian Emigrant, August 1914. 43 Translation, Second Echo of the Ghaddar, VCA/SP/509-D-7/2. 44 Quoted in Hopkinson to Cory, June 1, 1914, LAC/IB/RG76/601/879545/2. 45 “Notes and News,” India, August 21, 1914; Tribune, quoted in “Notes,” Modern Review, November 1914; Pioneer, quoted in “Indians in Canada,” AC, May 31, 1915. 46 “England at War,” Indian Views, August 7, 1914; “The Great European War,” AC, Sep­ tember 5, 1914; R.G. Pradhan, New Statesman, quoted in “Standing by the Empire,” India, October 2, 1914. 47 “Notes and News,” India, September 4, 1914.

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48 Morning Post, quoted in “Notes and News,” India, October 16, 1914; “Notes and Comments,” Indian Emigrant, October 30, 1914. 49 Punjabee, quoted in “Notes,” Modern Review, November 1914. See also Maharatta, quoted in “Culled from Papers,” Indian Views, December 4, 1914. 50 See also translation, Gaddar [sic], December 8, 1915, LAC, Department of the Secretary of State, Chief Press Censor, 1915–20, RG6-E, Vol. 579, File 251. 51 “Indian’s [sic] Help for the War,” AC, August 22, 1914; “The Great European War,” AC, September 5, 1914; “Indian Volunteers,” AC, September 16, 1915; “The Decision of the Union Government,” AC, September 16, 1915. 52 “South Africa,” Ghadr, January 6, [1914] translation, SAB/GG/LEER/900/15/713.

References Archival Sources British Library. India Office Records. Public and Judicial Departmental Papers. L/P/J/6/1064. Library and Archives Canada. Department of the Secretary of State. Chief Press Censor, 1915–20. RG6-E. –. Immigration Branch. RG75, RG76. –. Kartar Singh Collection. MG30-E-281. National Archives Repository, South Africa. Public Records of Central Government since 1910. GG LEER. Vancouver City Archives. H.H. Stevens Papers. SP509-D-7. Articles and Books Aiyar, Sana. 2011. “Anticolonial Homelands across the Indian Ocean: The Politics of the Indian Diaspora in Kenya, ca. 1930–1950.” American Historical Review 116: 987–1013. Banerjee, Sukanya. 2010. Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late-Victorian Empire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Barrier, N. Gerald. 1974. Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British India, 1907–1947. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Bhana, Surendra, and Goolam Vahed. 2005. The Making of a Political Reformer: Gandhi in South Affrica, 1893–1914. Delhi: Manohar. Boehmer, Elleke. 2006. “Failure to Connect: Resistant Modernities at National Cross­ roads: Solomon Plaatje and Mohandas Gandhi.” In Beyond the Black Atlantic: Relocating Modernization and Technology, edited by W. Goebel and Saskia Schabo, 47–62. London: Routledge. Canada India Committee. 1915. The Hindu Case. Toronto: Canada India Committee. Chandra, Ram. 1916. India against Britain: A Reply to Austin Chamberlain Secretary of State for India, Lord Hardinge Former Viceroy of India, Lord Islington Under Secretary of State, and Others. San Francisco: Hindustan Gadar [sic]. Hathitrust.org. Chang, Kornel. 2008. “Enforcing Transnational White Solidarity: Asian Migration and the Formation of the US-Canadian Boundary.” American Quarterly 60: 671–96. Darnton, Robert. 2001. “Literary Surveillance in the British Raj: The Contradictions of Liberal Imperialism.” Book History 4: 133–76. Das, Taraknath. 1923. India in World Politics. New York: B.W. Huebsch.

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A Hindu-Canadian. 1915. India’s Appeal to Canada or an Account of Hindu Immigration to the Dominion. Toronto: Canada India Committee. Horne, Gerald. 2008. The End of Empires: African Americans and India. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Huttenback, Robert A. 1967. “Some Fruits of Victorian Imperialism: Gandhi and the Indian Question in Natal, 1893–99.” Victorian Studies 11: 153–80. Isemonger, F.C., and J. Slattery. (1919) 1998. An Account of the Ghadr Conspiracy (1913– 1915). Foreword by Ved Prakash Vatuk. Meerut, India: Archana Publications. Johnston, Hugh. 2013. “The Komagata Maru and the Ghadr Party: Past and Present Aspects of a Historic Challenge to Canada’s Exclusion of Immigrants from India.” BC Studies 178: 9–31. –. 2014. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar, Expanded and Fully Revised Edition. Vancouver: UBC Press. Karatani, Rieko. 2003. Defining British Citizenship: Empire, Commonwealth, and Modern Britain. London: Frank Cass. Lake, Marilyn, and Henry Reynolds. 2008. Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Pennybacker, Susan D. 2009. From Scottsboro to Munich: Race and Political Culture in 1930s Britain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Price, John, and Satwinder Bains. 2014. “The Extraordinary Story of the Komagata Maru: Commemorating the One Hundred Year Challenge to Canada’s Immigration Colour Bar.” Asia-Pacific Journal 11, 29: 1–12. Ramnath, Maia. 2011. Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadr Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press. Seth, Sanjay. 2009. “Rewriting Histories of Nationalism: The Politics of ‘Moderate Nationalism’ in Colonial India, 1870–1905.” In Nationalist Movement in India: A Reader, edited by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, 30–48. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Singh, Sundar. 1917. “The Hindu in Canada.” Journal of Race Development 7: 361–82. Sinha, Mrinalini. 2011. “The Strange Death of an Imperial Ideal: The Case of Civis Britannicus.” In Modern Makeovers: Handbook of Modernity in South Asia, edited by Saurabh Dube, 29–42. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sohi, Seema. 2011. “Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in the Transnational Western US–Canadian Borderlands.” Journal of American History 98: 420–36. Swan, Maureen. 1985. Gandhi: The South African Experience. Johannesburg: Raven Press. Tatla, Darshan S., ed. 2007. Report of the Komagata Maru Committee of Inquiry and Some Further Documents. First published in 1915, reprint, with an introduction by Darshan S. Tatla. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books. Waraich, Malwinderjit Singh, and Gurdev Singh Sidhu, eds. 2005. Komagata Maru: A Challenge to Colonialism: Key Documents. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books. Zimmerman, Andrew. 2010. Alabama in Africa: Booker T. Washington, German Empire, and the Globalization of the New South. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

9

The Time and Sound of the Nautical Border Ayesha Hameed

From out the water’s wall From Luxor to heavens in the sprawl See the wings clash against the glistening purple clips Eurhythmic, a phasing shift The ships that came from Kush Now they’re aimed on a collision Stare with this image being witnessed ... decisions That’s the conflict of the uninventive But at protect and exalt we keep up in it till its finished –“Dawn in Luxor” (Shabazz Palaces 2014)

The images evoked in the lyrics by the afrofuturist experimental hiphop group Shabazz Palaces draw from the idea of water as a memory-laden thoroughfare. They pull from water its mystical, primordial quality connecting ancient Luxor, the Theban capital of Egypt, to ships arriving from Kush on the confluence of several Niles. The clash of ships is imaged with the clash of wings. Memory becomes an event – an image witnessed from afar. This witnessing becomes a multitemporal political project that makes something at a level of remove. This song is an incantation – a eurythmy that through its steady beat transposes this clash into a semblance of order. The sound makes a rhythm of the clash, and the image is pulled into the present of a political struggle. But what does it mean to take note of time outside the poetics of memory at sea? Of things and events and images falling outside the frame? 197

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Figure 9.1  Still from Continuous Journey | Ali Kazimi, director, 2004.

In 2007, I co-wrote an essay with Tamara Vukov on Ali Kazimi’s experimental documentary Continuous Journey that traced the journey of the Komagata Maru. Vukov used her vast knowledge of Canadian immigra­tion policy to contextualize the events on board the ship, at the Vancouver Harbour, and in the grey zones embedded in the passing of the Continu­ ous Journey Regulation. Drawing from Gilles Deleuze’s conception of the real, she examined the varieties of racial exclusion cleverly placed inside the law (Hameed and Vukov 2007, 88–89). In what remained unsaid, but what was effectively enforced, was a deliberate silence or an aporia in the law that made it possible for Canadian authorities to keep the Komagata Maru literally at bay in Vancouver Harbour and then to turn its passengers away. In my contribution to that project, I explored the exciting formal choices that Kazimi made in his use of archival material – how he made the paucity of material at hand into a creative constraint and animated the few images that he found of the ship and its passengers. I thought that something new and important was happening epistemologically with this choice to animate – to bring into motion and thus into a form of life – an inadequately documented historical event. To me, this highlighted a way of

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working, finding a formal method with which to link the nautical and historical aspects of migration. Although my performance practice has explored contemporary Canadian immigration policy in the context of border crossing and racial profiling (Hameed 2011), my recent “scholarly” work deals with substantively different issues such as the middle passage (see, e.g., Hameed 2014). My collaboration on the essay was really an exceptional project in which I could explore my small obsession with these animations that turned static archival images into bodies that blinked and clouds that rushed across the sky. In his film Continuous Journey, Kazimi makes a temporal comparison, draws a spider’s thread between the passing of the Continuous Journey Regulation in the early twentieth century and the Safe Third Country Agreement passed at the time of the film’s production. The film uses a temporal method that rubs two historical moments together. In this rubbing against their grain, the time passed between those moments both expands and contracts. What is produced by such a temporal method is a simultaneous sense of resonance coupled with acute disjuncture. And, fuelled by such a leap in history, this provides a fresh way of looking at the present. The historical is read as a prehistory to tightening the vise of immigration control in the present. Here I explore these two threads. First I follow my initial interest in Kazimi’s use of animation as a formal historical method, which I argue forms what I call an immanent aesthetic inextricable from his larger investigation. I link this to some other ways in which the immanent aesthetic can be thought of in relation to nautical migration and particularly to sound. Then I explore the time of the nautical border, considering how objects caught in the crosshairs of a political crisis become charged with historical crises. However, outside the brush of history, I also consider the quality of time for the objects themselves: the waiting, the boredom, the resistance, the falling out of the frames of action that operate on the axis of time. Here I explore the ship as one such monad historically charged, looking at – among other cases – the “left-to-die boat” case in the Mediterranean in 2011, an investigation undertaken at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University of London (Forensic Architect n.d.; Pezzani 2013). I draw some crooked lines between this ship and the Komagata Maru, considering the legal aporias that they inhabit(ed) and the violence embedded in the inability of passengers to disembark.

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I conclude the chapter by considering two other films – Uriel Orlow’s Yellow Limbo (2011) and CAMP’s From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf (2013) – as a coda that provides another immanent aesthetic that combines ways of thinking about the moving image in relation to the sounds and times of the nautical border beyond Kazimi’s film. Both films materialize and territorialize the time and space of the nautical journey, in both instances calling attention to the quality of waiting that happens on board between docks and how time is passed. The question of the formal qualities of time and of sound, and the ways in which they are used in these works, are fuelled by concerns that this volume attempts to study. In its examination of how imperialism produces itinerant subjects, a question to consider is how can such conditions of flux, historically produced and full of contradictions, be represented? The registers of sound and of time, both material and invisible at the same time, could be possible markers to take stock of events that took place on and around the Komagata Maru. Linked with representations of other ships caught in the same aporias of imperially averted gazes, together they potentially form a vocabulary or a constellation that is linked temporally, sonically, and sociohistorically. Sound I would like to recapitulate briefly some of the observations that I made about Kazimi’s film (Hameed and Vukov 2007). Following the cut-up technique of William Burroughs, I went back into the article with a scalpel, cutting into the text, rearranging the material, and seeing what came out of unlikely juxtapositions. As Burroughs (1986) said of his textual form of divination, “when you cut into the present, the future leaks out.” What struck me when writing “Animating Exclusions” was how Kazimi turned the lack of archival material on the Komagata Maru into a creative constraint. He cropped photographs, tinted them, used them repeatedly; he also animated these images and created illusions of movement on the ship, dock, and street. This method was not surplus to his study. The nature of his investigation produced its own imagery and a way of working with the material that contains an aesthetic quality germane to looking at migration and nautical travel. I call this quality an aesthetic immanence, in which the way of working with materials and historical matters coincide to produce an aesthetic quality inextricable from a study of the object of inquiry. As I wrote,

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The most striking punctum in the animation of Continuous Journey is when the photograph of Gurdit Singh fills the screen and, looking at the camera, his eyes blink. This image of Gurdit Singh, animated to blink, repeats constantly through the film, often with no break or acknowledgement in the commentary. Why is this image so consistently jarring? And what is achieved by the visceral shock of this animation? The implications of animating Gurdit Singh’s nearly century-old photograph to blink are key to understanding the role of the archive in Continuous Journey. It is a play between reconstruction and decay, and recuperation and loss. It queries the division between animated and “already moving-images” and their ability to recuperate the events they record. ... This speaks to one element of the puzzle that underlies the blinking photograph: the distance between the viewer and the image is both expanded as incommensurable, and also collapsed in the intimacy of the affect generated by the blink. But it also fits within a language of distance and loss that informs Continuous Journey’s search for archival evidence. (Hameed and Vukov 2007, 96, 98)

The choice to animate the archival images as a response to their paucity constitutes one such aesthetic immanence. The shock created in rupturing the image – the affect created by this animation – is its counterpart in its creation of intimacy and alienation. Following the work of Michel Chion (1994), who explores the many facets of the symbiotic relationship between sound and image in cinema, it is not a stretch to argue that the sonic quality of a film is a central component of its affective quality. Part of the immanent aesthetics of sound in this context resides in the close connection between sound and the nautical. Sound operates like the animated images, as aesthetically immanent to the study of nautical migration. Although part of my original analysis of the film was connected with the affective charges of speed and decay in the animation, it now seems to have been a huge oversight to overlook the affective element of sound in the experience of the moving image. Early in the film, Kazimi captures the zeitgeist of the historical moment in his rerecording of a popular song at the time that the Continuous Journey Regulation was passed: “White Canada Forever.” The song’s sentiment brings together attitudes toward race prevalent in western Canada at the time, which Peter Ward (2002) thoughtfully explores in his book by that title.

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In another vein, Kazimi describes another sonic manifestation of the prevalent racist sentiments at the time – the distinction between the two meanings of Indian. To distinguish First Nations people from migrants from India, the latter were referred to as “Hindoos” in official documents, drawing on the vernacular moniker “Hindustan” used since the Middle Ages to speak of India. In Canadian documents, Hindoo became the designation of one from Hindustan and consequently ethnicized the Indian so that the boundary between citizenship and religion became even more eroded. The sonics of homonyms then had a real-life impact on the classification of populations that fell outside the margins of white Canada. A more subtle use of sonics to create a visceral charge in Continuous Journey lies in the use of the raga that plays in snippets throughout the film – including during Kazimi’s account of his own coming of age. The association of this music established early in the film with Kazimi’s Super 8 home movies of his home and youth charges it with a sense of nostalgia. Later a riff of this song plays in snippets as Kazimi charts the voyage of the Komagata Maru. The contrast between the instability of the voyage and the affective quality of Kazimi’s home triggered by the music produces a sense of vertigo similar to the sped-up animation. This sense of nostalgia, instability, and home finds some kind of resolution toward the end of the film when Kazimi finds a film recording of the “real” Komagata Maru at sea. The connection of the raga with an “authentic” image is an affective visceral jolt akin to the blink in the animated photograph of Gurdit Singh and his son. However, I think that there is an even more inherent relationship among sound, migration, and the nautical that exceeds the affective relationship between sounds and moving images. In his book Audio Vision: Sound on Screen, Chion (1994, 5) explores how sound affects our perception of the moving image by creating what he calls an “added value” to what we see. Chion looks at several permutations of sound and image: the ways that more “vococentric” sounds dominate over other sounds, the ways that sound and image coalesce, rubbing against one another’s grain to create a sense of empathy or a sense of alienation. Most interesting in the context of this discussion is how he characterizes the difference in perception between sound and image. To Chion, “each kind of perception bears a fundamentally different relationship to motion and stasis, since sound, contrary to sight, presupposes movement from the outset. In a film image

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that contains movement many other things in the frame may remain fixed. But sound by its very nature necessarily implies a displacement or agitation, however minimal” (9–10; emphasis added). This relationship between sound and displacement points to the beginnings of thinking through the relationship between sound and migration. Sound not only evokes a sense of movement but also implies a sense of instability or, as he says, an agitation. This agitation unsettles the viewer. Such instability also has something to do with the agitation of air and spatialization of sound as well, which Jonathan Sterne and Tara Rodgers (2011) point out has been represented for centuries as a voyage. Although they are specifically interested in nautical imagery in metaphors of sound manipulation, they also describe how the voyage is figured through sound metaphors. And they describe how that imagery is of a colonizing nautical journey. In perhaps the most elegant summary possible, they paint the entire canvas of the nautical in sound: Themes of sound as fluid disturbance and maritime journey were imagined in the exterior world, often represented as an “ocean of air” (Hunt 1). They were also transposed onto the interior structures of the inner ear, itself a kind of seascape of canals, sinus curves, and other fluid passageways to be traversed by scientific exploration. The ear was a destination of sound waves, one that “accepts [...] all the strife and struggle and confusion” of vibratory motion in the surrounding environment (Tyndall 82). Structures within the ear (solids, fluids, and membranes) were depicted as a terrain of interconnected parts through which vibrations “travel” (Barton 335–43). The term ear canal itself evoked a channel of water for navigation, an arm of the sea. Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum (1626) contained one of the first applications of the term canal (derived from channel, a waterway for boats) to a pipe for amplifying sound, as well as to tubular structures within the body, such as the ear canal (OED, “canal”). Like twentieth-century biotechnology discourses that transposed tropes of outer-space travel to “inner space” representations of immune systems (Haraway 221–25), Bacon and followers imagined formal structures of the ear in relation to symbols of maritime voyage drawn from concurrent scientific and colonialist exploration projects. Themes of maritime voyage symbolized the promise of scientific exploration to conquer the unknowable, fluid landscapes of sound waves in the furthest reaches of the world

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and the innermost spaces of the ear, and these metaphors have persisted in audio-technical discourse. (Sterne and Rodgers 2011, 46)

Their metaphors of maritime journeys start from the description of the working of the inner ear that ordered and made sense of all the “strife and struggle” of vibration in the world. This image dates to at least the seventeenth century in Bacon’s formulation. By connecting the workings of the ear and sound to nautical journeys, Sterne and Rodgers (2011) bring together the ways in which sound is both nautical and physiological. These connections provide a sense of how sound, the voyage, and biopolitical spheres connect to the regulation of the space of the sea through the act of mobility. Sterne and Rodgers (2011) link this voyage analogy to a colonialist and scientific exploration. The exploratory colonial analogy highlighted the unknowable quality of sound as it existed both at a distance and deep in the recesses of the ear. They argue that this imagery produces a subject position at its centre: the navigator, the colonial tamer of unruly vibrations, whom they figure as white and male. This mastery involves both danger and pleasure. They call attention to the implicit classing and racing embedded in this formulation. From this formulation of the navigator who has mastery over the waves, “a travel narrative emerges from presumptions of freedom and mobility rather than experiences of disability or of being surveilled or stopped” (48). This contrasting imagery of water as a space of flows as opposed to a series of striations and impediments to travel brings us back to the migratory impulses embedded in the formulation of the sound wave. If mastery of sound is embodied in the navigator, then its nonmastery, the account from below that links it to its privations, could be described as a kind of falling out of the frame and of the sails turning awry. At the level of affect, this nonmastery perhaps lies in horror. Chion (1994, 23) points out that, though sound often provides a filter with which to interpret the moving image, the image also interprets and inflects the quality of sound. In horror movies, what the sonic adds is the dimension of implied and off-camera violence. So, for example, a sound could complement the image of a watermelon being crushed in a comedic moment in the visual narrative or a head being struck in a horror movie. Sound effects can turn a body on screen into a lifeless thing; they can fill

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in gaps in speech with unspeakable and unviewable violence happening off screen and implied. This relates to the displaced and agitated quality of sound in that the off-camera, beyond-language quality of horror is also inherently displaced – mechanically, nothing is seen, the sound is off camera. This sense of displacement and its relationship to violence have a resonance with the uncanny beyond language and sense of displacement connected to a violent experience of migration. It is the complete opposite experience of sound than what the master navigator experiences. Time One of the striking aspects of the Continuous Journey Regulation was how, without naming its intentions, it effectively managed to keep unwanted migrants out of Canada. This implicit exclusion was effected at the margins of what was stated, forming a legal equivalent to wilfully looking away and allowing the ripple effects of the regulation to do all the dirty work. Such averted gazes and the short-circuiting of action through overlapping jurisdictions within the law have particular qualities when the border in question is made of water. The standoff of the Komagata Maru in Vancouver Harbour is one such instance. The slow, wilful interpretation of the regulation and standard procedures such as health checks that took days on end, keeping the passengers waiting and waiting, constitute what Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson (2013) would call a temporal border. Their account of the temporal border focuses on the bureaucratic red tape that migrants face on land as they pass through the many hurdles associated with processing visas or being granted asylum. Although they do discuss nautical borders, it is more in the context of particular models of governmentality. I am more interested in the quality of time and waiting at borders on the sea. The sea as a temporal border coalesces in the ship. But the ship is the crystallization of another temporal exercise that I described earlier – the comparison of two historical moments. In Continuous Journey, it is the comparison of the Continuous Journey Regulation with the more recent Safe Third Country Agreement. The tensions produced by this comparison create a constellation of monads, one of which is the ship.1 Mezzadra and Neilson (2013) describe two cases in which ships – the MV Oceanic Viking

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and the KM Jaya Lestari 5 – when carrying asylum-seeking migrants from Sri Lanka, were held by Indonesian authorities on their way to Australia. On both ships, the passengers refused to disembark to be processed and deported. The first ship, the Oceanic Viking, was a customs vessel from Australia that rescued several Tamil migrants at the request of the Indonesian government. These passengers, as Mezzadra and Nielson (2013, 167) describe, were taken to be processed on Bintan Island, the site of an International Organization for Migration (IOM) detention centre. When the ship arrived at the port, the migrants refused to leave the ship until, after two weeks of hunger strikes and a diplomatic standoff, the Australian authorities agreed to expedite processing of the migrants’ asylum applications. The second ship, the Jaya Lestari 5, a small ship carrying 254 Tamil migrants, was intercepted in Indonesian waters and taken to Merak. When the migrants refused to disembark, the standoff lasted much longer in this instance – more than six months. This duration cost the life of one of the migrants; the rest were left with little food or access to medical care, many were ill, and about forty escaped (Mezzadra and Nielson 2003, 168). Not disembarking forms a kind of resistance to the border, which turns the threshold of the boat de facto into a border. To refuse to disembark is to refuse to cross a border. This was not an option for those on board the Komagata Maru, but the refusal of those on board other ships to disembark brings the materiality of this border into view and demonstrates another form of resistance to this border that those aboard the Komagata Maru contested by trying to cross the border by leaving their ship. The duration of the standoff for the Jaya Lestari 5 created the conditions that produce death, illness, malnutrition, and escape. The context was similar in both instances, but the difference between two weeks and six months created a barrier that affected the bodies and constitutions of the migrants themselves. In other words, time became intertwined with the health of the migrants, which mapped onto how successfully they could approach, bypass, or become fatalities of this border. Part of the delay also lay in trying to determine which country’s jurisdiction the ships fell under while the Indonesian and Australian governments were at a standoff. The role of legal jurisdiction at sea in the creation of a nautical and temporal border came to the forefront in another instance, farther from the coast in the “left-to-die boat” case that Charles

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Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani (2015) were active in developing. The story that they tell is both tragic and increasingly familiar: In late March 2011, seventy-two sub-Saharan migrants left Tripoli onboard a rubber dinghy in an attempt to reach the small Italian island of Lampedusa. After covering approximately half the distance, the boat ran out of fuel and started drifting in the open sea. Despite reporting their position to the Italian Coast Guard (the organisation later informed its Maltese colleagues and NATO, which ... at the time was engaged in the military operations in Libya) and being spotted and approached by at least one patrol aircraft, a military helicopter, two fishermen’s boats and a military vessel, no one intervened to rescue the group. After two weeks of drifting, with no water or food onboard, sixty-three people died, and the nine survivors landed back on the Libyan coast. (Pezzani 2013, 151)

In this instance, the border was temporalized and spatialized by the inaction of all the patrolling ships in the region – by their looking away from this dinghy. The trajectory of its drift constituted another slow death and refusal. The regularity of ships capsizing off the shores of Greece and Italy is proof of how the register of death does not accumulate into a systematic response to safeguard the migrants’ lives. Each boat might capsize suddenly, but the response is slow. The aporia in this instance lies in the contrast between NATO’s visual reach, which rendered the entire Mediterranean visible under its sur­ veillance of the Libyan coast, and its simultaneous claim that this boat somehow evaded detection. Heller and Pezzani (2015) uncovered the impossibility of NATO’s claim by reconstructing the course of the boat’s drift and then locating satellite images of these coordinates to which NATO had access. NATO engaged in another form of looking away. Coda What waiting and forms of boredom – which disjunctures – are created in the two scales of time? And what does that sound like? Uriel Orlow’s Yellow Limbo charts the story of fourteen cargo ships caught in the Suez Canal for eight years when the border closed during the Six-Day War in 1967. Orlow found Super 8 film shot by the internationally composed crews of these stranded ships who banded together to form a precarious community to survive. This footage documented their version of the

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Figure 9.2  Still from Yellow Limbo | Uriel Orlow, director, 2011. HD video with stereo sound, 14′. Copyright Uriel Orlow, SODRAC (2018).

Olympic Games in 1968 as well as other daily activities. Orlow (2015) combined it with footage that he shot on location, vintage photographs, and a slide projection of important events during these eight years: “This three-way comparison of events, disembodied from the timeline of experience, creates a complication of concurrence, consequence and dissociation, giving rise to a sense that time is pleated, causality radiating[,] and that this rippling expanse of saltwater somehow communicates diagonally through time. Shown alongside it is Anatopism, a time-capsule of events and titles from 1967 to 1975.” Anatopism, installed with Yellow Limbo, is a slide projection that lists a series of world historical and cultural events, thereby creating another temporal space that highlights what the accumulation of historical time looks like outside the boat. This contrasts with the images that depict how time is managed on board. This is time filled with tactics – a time of the now as a form of survival and resistance in the face of world events that tick by at its margins. There are consequently two different experiences of time: one on board made up of gestures and relations and one involving the world outside the ships. These are also two different scales of waiting in which the time of the Six-Day War finds a more local form of waiting that is nautical, on a set of ships caught in the crossfire of hostilities and diplomatic relations. They are only small players in another aporia. This is another temporal border: this time we are at sea with a different kind of crew on board who are not seeking asylum across an impenetrable border. Rather, the journey

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itself and its physical trajectory become the subject of a border regime rather than the passengers on board. The border that blocks the passage, rather than the passengers, then becomes inhabited by these very passengers, this crew – a striated space stretched out over several years. The clash of chronotopes between the ships and the world produces its own sonics. The sound of the film is the sound of water lapping at the shore, the clicking of the slide projector marking time on its carousel, a child on the shore shouting in vain at a ship at sea in the now time of Orlow’s footage. But sound also becomes something to be read in the titles in Anatopism. The events happening around the world that these ships are part of yet completely isolated from consist of film, book, and song titles circulating around the world. For example, the reverberating image of the Godfather trilogy evoked in the titles and the titles of songs such as David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” (released in 1970) interspersed with events such as “Nixon in China” and “King Hussein of Jordan Proposes United Arab Kingdom with West Bank” become an aesthetic, imagined archive that is silent but easily imagined in its auditory evocations. “The Man Who Sold the World” becomes part of the soundtrack to this telling of the world’s history outside Yellow Limbo itself, and the sound of the sea becomes its index of the two chronotopes at stake in this impasse. This notion of waiting at sea finds another permutation of the border in CAMP’s From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf (2013), but in this instance it is the border between land and sea as it is experienced by merchant sailors shipping cargo: from India to Somalia to Pakistan to the Persian Gulf. These precarious workers are constantly at sea, stopping at ports only for short periods, spending the majority of their time crisscrossing the Arabian Sea. The Mumbai-based collective CAMP sees this work as an antifilm video, an archive of this journey made up of cellphone video shot by sailors from Iran, Pakistan, and India and footage shot by CAMP over a span of four years: CAMP’s film began with collecting a trove of video ephemera produced by sailors – short videos shot on cellphones and paired with music that the men would bounce back and forth to each other via Bluetooth. These accumulated music videos form the basis for the film, edited together with footage shot by CAMP and the sailors they supplied with video cameras. The result is a

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Figure 9.3  Still from From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf | CAMP, director, 2013.

mixture of the intimate and the epic, as we observe the sailors at work, at play and in repose, allowing a remarkable and ephemeral window into the world of these workers. (Images Festival 2015)

It depicts how the dhows or ships that they sail on are constructed, the composition of goods being transported, and the immense amount of waiting that the crew endure as they travel from port to port. None of this is narrated or framed within the film: there is no voiceover, nor are there any titles. The sound that bursts onto the screen is a product of cellphone technology – mp3s stored on a phone are added to the video footage automatically by the phone’s settings. These bursts of music, frequently incongruous with the image, are an index of the sailors’ lifestyles – what the sailors do to pass the time and the music that they listen to while working and waiting. These crews are not caught in a static border like the sailors captured in Yellow Limbo’s images, nor are they seeking entry into another country like the passengers of the Komagata Maru or the boats plying the Mediterranean even as I write this. These sailors are in constant movement from shore to shore. They are migrant labourers at sea – a disenfranchised transnational workforce whose precarious movement points in the direction of its logical conclusion: the illegal immigrant. They also establish the link between the much-maligned economic migrant and asylum claimant in any country of the Global North categorized as an unscrupulous

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and dishonest figure and the “legitimate” claimant somehow innocent of economics and the violence of capitalism. These sailors at sea in perpetual motion point to the violent schisms produced by this lie. This film, with Yellow Limbo, forms a logical conclusion to thinking through how sound and the moving image can take into account the slow time of the nautical border in a new register on precarious migrant labour. Somehow the dizzying speed of the animated images in Continuous Journey finds a counterpart in this self-produced, slow-moving archive, in the imagined soundtrack, in the bursts of song to pass the time, in the waiting.



Note 1 Richard Hylton recently pointed out that, in the discourse on the middle passage, though much was made of ship captains throwing slaves overboard during storms and collecting insurance money, in fact more slaves died while ships were waiting at ports while paperwork was being filled out (Mannix and Cowley 2002, 90). Slaves were not allowed, of course, to disembark while the ship lay at anchor, and this point – the inability of an unwanted human cargo to disembark – constitutes the core, or more accurately the threshold, on which the temporal border operates. References Burroughs, William S. 1986. Break Through in Grey Room. Vinyl LP. Sub Rosa, Belgium. CAMP. 2013. From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf. Video. Chion, Michel. 1994. Audio Vision: Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia University Press. Forensic Architect. N.d. “The Left-to-Die Boat: The Deadly Drift of a Migrants’ Boat in the Central Mediterranean.” http://www.forensic-architecture.org/case/left -die-boat/. Hameed, Ayesha. 2011. “Borders in the City.” In Imagining Resistance: Visual Culture and Activism in Canada, edited by Kirsty Robertson and J. Keri Cronin, 121–39. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. –. 2014. “Black Atlantis.” In FORENSIS: The Architecture of Public Truth, edited by Forensic Architecture, 712–19. Berlin: Sternberg Press. Hameed, Ayesha, and Tamara Vukov. 2007. “Animating Exclusions: Ali Kazimi’s Continuous Journey and the Virtualities of Racialized Exclusion in Canadian Immigration Policy.” Topia: Canadian Journal for Cultural Studies 17: 87–109. Heller, Charles, and Lorenzo Pezzani. 2015. “The Left-to-Die Boat: The Deadly Drift of a Migrants’ Boat in the Central Mediterranean.” Forensic Architecture. http://www. forensic-architecture.org/case/left-die-boat/. Images Festival. 2015. From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf. Synopsis. http://www.imagesfestival. com/calendar.php?event_id=1266&month=n. Kazimi, Ali, dir. 2004. Continuous Journey. Produced in association with TVOntario with the assistance of the South Asian Heritage Foundation. Peripheral Visions Film and Video, Toronto.

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Mannix, Daniel P., and Malcolm Cowley. 2002. Black Cargoes: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1518–1865. London: Penguin. Mezzadra, Sandro, and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as Method, or, The Multiplication of Labor. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Orlow, Uriel. 2011. Yellow Limbo. HD video with stereo sound. –. 2015. Yellow Limbo. http://www.urielorlow.net/2011/01/yellow-limbo/. Pezzani, Lorenzo. 2013. “Between Mobility and Control: The Mediterranean at the Borders of Europe.” In New Geographies, 5: The Mediterranean, edited by Antonio Petrov, 303–12. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shabazz Palaces. 2014. “Dawn in Luxor.” Lese Majesty. Sub Pop. Sterne, Jonathan, and Tara Rodgers. 2011. “The Poetics of Signal Processing.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 22, 2–3: 31–53. Ward, Peter. 2002. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy toward Ori­ ent­als in British Columbia. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University.

Part 4 Disrupting Colonial Formations of Nation

10

When Home and Harem Collide The “Hindu Women’s Question”: A Mass Spectacle of the Canadian Nation, Family, and Modernity Enakshi Dua

As the chapters in this volume powerfully demonstrate, the history of the Komagata Maru lies in British imperial policies, Canadian white settler nationalism, and its concomitant exclusionary migration and settlement policies that provoked a transnational struggle by male migrants from India to challenge migration laws and white settlement policies. Often overlooked in the scholarship on the Komagata Maru is that the incident also involved a politics of gender, family, and nation. To construct a white settler nation, the Canadian state prevented the migration of women from India. As a result, as part of their political struggles with Canadian migration and settlement policies, Indian male migrants challenged the restriction on the entry of their wives and children. In 1911, two men, Bhag Singh and Balwant Singh, with the assistance of the South Asian community in Canada and the anticolonial movement in India, organized the entry of their spouses, Kartar Kaur and Harman Kaur. In 1914, the Komagata Maru brought another woman from India, Harnam Kaur, the wife of Bhagwan Singh. As I have documented in earlier work, these men’s challenges resulted in a broadly based public debate on whether women from India should be allowed to enter Canada, a debate popularly referred to as the “Hindu Women’s Question” (hereafter referred to as the HWQ) (Dua 2000, 2003, 2007). The question of allowing these three women entry into Canada was taken up in a number of sites – there were town meetings, speeches, legislative debates, editorials – and newspapers reported on whether or not women from India should be allowed to enter Canada. People from virtually all sectors of Canadian society participated in the debate: politicians, 215

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trade unionists, clerical figures, leaders of women’s groups, eastern Canadians, western Canadians, and Indian men residing in Canada.1 In the public discussion, the question of whether or not to allow Harman Kaur, Kartar Kaur, and Harnam Kaur entry was tied to the larger issue of male migration from India, Asian migration, mixed-race sexual relations, and how best to secure a white Canadian settler nation (for more details, see Dua 2000, 2007). In this chapter, I extend my research on the HWQ by exploring how the public debates to include/exclude female migrants from India and the category of the “Hindu family” provided Canadians with an important opportunity to reinforce the fraught gender and sexual practices associated with the nuclear family. Drawing on Anne McClintock’s (1995, 368) suggestion that nationalist projects rely on the “fetish spectacle,” I illustrate how the HWQ worked as a mass spectacle of nation and family, providing an opportunity to display not only the emerging nationalist project but also the importance of nuclear family relations for this project. For those who participated in the debate, the possibility of including female migrants from India raised state and public concerns about the links among the emerging nation, family forms, and modernity. Notably, in the postConfederation period, the nuclear family, argued to be threatened by the presence of female migrants from India, appeared as a precarious project because it had yet to emerge as hegemonic among “white” settlers. Because the “Hindu” family was defined as backward, premodern, and patriarchal, the HWQ offered an opportunity to define the emerging but contested nuclear family as part of the project of a “modern” nation-state. My discussion of how nation, race, and gender were framed within the HWQ draws extensively on government documents, court cases, and news­ paper reports. The newspapers that I chose are the Victoria Daily Colonist, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, and Winnipeg Free Standard. All are dailies.2 The period covered was from 1910 to 1920. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s emphasis on unmasking the historical construction of categories, I examine how the categories of nation, race, and gender were represented in the HWQ. These categories allowed for new forms of domination, as well as resolutions of existing tensions within the Canadian nationalist pro­ject. For example, I examine how Indian male and female migrants are defined in these texts using representations that drew on pre-existing icons of race and gender (e.g., harem, modernity) and how these symbols were changed in the Canadian context. I also draw on Michael Billig’s

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(1987) use of rhetorical analysis in analyzing the discourse of race and gender. Billig points to the importance of understanding not only metaphors and language but also the social and political contexts of arguments. Thus, I pay attention to how the representation of polygamy was juxtaposed either implicitly or explicitly against the representation of the nuclear family and Canada. The Struggle to Include Wives of Indian Men Indian men, realizing that the exclusion of their wives from the Canadian nation-state was part of racialized policies of exclusion, began to demand that their wives be allowed to migrate to Canada. In 1911, Bhag Singh and Balwant Singh, two leaders of the Indian community, with the assistance of the Ghadarites and Indian nationalists, made the first attempt to sponsor their wives (Dua 2000). Three years later, Harnam Kaur arrived in Canada on the Komagata Maru. The response from the Canadian state, fearing the implications of female migration from India, was to deny her entry. Indian male migrants found themselves engaged in a struggle over the politics of race, family, and nation – a politics that came to be taken up in a national (and transnational) debate. Indian male migrants employed a discourse of male citizenship rights to argue that Indian men in Canada should be given the same rights as other settlers (see Dua 1999c). Through public meetings, newspapers, and applications to the court, they argued that their wives should be allowed to enter because as British subjects the men had the male (moral) right to have families.3 Sunder Singh, a leader of Indian migrants, argued that the “Doukhobours were allowed in with their wives, why not the Sikhs?” (Globe and Mail, January 27, 1912, 9). Similarly, another leader of Indian male migrants, Rajah Singh, argued that it was “inhuman to allow the Hindus to enter while keeping out their wives and children” (Ottawa Citizen, August 9, 1911, 1). The majority of Canadians were not convinced by this argument. They argued that the presence of Indian women would undermine the centrality of nuclear family relationships within the nation. Canadian immigration agents, state officials, and members of the public argued that the presence of Indian women in the Canadian polity would encourage the emergence of alternative familial forms, particularly polygamy. Several Canadian state officials pointed to polygamy as one of the crucial implications of including women from India: “Immigration agent J.H. MacGill

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... call[ed] attention to the fact that many are polygamists. Amongst the Hindus here there are fifteen hundred Jats and seven hundred Moha­ medaans, all of whom practise polygamy and might bring in two or three wives apiece if the immigration bars are lowered” (Globe and Mail, Janu­ ary 2, 1912, 5). A member of Parliament from Vancouver, H.H. Stevens, pointed out in the debate in Parliament the legal claims to entry made by those on board the Komagata Maru: “A question has been raised about the admission of Hindu wives ... It is not a question of admitting the wives of Hindus, but whether you are going to open the door to let them all come in” (Canada 1914). Indian men responded by denying the accusation that they would introduce alternative familial patterns. Rajah Singh, for example, is reported to have argued that the accusations of polygamy were “a tissue of lies and absolutely false”: [That] was Dr. Singh’s characterization of the majority of statements published. It was as illegal for marriages to be solemnised under the age of twelve in India, and as absurd for the writer to say that children were consecrated as early as three ... All that the Sikhs have been asking is that those who have been here for years may be allowed to bring out our wives and families. It cannot be expected that a man will settle in Canada permanently if his wife is not allowed to join him. (Globe and Mail, January 29, 1912, 9)

Some Canadians supported Indian men’s claims. In a speech to the Women’s Canadian Club, “Dr. Wilkie quoted a number of misstatements that have been made ... that two thousand two hundred of them live poly­ gamously in that Province ... [and that] four or five hundred have returned to India ... to bring their wives and many of these are now in Hong Kong unable to get passage to Vancouver” (Globe and Mail, February 17, 1912, 10). Despite the assurance that Indian men would participate in nuclear family relations, the immigration official in charge of the case, MacGill, refused Kartar Kaur and Harman Kaur admission on the ground that these women had failed to comply with the regulations of a continuous journey (Globe and Mail, January 23, 1912, 1). However, the Canadian government, fearing that the case would exacerbate the political activities of Indian male migrants, issued a special order-in-council that allowed the women to remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds.

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When Harnam Kaur arrived in Canada on the Komagata Maru, concern about the entry of female migrants from India was raised again. In the ensuing debate in Parliament, Stevens pointed out somewhat sarcastically that admitting Indian women would undermine the centrality of nuclear family relations in Canadian society: Mr. Stevens: Consider for a moment the wife question: I ask, which wife are you going to admit ... working with the head immigration officer, Malcolm R.J. Reid? Mr. Nesbitt: All of them. (Canada 1914)

The courts upheld the legality of the regulations that restricted the entry of migrants from India. In reporting on his decision in the Munshi Singh case, Justice Phillips argued that his decision was based partly on ensuring that Canadian family forms were protected: Parliament may be said to be safeguarding Canada ... That our fellow British subjects of the Asiatic race are of different racial instincts to those of the European race – and consistent therewith, their family life, rules of society and laws are of a very different character – it is in our interest that their proper place of residence is within the confines of their own country.4

Notably, the fear that “Indian” family forms would be extended to “white” women forced the Canadian government to require registrars to warn Canadian women marrying Indian men. A government circular stated “that marriages between women of British nationality professing the Christian religion and Moslems, Hindus and other persons belonging to countries where polygamy or concubinage is legal should not be allowed, unless these women are first warned that such marriages may be repudiated by the husbands if they return to the country of their birth” (Canada Gazette 1914). Indian men continued their fight, appealing to the British government. Nationalists in India lobbied within the Colonial Office, the India Office, and the Imperial Conferences for changes to the regulations that prevented women from India from entering Canada. In 1917, after intense lobbying, the Imperial Conference recommended that, “regarding Indians already permanently settled in the Dominions, they should be allowed to

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bring in their wives (subject to the rule of monogamy) and minor children” (Globe and Mail, May 25, 1917, 6; emphasis added). Thus, to get such a recommendation, Indian men had to assure the Imperial Conference that they would participate in nuclear familial relations. Again the Canadian government countered that the Canadian Immi­ gration Act did not contain a provision that denied Indian women entry on the basis of their sex. Immigration authorities claimed that, if women from India met the criteria for entry, then there was no regulation that would prevent it (Globe and Mail, September 20, 1917, 9). Yet, at the same time, the government reiterated its objection to the entry of female migrants from India. The superintendent of immigration, W.D. Scott, stated in a letter published in the Globe and Mail that the objection that the entry of Indian women would encourage alternative familial forms remained: “Their desire to adhere to their system ... makes further immigration of these people entirely undesirable from the viewpoint of Canada” (September 20, 1917, 9). The editors of the Globe and Mail agreed: If the demands of the Sikhs were granted, the Sikh families would be the nucleus of a growing colony. The Oriental problem can be kept under control but not if it is rooted in the soil by family life. The domestication of the Asiatic has been permitted in a small way in this country, but it has gone far enough. The Canadian of today must not forget that they are trustees for generations to come. (December 31, 1917, 4)

In 1919, the Canadian government approved the recommendation of the Imperial Conference by an order-in-council. However, an unofficial policy of restricting the entry of Indian women continued. Indian migrants, nationalists in India, and a small number of Canadians continued to lobby the Canadian government until 1947, when it finally removed explicit racial criteria from the Immigration Act. 1867–1920: The Precariousness of the Nuclear Family in the Early Post-Confederation Period Although there has been little feminist analysis of the emergence of the nuclear family in Canada, a small body of scholarship does point to its precariousness in the post-Confederation period, the associated public and state anxieties, and the social investments in reorganizing gender and

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sexual relations. In particular, research by Adele Perry (1997), Jane Ursel (1992), and Mariana Valverde (1992) suggests that some white settlers resisted participating in the gender and sexual relations associated with the nuclear family, leading to considerable state and public anxiety. Social reformers, responding to the perceived precariousness of the nuclear family, focused on reorganizing racialized gender and sexual relations to facilitate its hegemony (Valverde 1992). As Ursel has demonstrated, one of the tasks of the newly emerging state was to respond to the growing evidence of family disorganization and related pressure from reformminded groups by developing family law. Such legislation indicated a new level of involvement by the state, involvement that shifted power in familial relations from men to the state (Ursel 1992, 39). As I suggested in earlier work, in a racialized nationalist project, the importance of the nuclear family derives not solely from its role in the reproduction of labour but also from its role in mediating tensions of coloniality, “race,” nation, and empire (Dua 1999a). In this context, the hegemony of the nuclear family took on a national and imperial imperative. In the case of a white settler society such as Canada, the institutionalization of the nuclear family was located in the demands of settlement, colonial imperatives and their related anxieties, and an emerging capitalist economy. The task of settling Canada, especially in the political urgency of “settling” the west in the late nineteenth century, led to an increased dependence on migration in this period.5 Between 1881 and 1891, immigration rates were particularly high as almost 1 million people migrated to Canada (CIS 1979). Although immigration policies attempted to ensure that Canada developed into a white settler nation-state by promoting emigration from the British Isles, by the late nineteenth century migrants to Canada came from places throughout Europe (Iacovetta 1992; Perry 1997; Roberts 1979; Valverde 1991). The dependence on migrants led to pressure on new immigrants to participate in the nuclear family. Increasingly more of these immigrants came from places in Europe out­side Britain, leading to new tensions with these “suspect foreigners.” Articles on foreigners’ characteristics were common. For example, the Toronto Star noted: “But a good many of the traits and customs which we find objectionable in immigrants from the continent of Europe may be traced to the influences of centuries of grinding oppression” (Toronto Star, May 8, 1911, 7). Immigration policies emphasized assimilating these newcomers into a Canadian identity. Social reformers organized “settlement

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houses” and missions to assist in this process (see Valverde 1991). Newspapers regularly reported on both the urgency of assimilating strangers into the national fold and the mechanisms being implemented to facilitate this process. Headlines such as “Canadianising the Immigrant,” “Mould Citizens Save Resources, Two Problems which Canada Is Called Upon to Settle,” and “Foreigners Must Be Canadianised” were common (respectively, Ottawa Citizen, August 1, 1914, 4; Globe and Mail, January 6, 1911, 7; Victoria Daily Colonist, March 20, 1917, 16). The project of assimilation had a clear class, racial, and gender character. “Canadianization” was located in the “culture” and “morality” of white Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class members of the society (Dua 1999b; Valverde 1992). Canada’s overwhelmingly male society led to a particular focus on promoting the migration of “white” women. Mixed marriages with Indigenous women had been central in the fur trade, and by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they were approved of by the North West Company, a French fur-trading company. However, the Hudson’s Bay Company, a British fur-trading company, was less accepting of Indigenous and Euro­ pean marriages. Despite its attempts to discourage these relationships, by the early 1880s the number of mixed-race marriages had grown, as had the mixed-race population. In the early nineteenth century, the Hudson’s Bay Company began to prohibit mixed-race marriages, but it was only with the increased migration of women from Britain that these practices were curtailed (Nelson 2002). By the late nineteenth century, added to the fear of Indigenous-settler intimate relations was the fear of mixed-race relations between Asian male migrants and white women (Dua 2000, 2007). As Perry (1997) demonstrates, the lack of white female migrants led to anxieties that British Columbia’s overwhelmingly male and racially plural settler society would undermine the emergence of a stable white settler colony. In particular, concerns about British Columbia’s rough backwoods homosocial culture challenged normative standards of masculinity, respectability, and permanence (Perry 1997). As an article entitled “Five Thou­sand Wives Wanted” in the Victoria Daily Colonist reported, without “white” wives, men were forced to violate the normative standards of masculinity: “There are at present thirty thousand young farmers who attend to all the housework themselves, besides looking after their farms or their claims or whatever their special life-work may be – cook the meals, water the plants, wash the dishes, make the beds, put out the clock and wind the cat” (March 7, 1911, 10). However, promoting the migration of women from Britain was

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a particular challenge. Perry (1997, 502) noted that, though the female population ebbed and flowed over the period, it never exceeded more than 35 percent, and it sometimes reached a low of 5 percent. Thus, British female migrants were sought. As the Globe and Mail said in an editorial, “let us not do anything to discourage the immigration of women of British birth, who will become mothers of good Canadians” (April 4, 1914, 6). The issue of female migration to Canada was tied to larger concerns about British imperialism (see Kealey 1979; Roberts 1979). As an article in the Toronto Star noted, in 1911 the British House of Lords discussed the urgency of encouraging the migration of single women to Canada: “While there were millions more women than men in England, and a million more men than women in the Dominion, the emigration of women should be conducted in as decent and proper a manner as possible” (May 2, 1911, 7). However, the migration of single white women was not sufficient to ensure the hegemony of nuclear family relations. As feminist research of this period demonstrates, some white women (and men) did not participate in the gender and sexual practices associated with the “nuclear” family. Between 1891 and 1901, much of Canada experienced a decline in birth rates. For example, Ontario birth rates declined by 17 percent in this decade. During the same period, illegitimate birth rates increased, doubling in Ontario. Ensuring that women exclusively engaged in unpaid domestic work – mothering and “wifely” duties – was a challenge because between 1891 and 1901 the number of women in the paid labour force grew by 21.4 percent (Ursel 1992, 71). Although the popular discourse con­structed working-class British female migrants’ destiny as wives, in reality, many of the migrants were destined to undertake paid work in homes, factories, and retail outlets. As an article in the Victoria Daily Colonist noted, the wrong impression is given to young English women, who may set out for this country under the impression that their pathway will be strewed with flowers ... We see some reason to believe a rude awakening awaits some of these girls, who leave home with high hopes, and an impression that a life of ease, culminating in happy matrimony, awaits them. (4)

Susan Jackel (1982) suggests that some middle-class British female migrants, taking advantage of the colonial project and its access to land,

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were able to homestead and thus did not get married.6 An article in the Victoria Daily Colonist on the annual report of the British Women’s Emigration Association commiserated that middle-class migrants did not get married: “Mrs. Archibald Colquhoun ... regretfully admitted that a number of educated women ... were not trained to appreciate doing what was truly useful” (March 11, 1913, 1). These trends created a public perception of disorganized reproductive relations and led to considerable anxiety about the establishment of the nuclear family. By the end of the nineteenth century, these tensions led several agents, including eugenicists, social reformers, and state managers, to focus their energies on institutionalizing the nuclear family. Like other agents in the empire, geneticists, doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and mental hygienists provided a scientific veneer for the reorganization of gender and family relations (as well as racist immigration policies) by tying social problems such as poverty, crime, prostitution, and mental retardation to defective genes and thus the elimination of social problems to the social project of race betterment.7 As Angus McLaren (1990, 68–88) has illustrated, the eugenics movement lent considerable weight to the moral panic about nonnormative sexual and gender relations by suggesting that masturbation, venereal disease, prostitution, sexuality outside marriage, and homosexuality were dangerous practices that could lead to deterioration of the race. Eugenicists such as Dr. Alexander Peter Reid, E.W. MacBride, and Karl Pearson argued that it was the responsibility of each citizen to channel sexual energies toward “race betterment,” and they systematically advocated that improvement of the race called for “more stringent marriage laws” (McLaren 1990, 13). For example, in a public lecture in 1885, Pearson advocated that “if childbearing women must be intellectually handicapped then the penalty to be paid for race predominance is the subjugation of women” (quoted in Klug 1989, 2). Newspaper articles continually called for women to refrain from paid work. For example, an article in the Victoria Daily Colonist reported on a debate in the London County Council in which three female doctors were forced to resign: “Lady St. Heller, a member of council stated: ‘she was convinced that no woman could do her duty to her home and family if she went to work’” (May 23, 1914, 8). The relationship between the nuclear family and its sexual and gender relations associated with national strength and vitality generated a public discourse on the importance of the “steady family,”

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tied to notions of appropriate masculinity and femininity – what Perry (1997) has called the “hardy backwoodsman” and the “wholesome woman.” A wholesome woman was one who participated in the nuclear family and its related gender and sexual practices. In the context of moral panic over racial degeneration, social reformers turned their attention to ensuring that women in particular participated in nuclear families.8 In Canada, as in other sites in the British Empire, white bourgeois women, through the social reform movement, worked to encourage working-class and immigrant (European) women to participate in nuclear family relations (Dubinsky 1993, Chapter 3; Valverde 1992). Although the social reform movement encompassed diverse groups, including Methodists, the YWCA, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and feminist groups, as Linda Kealey (1979) points out, these groups shared a conception of the family, aiming to change the behaviours of single female migrants,9 young women, the poor, and prostitutes through boarding house and recreational facilities. The Toronto Star noted that “they must be taught self-restraint and to shun all forms of self-indulgence. Especial stress was laid on the danger of a love of fine clothes. Boys must be taught purity and reverence for women by their mothers” (April 9, 1914). Newspapers constantly reported on the importance of such groups and their work. For example, the Globe and Mail reported on the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire program to have middle-class women go out as volunteers among the children of Toronto’s vast foreign population, wherein these little strangers will learn not only ENGLISH, and sewing, and cooking, and so on, but that there are such things as British fair play and British sympathy ... All aim at bringing ... a better class of settlers to Canada, and the Canadianising of those already here. (February 28, 1914, 10)

In addition, the social reform movement sought legislation regulating gender relations and harsh criminal measures against prostitution and advocated the regulation of female employment and sex education. As Ursel (1992, 61) notes – though the “social reform movement acted as the architects of the nuclear family – the state was its engineer.”10 Between 1884 and 1913, the state developed a comprehensive legislative framework that would institutionalize the nuclear family. During the nineteenth century, there was no clearly defined category of family law.

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However, after 1884, in the context of moral panic over the family, the Canadian state focused on developing such legislation. This body of legislation resulted in eroding male rights over property and married women. The first step was the erosion of the patriarch’s legal authority over women – through the Married Women’s Property Act, introduced in Ontario in 1859, which extended the same property rights given to single women to married women. In 1888 in Ontario, and in 1900 in Manitoba, legislation was passed that made husbands liable for the support of wives and children in cases of desertion or separation. In 1885, Manitoba and other western provinces abolished dower to entrench married women’s rights to property. At the same time, adultery clauses assured that, if women did not participate in monogamy, they would lose their rights to property and children. Finally, recognizing the link between women’s employment and marriage, following the Factories Act in 1884 in Ontario, a series of labour laws limited women’s participation in the labour force. In 1913, the federal government put forward a proposal for the family wage, increasing the power of the state to provide for the population in times of need and to regulate wages (Ursel 1992). The general erosion of the patriarch’s legal supremacy in property law was repeated in the area of child custody through legislation that recognized a mother’s legal claim to her children, thus eroding men’s rights over their children. After 1887, the state also put in place a series of laws that regulated children’s environment and behaviour – the Industrial Schools Act, the Infant Protection Act, the Child Protection Act, and the Child Immigrant Act allowed government agencies to inspect homes, apprehend children, and place them in the care of the state. Notably, such legislation shifted parental rights to parental responsibilities and increased state authority over the family (Ursel 1992). It was in this social context that the debates on the migration of women from India took place. Social reformers attempted to socialize new migrants and working-class subjects to forms of masculinity, femininity, and sexual behaviour tied to the nuclear family. State legislation reorganized male authority in the family so that men were transformed from patriarchs to breadwinners (Ursel 1992, 105). Although this transformation accorded greater property and income rights to women, labour and family laws made such rights contingent on women being married and observing appropriate monogamous sexual relations. Not surprisingly, some men and women resisted such reorganization. Through the HWQ, Canadians

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were offered not only a picture of “their own” patterns as based on state-mediated nuclear familial relations but also the importance of compliance. The HWQ: A Mass Spectacle of Family, Modernity, and Nation Scholars of nationalism have pointed out that a sense of mutual belonging and national identity is manufactured by the performance of national narratives, rituals, and symbols (e.g., Bhabha 1990; Hobsbawm 1990; McClintock 1993). McClintock (1993, 1995) suggests that, particularly in the case of white settler societies in which there is no “monolithic identity,” national identities have been produced and experienced through the management of mass national spectacles. She claims that mass commodity spectacles are visible symbols such as flags, uniforms, maps, national cuisines, sports, military displays, and mass rallies, arguing that it is through such symbols that “more often than not nationalism has been experienced and transmitted” (1995, 374). She also points out that such symbols work as “fetish spectacle” in that they “embody crisis in social values, which are projected onto and embodied in ... what can be called impassioned objects” (368). Through parliamentary debates, newspaper coverage, and town hall meetings, the HWQ was turned into a mass spectacle that the nation experienced. Although this spectacle differed from that of an emblem such as a flag or an event such as a mass rally, it operated in remarkably similar ways, providing white settlers with powerful symbols through which to understand the nation and the place of familial and gender relations within it. In particular, the HWQ deployed tropes of civilization, citizenship, and modernity to represent both “Indian” family forms as premodern and Canadian practices as modern. Through the HWQ, Canadians were implicitly provided with a picture of the relationship between a national way of organizing familial life and the social organization of state authority. The trope of polygamy was crucial (see, e.g., Grewal 1996; Said 1978; Spivak 1988). Central in the spectacle of the HWQ was the argument that the presence of Indian women in the Canadian polity would encourage the emergence of alternative familial forms, particularly polygamy and child marriage. Polygamy was criminalized in the 1880s after Mormon fundamentalists in the United States fled to Canada to escape the anti­ polygamy laws there. The deployment of polygamy, similar to that of the harem, allowed for a discourse of primitivism versus modernity through

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which notions of civilization could be mobilized. The premier of British Columbia, H.H. Stevens (a rabid opponent of Asian immigration) clearly established the tie between polygamy and civilization: “With regard to the plea of the Hindu that they be allowed to bring their wives, he referred to the ‘girl wives’ of India. Mr. Stevens observed ‘if a Hindu is allowed to bring in his family, he might bring four girls as his daughters, who would really be his wives ... The Hindu does nothing for civilization” (Victoria Daily Colonist, March 11, 1913, 1). Drawing on Orientalist and colonialist representations of India as backward, the editors of the Vic­ toria Daily Colonist expanded on the link between family forms and civilization by em­bedding polygamy in superstition and degeneracy when they argued that racial, linguistic and religious and social distinctions make India a veritable crazy-quilt ... Nowhere has there been more dense ignorance, nowhere more blind superstition, nowhere more abject degeneracy ... The test for desirability (of immigrants) is not race ... It is not language, or religion or colour. The test for desirability is a moral one ... The grade of civilization, not the colour prejudice, is the dominating question. (July 26, 1914, 4)

Crucial in the discussion of polygamy was the construction of patriarchy as alien to Canada. In the debate in Parliament that I quoted earlier, Stevens pointed out that allowing Indian women into Canada would not only introduce alien family forms but also perpetuate patriarchal relations: But that is not all. Do you know that 25 per cent of women in India die prematurely because of physical crimes committed on account of child wifehood? When I tell you that there are nine million wives in India under fifteen years of age, are you prepared to allow such an institution of that kind to be established in Canada? ... We know that these things are so deeply ingrained in Hindu nature that they are more than their very life. (Canada 1914; emphasis added)

Reflecting the rhetoric of white slavery, male power was tied to violence against women. Echoing Stevens, articles on the HWQ often pointed out that the problem posed by Indian migration was the importation of patriarchy. For example, an article reported that “Rev Mr. Robertson ... in an address at Nanaimo Methodist church ... laid special stress upon three

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great dangers to the future home life of Canada ... [including] the question of Sikh women ... These people taught the patriarchal home ... Standards of home life w[ere] a way below ours” (Victoria Daily Colonist, April 20, 1911; emphasis added). Deploying the trope of polygamy not only allowed for a discourse of primitivism versus modernity but also, just as importantly, accentuated the characteristics of the emerging nuclear family. Through a discussion of polygamy and child marriage, male power was represented as alien gender and familial patterns, thereby providing Canadians with an implicit difference in their society. The comparison to Canada was deployed both metaphorically and metonymically through the trope of difference. As Edward Said (1978) has argued, construction of the East as “different” contains the ontological binary of East and West, thus linking space and place with discourses of modernity. Thus, the metonym of “difference” was constantly mobilized in the HWQ. For example, an editorial on the question stated that the reason for “opposition in Western Canada to the influx of Asiatic[s] is not based on the colour of their skins ... The true reason is the different standards of civilization ... The real line between the Oriental and the Occidental is not a colour line” (Ottawa Citizen, July 26, 1914, 4; emphasis added). Notably, the metonym of difference worked to “exceptionalize” Canada through its absence on the discursive stage. Employing the metaphor of difference, writers did not have to elaborate on Canada explicitly. As an editorial on the HWQ claimed, difference did not need to be articulated because it was already known: “They cannot receive equal treatment, for in the first place they do not want it, and in the next place they are by birth, education, and racial traditions widely different from Canadians. They know this themselves” (Victoria Daily Colonist, March 29, 1911, 4; emphasis added). The HWQ enabled white femininity and masculinity to become defined through constructions of the “other” – in this case, the Indian subject. Drawing on Said, a number of feminist scholars have pointed to how European subject formation was based on discourses of the Oriental and colonial other. For example, Gayatri Spivak (1988) has illustrated how the colonial discourse of the harem and incarcerated Eastern woman was used to construct the female Western subject. Similarly, Inderpal Grewal (1996, 14) has examined how comparisons of English factory workers and “savages” enabled the English working class to see themselves as such vis-à-vis colonized people. In Canada, the representation of Indian subjects

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and polygamy allowed for the construction of white femininity and Canadian subjectivity.11 Articles defining the characteristics of “wholesome femininity” were often on the same page as articles about the dangers of Asian migration, thus contrasting the threat of migration from India to the importance of adhering to gender and familial practices. For example, an editorial in the Victoria Daily Colonist entitled “The Dignity of House­ work” pointed to the importance of women conforming to such roles: “In homes where the mistress of the home is fully alive herself to the beauty and pleasure of her homely and housewifely duties, things go best” (March 5, 1911, 11). Another editorial expanded on the characteristics of wholesome femininity: Now, the mistress of this home, if she be Canadian born, will when she is well, do all the work by herself. She prepares breakfast for her husband, and children, helps the older children to get ready for school. It is then time to attend to the little ones and to dress them for the day. The lower house is set in order and the mid-meal, which is usually dinner, is prepared. Such a woman often does most of the washing and ironing and the sewing for her little girls and boys ... Nor is this housekeeper a mere drudge. She will find time in the afternoon to take her children out ... She can and usually does make a cosy happy comfortable home for her husband ... That her work is well done is shown in the little troops of clean, well-clad children that are sent from hundreds of homes in every quarter of our city ... and by the larger, handsomer homes being built as girls and boys grow up and fathers are advanced to higher positions. That not many are greatly overworked any assemblage of women shows. (Victoria Daily Colonist, March 2, 1911, 8; emphasis added)

In specific cases, writers and speakers contrasted the inability of Indian women to uplift Indian men to that of British Canadian women. For example, an article deployed a comparison to draw on the threat that, if women did not engage in “uplifting” the race, “large masses of pagan people living without the Christianizing and uplifting influence of womanhood were a distinct menace to the community” (Victoria Daily Colonist, May 19, 1914, 7). Another newspaper article cited a speech by Reverend John MacKay in which he contrasted the “racial” characteristics of Indian migrants with those of Anglo-Saxon women: “That the Anglo-Saxon women had begun to study politics was one of the blessings of the age.

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Their viewpoint was needed as individuals and as wives and mothers ... The women of today are capable of facing calmly and without bitterness, suspicion or bigotry a danger that threatened not only the state and the business community but the home” (Victoria Daily Colonist, May 19, 1914, 7). In this article, the trope of the premodern Indian subject allowed for the construction of British Canadian women as wives and mothers, employing their education for these purposes. Notably reverberating with the resistance to these roles, British Canadian women were also characterized as calm and not bitter. The trope of polygamy was utilized as a regulative psychobiography for acceptance of Canadian gender norms. Articles on the dangers of the HWQ were often juxtaposed with articles that expanded on the consequences when women complied with the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker because the wholesome woman was tied not only to the success of children and husbands but also, more importantly, to the success of the nation: The women who have done most to build up the country are those who have accompanied their husbands to the farms and have brought up their families. The services rendered by those unpretending women who have made happy homes ... and who have sent out into the world of workers, sober, honest and God fearing men and women, can never be overestimated ... There are still, in every rural settlement in Canada, women who are doing such work in nation building. (Victoria Daily Colonist, February 20, 1910, 8)

A number of articles deployed the HWQ as an opportunity to discipline dominant forms of femininity and masculinity. Contrasting the patriarchal oppression faced by Indian women, the articles suggested that “Canadian” women should be satisfied with their place in Canadian society. For example, the Globe and Mail deployed the modernist trope of “light” to warn Canadian women to appreciate their liberty through the phantasm of veiled Muslim women in India: No western woman can realize how greatly the liberty of the hundred millions of Mohamedaan women in India and other eastern lands is restricted. They are prevented from association on equal terms with men. In many cases these women are indeed slaves, who have no rights other than those which husbands more indulgent than those usual cho[o]se to allow them. It is significant that

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the agitation has begun with dress reform. The veil which hides the face of women and shuts out the sun, is a symbol of slavery of women ... It is merely the outgrowth of a lustful and tyrannical system, which has given men the power to decree what women should or should not wear. (March 22, 1914, 8; emphasis added)

This writer tied the privileged position of Canadian women to the restrictions on male rights, predicated on legal changes recently implemented in Canada. In other articles, the Komagata Maru was deployed to denounce the movement for white female suffrage. For example, the Victoria Daily Colonist ran an article on June 4, 1914, on “Hunger Strike on Komagata: Some Indications that East Indians May Adopt Method of Suffragettes to Emphasize Their Demands.” In another front-page article, the HWQ was juxtaposed against an article entitled “Women Resort to Indecent Use [of] Language in Reference to King which Papers Do Not Print.” Because the capacity for modernity, civility, and rationality had been interpolated with “race,” hegemonic notions of “white” femininity and masculinity became naturalized. For example, the mayor of Vancouver was reported to have said that “it should be provided that until an alien race or any race other than white men can assimilate with the whites, mingle freely and intermarry and adopt the customs and language of the white race, they should be barred. We know this to be practically impossible” (Victoria Daily Colonist, July 12, 1911, 11; emphasis added). He not only rendered Indian men and women racially different but also simultaneously constructed all those defined as white with the inherent capacity to adopt the practices of the nuclear family. Thus, the surveillance of In­dian subjects returned to discipline the disciplining subject. Extending the surveillance of white subjects was the prevalent argument that a key difference between white subjects and Indian subjects was the ability of the former to comply with the state’s authority. Through­ out the debates on the HWQ was the interpolation of race with the ability to participate in “modern” institutions such as the government. For example, in the earlier cited article, Reverend John MacKay employed the trope of progress to construct the capacity of civility to participate in the government: Where East meets West was the most serious problem of the day in Western Canada ... The white races have evolved for themselves one form of civilization

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... with its infinite and limitless outlook, which opened up such wide possibilities of progress ... The other stream of human life had developed upon entirely different lines. The civilization of these yellow races had ... turned the face of a people controlled by it, not outward and onward but inward and backward ... They were not likely to assimilate with the systems of thought and government of the white races. (Victoria Daily Colonist, May 19, 1914, 7; emphasis added)

Similar to the interpolation of gender with race, such notions of civilization naturalized the ability to participate in modern citizenship, such that all white subjects were represented as being able and willing to subscribe to state authority. Similarly, in an article that ran opposite an article about the dangers of the HWQ, the Globe and Mail expanded on the link between modern citizenship and the state: The character of a nation is determined by the ideals of its people. The British ideal has been self-government, we use the word English in the restricted sense, and the result of evolution, during centuries of turmoil and after much bloodshed a system of government which responds automatically to the will of the people ... and a type of citizenship that will aim at placing the welfare of the state before all other considerations. (Globe and Mail, May 10, 1914; emphasis added)

This rhetoric naturalized acquiescence to the authority of the state, rendering challenges to its authority as racially impossible. The HWQ also provided a unique opportunity to tie familial practices to the recently legislated set of family laws. In an address at a Nanaimo Methodist church, Reverend Robertson argued that Indian family forms, particularly patriarchy, threatened Canadian laws: “These people taught the patriarchal home and while it was unlawful to put it into practice, there could be no law to prevent the teaching of that objectionable faith” (Victoria Daily Colonist, April 20, 1911; emphasis added). In another example, a writer pointed out that different familial practices are tied to “native” governance: The question will arise, are the wives and families to come here under the Indian social laws ... as they are exercised among various sects, or are they to come under our system? ... Polygamy is a part of the sociological conditions

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of the Hindu, so the question comes up as to whether all or only one or two wives of each person is to be admitted ... With the advent of family life among the Indians here how are the laws to be administered among them? Are they to have native leaders and the joint magistrate system, or will the matter be left in the hands of the police? These are all questions to be considered before Hindu women are to be allowed to come to British Columbia. (Victoria Daily Colonist, February 9, 1912; emphasis added)

Ironically, by representing polygamy and patriarchy as alien, those addressing the HWQ offered a resolution to the prevailing tensions of state authority, family law, and white male power by representing state authority as simultaneously modern (therefore imperative) and natural (inherent in the racial makeup of the “people”). Another prevalent trope in the HWQ was the rendering of Canada as a home for white subjects. In commenting on the HWQ, many writers and speakers employed the powerful metaphor of home in their arguments, particularly the trope of a national home, reinforcing the racial construction of the Canadian family. For example, in a debate in the Victoria local of the National Council of Women, Mrs. Andrew employed the metaphor of home to construct an understanding of the nation, empire, and colony, arguing “that the admission of their wives would mean a Hindu colony in British Columbia. The danger that this province, unless measures were taken to prevent it[,] would become the home ... not of white people but of Oriental was pointed out” (Victoria Daily Colonist, January 23, 1912; emphasis added). Grewal (1996, 19), in the context of India and Britain, has illustrated that colonial discourse of home and away catachrestically did not even apply to its own home, suggesting that the civilizing discourse of home worked at several levels to construct the “other.” Similarly, in the HWQ, the metaphor of the home worked simultaneously to exclude Indian subjects and to include white subjects in a gendered and sexualized national project. As the mass spectacle of the HWQ defined the space of Canada as the home of white settlers, the emerging rhetoric linked the image of the home to a common identity, history, and people, thus offering a powerful spectacle to integrate new settlers. For example, the editors of the Victoria Daily Colonist represented Canada through the rhetoric of a national family:

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A great deal of sympathy is being expressed just now because of some of the imaginary wrongs to which the Hindus ... are being subjected ... It is true that white people do not take them into their families and treat them as they would other white people, but there are many reasons why this is out of the question. (March 28, 1911, 4; emphasis added)

In the context of coverage of the HWQ, it is clear that membership in the national family was accompanied by compliance with both gender and familial forms and the authority of the state. The emerging discourse on the HWQ allowed for linkage of the Canadian white settler nationalist project to the larger project of British imperialism – not as a site of anxiety but as a part of the racial order. McClintock has argued that the trope of the family was employed to bind together nations into a larger imperial project, especially insofar as it allowed people or nations to be ranked according to putative qualities of civility and morality.12 The failure to comply with normative and racialized gender and sexual practices had led to considerable anxiety, including anxiety about the emergence of a stable white settler society. In the emerging rhetoric, as the Canadian nation was defined as a site of citizenship, its place in an imperial order was secured. Division of the world into civilized and uncivilized regions in the HWQ operated to assert a naturalized and essential difference between Canadian and Indian subjects. This difference was employed to order nations, thus consistently rendering Canada as civilized and stabilizing its position within the racialized order of British imperialism. Thus, a letter to the editor by R.R. Hindmarch claimed that “it is necessary to the imperial scheme of things as to the best ideals of nationhood ... No nation, young or old, can afford to cultivate alien families in its midst. No nation with such an inherent weakness can form a flawless link in the chain of empire” (Ottawa Citizen, October 28, 1911, 7). The connection among civilization, modernity, and family not only made Indian family forms dangerous but also allowed for the rescue of Canada from early-twentieth-century colonial anxieties. Similar to other spectacles of nation, rendering such rhetoric particularly compelling were how the entry of female migrants from India and the associated threat to the nuclear family represented crises. As we have seen, writers and speakers consistently represented polygamy as a threat to the Canadian national formation – as an “alien” custom that “would retard

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our progress, lower our moral standards and result in the ultimate downfall of civilization” (Victoria Daily Colonist, March 11, 1911, 6). Canadian politicians and courts deployed the language of a crisis repeatedly. For example, in reporting his decision in the Munshi Singh case, Justice Phillips argued that his decision was based partly on ensuring that Canadian family forms were protected. He argued that “Parliament may be said to be safeguarding Canada,” and to “introduce Oriental ways as against Euro­ pean ways, Eastern civilization for Western civilization,” could “annihilate the nation and change its whole potential complexity.”13 As the threat to the nuclear family became a national crisis in social values, the nuclear family’s importance was reinforced as an “impassioned object.” As Stevens pointed out in a debate in Parliament after the arrival of the Komagata Maru, undermining the “sacred” nuclear family was “no joking matter”: “But by so doing we introduce immediately an institution that we can not tolerate, because the most sacred institutions we have in our civilization are our domestic institutions as they exist today ... This is no joking matter” (Canada 1914; emphasis added). Thus, as a mass spectacle, the HWQ offered an opportunity to caution Canadians about a number of aspects of the nuclear family. First, the HWQ provided Canadians with a mass spectacle through which they could understand the importance of the nuclear family and its related gender and sexual relations to the nationalist project. Second, the HWQ offered an opportunity to regulate white femininity and masculinity. By fixing the ability to participate in the nuclear family in race, the HWQ simultaneously worked to exclude all those deemed “Oriental” from the national project while naturalizing the participation of those deemed “white” in these family relations. Third, in the context of the emerging family law that regulated gender and sexual relations and reorganized male authority, the HWQ offered a particularly compelling case for the importance of complying with the state’s authority. Fourth, through the representation of familial patterns as tied to either “home or away,” writers and speakers were able to deploy the trope of a national family – the HWQ offered an image of the nation based on a common identity, history, and people, thus deploying the discourse of race and gender to integrate “strangers” into the national project. And fifth, in the context of post-Confederation anxieties about imperial respectability, the HWQ offered to secure Canada’s place as a modern site within the British Empire.

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Thinking about Interpolations Several scholars have theorized the relationship among race, gender, and nationalism in Western societies. Their work has been instrumental in illustrating how discourses of race and gender have been woven into nationalist projects. Considerable feminist research has illustrated how the discourse of gender and sexuality, using notions such as the harem, worked transnationally to connect metropolitan and colonial spaces through the Orientalist construction of the “West” as an exceptional space and the “rest” as primitive and backward.14 Scholars have also demonstrated the importance of discourses of gender and family for nationalist projects (McClintock 1993, 1995; Yuval-Davis 1997). Critical race scholars have demonstrated how discourses of race structured exclusion and marginality for those racialized as a minority from and within nation-states (Bannerji 2000; Gilroy 1987; Mackey 1999). In this context, my study of how the HWQ worked as a mass spectacle provides several insights for understanding the intersections among race, gender, family, and nation. My study also points to how state regulation was interpolated with governmentality, raising questions about theorizing power. First, my case study illustrates how Canadian nationalism formed its own recodings of the discourse of the harem through the trope of polygamy. That trope in the HWQ operated in ways similar to the harem. However, polygamy offered a stark contrast to the monogamous and gendered relations of the nuclear family – a trope that resonated in the context of earlytwentieth-century social and political tensions.15 The deployment of polygamy in the HWQ suggests that greater attention needs to be paid to how Canadian nationalism (as well as other nationalisms) constructs its own discourses and how these discourses connect to the project of British imperialism. Although early-nineteenth-century Orientalist discourse often characterized “Oriental” societies by emphasizing polygamy, less attention has been given to how the trope of polygamy worked to connect place and space and to formulate different and related hegemonic relations and sub­ ject positions.16 Second, my work adds to our understanding of how the politics of the family is interpolated with discourses of nationalism. McClintock (1993, 64) has noted that “the family image ... became indispensable for legitimising exclusion and hierarchy within non-familial social formations such as nationalism, liberal individualism and imperialism,” suggesting

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that the family image allowed for the formation of hierarchical nonfamilial relationships and thus preceded nationalism. My case study of the HWQ suggests a more complex, and less linear, relationship. In the postConfederation period, the nuclear family had yet to emerge as hegemonic. In this context, it was an imagined crisis in Canadian nationalism that reinforced the racial, gendered, and sexual hierarchies embodied within the nuclear family. Third, the discourse of race and family allowed for the deployment of multiple and overlapping dominations. Much of the work on Canadian nationalism has illustrated how the politics of race and colonialism structured the exclusion and marginality of nonwhite subjects in Canada (Bannerji 2000; Dua 2000, 2007; Mackey 1999; Morgensen 2011). For example, the rhetoric deployed in the HWQ racialized female migrants from India as dangerous to the nation, structuring contradictory relations of exclusion and inclusion. I have illustrated in this chapter how the same rhetoric operated to establish the hegemony of the nuclear family, family law, and the state in early-twentieth-century Canada and thus became a regulatory process for white subject-citizens. The same technologies of power deployed to exclude Indian migrants were also deployed to discipline white gendered and classed “Canadian” subjects. Thus, the HWQ offers an opportunity to complicate our understanding of the binary of whiteness and nonwhiteness by illustrating how racialized and gendered discourses operated within the continuum of whiteness. As such, it adds nuances to our understanding of the politics of whiteness within the Can­ adian white settler project. Fourth, my study raises important questions about the relationship among power, governmentality, and the state. Feminist and postcolonial scholars have been drawn to Foucault’s concept of governmentality because it allows for a more complex understanding of how power operates in constructing discourses of race (Hall 1992; Said 1978). The concept of governmentality is tied to an understanding of power not as the top-down power of the state but as manifested by the production of knowledge through multiple and diverse agents. The regulation of race, gender, sexuality, and family included a diverse range of actors, including eu­ genicists, social reformers, feminist organizers, editors, religious leaders, and people who simply wrote letters to editors. All these actors constructed knowledge-regulated practices tied to race, gender, sexuality, and family. Discourses are interpolated with subjectivity and thus result in

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more efficient forms of social control.17 Indeed, we have seen how discourses deployed in the HWQ encouraged white subjects to regulate themselves. However, echoing Marxist critiques of Foucault’s concept of power, we have also seen the operation of “centralized” power, pointing to the importance of including Marx’s concepts of power in our theorizing. Crucial to the Komagata Maru and the HWQ was the power of the state – deployed through its range of state apparatuses, naval forces, the law, the courts, and the police – to regulate the nuclear family as well as racialized migration and settlement policies. Excluding the power of the state would indeed miss how power was deployed to regulate race, gender, sexuality, and family in early-twentieth-century Canada (and elsewhere). Thus, my study points to the importance of bringing Marx’s and Foucault’s theories of power into the conversation for a more accurate understanding of history – a difficult task given that these two concepts are embedded as ontologically opposing theoretical constructs. Such a conversation involves more than adding the concept of poweras-centralized to the concept of power-as-dispersed. My case study also points to the ways that state power is constructed through and with governmentality. The projects of the nuclear family and a racialized nation were not constructed through a hierarchical or ideological relationship of power between the state and civil society. Rather, social reformers, eugenicists, and other actors operated to construct knowledge and practices of race, gender, sexuality, and family that they demanded be institutionalized by state officials. We have seen the conflation between those who acted as social reformers and state officials – social reformers often came from the same class and families as state managers but also occupied social reform positions. The state was not able to secure hegemony for the institutionalization of the nuclear family simply through its own operations of power (the law, the police, the courts); nonstate actors were also crucial in securing its hegemony. These dynamics point to the importance of exploring how power deployed through governmentality is interpolated with state power.



Notes 1 To reflect the fact that racialized categories are socially constructed, I use terms that reflect the legal status of groups in the period. Thus, the term “migrants” refers to “Indian” men and women who had legal status. The term “immigrants” refers to

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migrants from Europe. I use the term “white” to refer to those who were legally and socially defined as white. Indeed, those outside the borders of Canada also participated because Indian men throughout the British Empire became involved in the debate: the British government, the colonial government in India, and those fighting to end British rule in India. 2 I chose these four papers to examine whether there were significant regional differences in the debate: British Columbia, where the majority of Indian men resided; Ottawa, the capital of Canada; Toronto, the centre of industrial capital; and Montreal, the centre of English Quebec. Because the links between newspapers’ owners and political parties (particularly the Liberal and Conservative Parties) could also shape coverage of the issue, another criterion for choice was affiliation with a political party. Notably, neither factor affected the debate. The discourse was remarkably similar across Canada, and the editors of the four newspapers took the same position on the question – all argued for the exclusion of Indian women. The lack of regional and other differences points to the hegemony in the discursive construction of the debate. 3 Indian men deployed a discourse of male citizenship rights to argue that their spouses should be allowed to enter Canada. This argument was tied to Indian nationalist politics in which Indian men had been arguing that colonial rule was unjust because it violated their rights as British subjects. The Ghadar Party also employed this argument to challenge the racial basis of British imperial policies. In making such a claim, Indian men employed the rhetoric of morality and civilization. They also deployed a politics of gender as they argued that tied to male citizenship rights was the right to have a family. Underlying such a politics was the attempt by the Indian nationalist movement to masculinize Indian men through a new set of legal relationships with Indian women. See Dua (1999b) for a more detailed discussion. 4 Re Munshi Singh, [1914] BCR XX, at 291. 5 Tied to the imperative of increasing migration was the ongoing project of appropriating land from Aboriginal peoples. After the Canadian government purchased Rupert’s Land for $1.5 million, the government made plans to send immigrants and eastern Canadians to settle in the newly bought land. In 1869, the Métis along with Louis Riel, who became their representative, tried to negotiate the issue of new settlers with the Canadian government. The Métis resisted the loss of their land and resettlement. Troops were sent from Ottawa to put down this resistance. In 1885, the Canadian government again responded with military force to Aboriginal groups upset with being displaced in central Saskatchewan. For more details, see Dickason and McNab (2009). 6 Single female homesteaders formed the basis of a network of championing causes ranging from reform of the homestead laws to British imperial supremacy. This network was not confined to the Canadian west. 7 The eugenics movement was tied to the forced sterilization of those with disabilities and Indigenous peoples. For example, in 1928 Alberta started an initiative “allowing any inmate of a native residential school to be sterilized upon the approval of the school Principal. At least 3,500 Indian women [we]re sterilized under this law.” For more details, see Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada (n.d.). 8 Preoccupation with the nuclear family also shaped the emerging women’s movement. For more details, see Kealey (1979). 9 See Roberts (1979), who illustrates that the activities of the many societies in Canada that promoted female immigration from Britain were tied to the class and “white”

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identities of the reformers, and this “white” identity was tied to sentiments of the wider empire. 10 Notably, the connection between the reformers and the government was strong. The government frequently recruited from the reform movement to staff the various commissions and inquiries in this period (Ursel 1992, 74). There was also a class basis for reform organizations often composed of wives and daughters of successful businessmen and politicians, so their informal connections with the government were close (74). 11 Although a critique of patriarchy was central to the rhetoric of the HWQ, in my examination of newspapers in this period I did not find articles that focused on the characteristics of white masculinity. 12 Whereas Kelly (2001) focuses on how Orientalist tropes of culture were deployed to marginalize colonized peoples, others – such as Stoler (1995) and Valverde (1991) – have pointed out how Orientalist notions of culture became classed and were located in notions of bourgeois culture and character deployed to marginalize women and working-class, poor, and Indigenous people from nationalist projects. 13 Re Munshi Singh, [1914] BCR XX, at 291; emphasis added. 14 See, for example, Grewal (1996); Said (1997); and Spivak (1988). 15 Ash (2013, 1–12) suggests that, though there was little public anxiety about polygamy among First Nations people, in 1862, when Mormon fundamentalists fled from the United States to Canada to escape the criminalization of polygamy in the United States, their immigration raised concerns in Canada that “Mormon missionary activities would further encourage the practice among First Nations ... [and that] Mormons would see Aboriginal polygamy as evidence that ... the practice was accepted in Canada.” 16 Notably, a number of scholars have examined how the trope of polygamy operated in specific sites, such as colonial China (Des Forges 2012), colonial Natal (Hunter 2005), colonial Bengal (Bhattacharya 2010), Mormons in the United States (Talbot 2006), and Australia (Ash 2013). This body of work illustrates that the trope of polygamy operated in remarkably similar ways across space. 17 For a more detailed discussion of how critical race theorists draw on Foucauldian and Marxist concepts of power, see Dua (2014).

References Ash, Micaela. 2013. “Preventing Harm or Fortifying the Borders? Political Discourse on Polygamy and Islam in Australia.” Critical Race and Whiteness Studies 9, 2: 1–12. Bannerji, Himani. 2000. The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism, and Gender. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Bhabha, Homi K., ed. 1990. Nation and Narration. London: Routledge. Bhattacharya, Sumangala. 2010. “Between Worlds: The Haunted Babu in Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Kankal’ and ‘Nishite.’” Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 6, 1: n.p. https:// www.ncgsjournal.com/issue61/bhattacharya.htm. Billig, Michael. 1987. Arguing and Thinking. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Canada. House of Commons. 1914. House of Commons Debates, 12th Parliament, 3rd Session, March 2. Canada Gazette. 1914. CIS (Canada Immigration Statistics). 1979. Des Forges, Alexander. 2012. “Polygamy and Sublime Passion: Sexuality in China on the Verge of Modernity” (review). Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 72, 1: 148–55.

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Dickason, Olive, and David T. McNab. 2009. Canada’s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times. 4th ed. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Dua, Enakshi. 1999a. “Beyond Diversity: Exploring the Ways in Which the Discourse of Race Has Shaped the Institution of the Nuclear Family.” In Scratching the Surface: Canadian Anti-Racist Feminist Thought, edited by Enakshi Dua and Angela Robertson, 237–60. Toronto: Women’s Educational Press. –. 1999b. “Racialising Imperial Canada: Indian Women and the Making of Ethnic Communities.” In Unfinished Business: Gender, Sexuality, and Colonial Modernities, edited by Antoinette Burton, 119–34. London: Routledge. –. 1999c. “From Subjects to Aliens: Indian Migrants and the Racialisation of Canadian Citizenship.” Sociologie et societé 31, 2: 145–62. –. 2000. “‘The Hindu Woman’s Question’: Canadian Nation Building and the Social Construction of Gender for South Asian–Canadian Women.” In Anti-Racist Feminism: Critical Race and Gender Studies, edited by George Dei and Agnes Calliste, 55–72. Halifax: Fernwood. –. 2003. “‘Race’ and Governmentality: The Racialization of Canadian Citizenship Practices.” In Making Normal: Social Regulation in Canada, edited by Deborah Brock, 45–62. Toronto: Nelson. –. 2007. “Exclusion through Inclusion: Female Asian Migration in the Making of Canada as a White Settler Nation.” Gender, Place, and Culture 14, 4: 445–66. –. 2014. “Not Quite a Case of the Disappearing Marx: Tracing the Place of Material Relations in Post-Colonial Theory.” In Theorizing Anti-Racism: Linkages in Marxism and Critical Race Theories, edited by Enakshi Dua and Abigail B. Bakan, 63–91. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Dubinsky, Karen. 1993. Rape and Heterosexual Conflict in Ontario, 1880–1929. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gilroy, Paul. 1987. There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack. London: Hutchinson. Grewal, Inderpal. 1996. Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hall, Stuart. 1992. “The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power.” In Formations of Modernity, edited by Stuart Hall and Bram Gieben, 275–320. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hunter, Mark. 2005. “Courting Desire? Love and Intimacy in Late 19th and Early 20th Century Kwazulu-Natal.” Passages: A Chronicle of the African Humanities 2: 1–22. Iacovetta, Franca. 1992. “Making ‘New Canadians’: Social Workers, Women, and the Reshaping of Immigrant Families.” In Gender Conflicts: New Essays in Women’s History, edited by Franca Iacovetta and Mariana Valverde, 261–303. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Jackel, Susan. 1982. A Flannel Shirt and Liberty: British Emigrant Gentlewomen in the Canadian West, 1880–1914. Vancouver: UBC Press. Kealey, Linda, ed. 1979. A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada, 1880s– 1920s. Toronto: The Women’s Press. Kelly, John D. 1991. A Politics of Virtue: Hinduism, Sexuality, and Countercolonial Discourse in Fiji. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kelly, John D., and Martha Kaplan. 2001. “Nation and Decolonization: Toward a New Anthropology of Nationalism.” Anthropological Theory 1, 4: 419–37.

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Klug, Francesca. 1989. “Oh to Be in England: The British Case Study.” In Woman, Nation, State, edited by Nira Yuval-Davis and Floya Anthias, 16–35. London: Macmillan. Living Archives. N.d. “Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada.” http:// eugenicsarchive.ca/about. Mackey, Eva. 1999. The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada. London: Routledge. McClintock, Anne. 1993. “Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and the Family.” Feminist Review 44: 61–80. –. 1995. Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Conquest. London: Routledge. McLaren, Angus. 1990. Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885–1945. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Morgensen, Scott Lauria. 2011. Spaces between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Nelson, Jay. 2002. “A Strange Revolution in the Manners of the Country: AboriginalSettler Intermarriage in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia.” In Regulating Lives: Historical Essays on the State, Society, the Individual, and the Law, edited by John McLaren, Dorothy E. Chunn, and Robert J. Menzies, 23–62. Vancouver: UBC Press. Perry, Adele. 1997. “‘Fair Ones of a Purer Caste’: White Women and Colonialism in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia.” Feminist Studies 44: 501–24. Roberts, Barbara. 1979. “‘A Work of Empire’: Canadian Reformers and British Female Immigration.” In A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada, 1880–1920, edited by Linda Kealey, 185–201. Toronto: Women’s Press. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. London: Vintage Books. –. 1997. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. London: Vintage. Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Goldberg, 271–313. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Stoler, Ann Laura. 1995. Race and the Education of Desire: Foucault’s History of Sexuality and the Colonial Order of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Talbot, Christine. 2006. “Mormons, Polygamy, and the American Body Politic: Con­ testing Citizenship, 1852–1890.” PhD diss., Department of History, University of Michigan. Ursel, Jane. 1992. Private Lives, Public Policy. Toronto: Women’s Educational Press. Valverde, Mariana. 1991. The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Can­ ada, 1885–1925. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. –. 1992. “When the Mother of the Race Is Free: Race, Reproduction, and Sexuality in First-Wave Feminism.” In Gender Conflicts: New Essays in Women’s History, edited by Franca Iacovetta and Mariana Valverde, 3–26. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage.

11

The Komagata Maru Recontextualized Memory, History, and Diasporic Sikh Subnationalism in Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? Rajender Kaur

Writing about the extraordinary violence that accompanied the partition of British India, Kavita Daiya (2008, 39) makes an impassioned case for the special role that literature and film play as “archives of memory” in the public sphere. She calls such cultural productions “a public, collective non-statist memory” that measures the distance between memory and history, the individual and the nation. Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? (2006) constitutes just such an invaluable archive of memory in memorializing in one narrative arc the unfinished voyage of the Komagata Maru of 1914 and the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in 1985 – two discrete yet linked events that have defined the history of South Asians, particularly Sikhs, in Canada. The novel contributes to the palimpsestic nature of the memory of these events as structured through cultural productions such as literary narratives, films, and multimedia works. The interdisciplinary field of memory studies provides a useful framework in which to analyze mobilization of the Komagata Maru in public discourse centred on issues of nation making, citizenship, and race. Especially illuminating in this context are the distinctions between different kinds of memory – statist memory and history as recorded in official reports and state archives versus collective, public, nonstatist memory (diffuse, fragmentary) – refracted through individual memory that counters the monologic impetus of statist memory. “Spectacular” public events such as the Komagata Maru, the partition of India, the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, and the bombing of Air India Flight 182 – all of which are yoked together in one narrative arc in Badami’s text – serve as instructive case studies in the complex relationship between memory and history. In contrast to the 244

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lamentably belated state memorializations of these two events in Canada, the many renderings of the Komagata Maru incident and the Air India bombing in the cultural sphere constitute a countermemory/memorial that uncovers the silences and erasures of official accounts.1 Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? foregrounds the violent legacies of the Komagata Maru incident and the Air India bombing in shaping the lives and attitudes of South Asians in Canada, especially Sikhs, who feature as principal players in these two events. Presenting an alternative construction of Canadian history that sees these two seemingly disparate events as closely connected to each other, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? contests the statist self-image of Canada as a tolerant and inclusive multicultural society. India and Canada emerge as poles of a diasporic Sikh subjectivity radicalized by disaffection through the violence of state policies that treat Sikhs as second-class citizens. Although peopled by a diverse cast of South Asians with varied narratives of arrival in Canada, the text explores the conflicted domains of history, memory, and identity as refracted through the imperial public sphere that connects Britain, Canada, and India by teasing out the disaffection of Sikhs, a religious minority in postcolonial India with a large diasporic presence in Canada. It is therefore telling that the text is framed by three epigraphs that gesture to these concerns by juxtaposing the evocative line from Agha Shahid Ali’s poem “Farewell” – “My memory keeps getting in the way of your history” – with excerpts from an oral testimony by a widow of the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 and a report about the 1985 Air India bombing from the Hindustan Times, an Indian newspaper, all of which are preceded by the text’s dedication to the memory of the “Man on the Bridge in Modinagar and the victims of Air India Flight 182.” In this way, Badami links her traumatic memory of being a witness to the carnage of 1984 to the Air India bombing of 1985, two cataclysmic events of her lifetime that connect her personal history of migration from India to Canada to the larger trajectory of a subcontinent’s colonial history and, more specifically, to the cataclysmic arc of the history of the Sikh community that she explores in Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? 2 More pertinently, the text represents characters whose troubled personal histories, exacerbated by the dislocation and violence of partition, the events of 1984, and the vicissitudes of the immigrant experience, make them vulnerable to a rhetoric of Sikh subnationalism. Although the Komagata Maru incident and the Air India bombing affected members of multifaith and multiethnic communities, they have

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become especially resonant in the Sikh diasporic community. Of the 376 passengers aboard the Komagata Maru, including Gurdit Singh, who leased the ship, 340 were Sikhs.3 Divided by three-quarters of a century, the Koma­ gata Maru and the Air India bombing are linked insofar as they underscore the racialization of South Asians and reflect an egregious continuum of the disavowal of racial others in the public realm.4 The cynicism inherent in the Canadian government’s belated and calculated acts of remembrance in both the Komagata Maru incident and the 1985 Air India bombing point to a conflicted history of violence and injustice toward racial minorities in the country.5 But the silences and elisions regarding both events are not unique to Canadian official accounts. Insofar as the bombing of Air India Flight 182 is imbricated deeply in the Sikh separatist movement in India and the series of violent events that affected Sikhs in 1984, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? also indicts the silences in official state discourses in India regarding the events of 1984, especially the state-led anti-Sikh pogrom supposed to have motivated the bombing.6 The voyage of the Komagata Maru has been commemorated heavily in a number of plays, films, memoirs, and novels, both in Canada and in India.7 It exists across a complex host of intersecting discourses: racial discrimination, colonial exploitation, immigration policies and immigrants’ rights, the radical nationalism of the Ghadar Party, and interethnic relations among Asian immigrants in North America, among others.8 Although most literary representations of the Komagata Maru – as in Sharon Pollock’s eponymous play (1976), Sadhu Binning’s collection of poems No More Watno Dur? (1994), and Jessi Thind’s novel Lions of the Sea (2004), among others – use the “heartbreaking incident” (Binning 1995) to gesture to the lingering raw wounds of racism and injustice, and to indict exclusionary immigration policies, Badami’s novel pitches the voyage of the Komagata Maru as an originary moment in a long history of violence that has afflicted the Sikh community, especially in the Can­adian diaspora. Sikhs constitute a heterogeneous community with different nar­ ratives of arrival and inclusion in Canada. Not all Sikhs in Canada have their homeland in the Punjab; many are “twice” migrants who have arrived from the United Kingdom and East Africa, among other places. The text traces key milestones that have defined the Sikh psyche in general but more particularly the diasporic identity of Sikhs in new homelands, particularly Canada, through the nuanced portrayal of the feisty Sharanjeet

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Kaur or “Bibi-ji,” as she later comes to be known in Vancouver, and her extended family members and friends in India and Canada. The novel traces the roots of Sikh subnationalism through the diasporic subjectivity of a Sikh Canadian woman that is energized, and indeed structured, by key events that have defined the psyche and history of Sikhs, not just in India but in Canada as well. In choosing Bibi-ji as its protagonist, a transnational subject whose human geography connects Vancouver, Punjab, and New Delhi, across the span of nearly a century, Badami explores the history of Sikh diasporic presence in Canada that dates back to the 1890s. Although the novel begins in 1928, it harks back to the Komagata Maru through the character of Harjot Singh, Bibi-ji’s father, one of the unfortunate passengers on the ship, forcibly escorted back to his village in Punjab by British authorities on the ship’s return to Budge Budge.9 Devastated psychologically and financially by the failed journey, he wastes his days on the charpoy dreaming of what might have been, only to disappear one day, never to return. In this way, the narrative casts the Komagata Maru as the primary event in a calamitous train of events involving Bibi-ji and, by extension, the Sikh community that culminates in the death of 329 passengers, mostly Indo-Canadians, in the explosion of Air India Flight 182 heading from Canada to India.10 Although Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? spans the historical period from 1928 to 1986, it loops backward and forward in time and space to trace the genesis of important historical events that connect India and Canada. The narrative links the unfinished voyage of the Komagata Maru in 1914 to the violence of partition in 1947 and further to the cataclysmic events set in motion by the sacrilegious storming of the Golden Temple by Indian army tanks on June 6, 1984: the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in October 1984, the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 that followed, and the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in June 1985. The narrative weaves together these events as an extended cycle of violence that has contributed to the Sikh community’s siege mentality, intensifying the movement for a Sikh homeland. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? recontextualizes the Komagata Maru by adopting a transnational and transhistorical perspective to map the legacy of violence that continues to haunt the present in both the cultural memory and the individual psyche. Here I use the insights of Gabriele Schwab (2010) in her book on violence and memory in the context of atrocities

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such as genocide, slavery, and especially narratives of the Holocaust in postwar Germany to explore the tangled meanings of the Komagata Maru and the bombing of the Air India flight and their construction as events critical to Sikh subnationalism in Canada. Schwab argues that acts of egregious and unjust violence – such as the Holocaust, colonialism, slavery, and genocide – live on beyond their time and engender trauma that “haunts” the memories of later generations of both victims and perpetrators through the creation of a “network of interlaced memories.” In “Ghostly Transferences: On Memory and Haunting,” Schwab (2014) argues that “the interaction of different histories in psychic life and cultural memory creates a transference that dynamically engages violent legacies and informs future-British Imperial culture.” Informed by these insights, I argue that Sikh subnationalism is engendered by the transmission and circulation of a metanarrative of a perceived history of oppression and betrayal by unjust authoritarian and corrupt regimes. These memories of grievance include the heroic fight of the Sikh Gurus against unjust persecution and oppression, particularly against varied Muslim rulers, British treachery in taking over the storied Sikh empire of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh in 1849, followed later in the twentieth century by the division of Punjab and the bloodbath of partition and a sense that Sikhs have not been given a fair deal in India after independence.11 This is best personified in the novel through the example of Bibi-ji, who carries the memories of the angst of her father through the stories that he told her of the Komagata Maru and that she now relates to Jasbeer on Pa-ji’s bidding. Similarly, Pa-ji’s interactions with Jasbeer are full of the stories of Sikh martyrs. These deaths coupled with the death of Pa-ji at the Golden Temple, and the deaths of Jasbeer’s father and siblings in the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in New Delhi, create a transnational “network of interlaced memories” that marks the genesis of Sikh subnationalism in the novel. In framing the narrative between the unfinished journey of the Komagata Maru in 1914 and the unfinished journey of the passengers aboard Air India Flight 182, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? establishes a causal link between the humiliation suffered by the Komagata Maru’s mostly Sikh passengers and the extremist supporters of the diasporic subnationalist movement for a Sikh homeland, Khalistan, widely perceived to have planted the bombs aboard the plane that crashed off the coast of Ireland.12 The text unmoors these two events from their location in Canada and

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shows their antecedents and repercussions in India. It takes a long historiographical view that situates the Komagata Maru and the explosion of the Air India flight firmly within the conflicts rooted in the divisive disciplinary practices of British colonial administration now exacerbated by the exigencies of postcolonial nation making in India and the unacknowledged racism of a settler colony such as Canada (only now making amends for its troubled relationship with Indigenous and nonwhite immigrant communities).13 In narrating a historiography of Sikhs that foregrounds Canada as an important locus of diasporic Sikh subnationalism, Can You Hear the Night­ bird Call? asserts that the history of Sikhs in India “rightfully belong[s] also within the national historical frame of Canada” (Dambock 2009). The novel does not so much present a new historiography of Canada or of Sikhs as much as it reconstellates these histories within larger transnational imaginaries that have their origins in imperial regimes of power. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? is an example of a literary text produced “abroad” that signals its continuing investment in “home.” Mentioned only in a smattering of instances, though it is structured as a catalytic event, the Komagata Maru incident functions as the absent sign that encapsulates an entire history of disappointed hope, betrayal, and disaffection, resulting in a cycle of violence and revenge that has beleaguered Sikhs in India and the diaspora. It comes to be the central node of what Schwab (2010) calls, in a different context, a “network of interlaced memories” that haunts the novel. In her terms, we can see the cycle of violence involving Sikhs as ghostly hauntings, trauma engendered by violence transmitted transgenerationally and transnationally in such networks – not just through the people who suffered the atrocities first hand but also by the extended circle of family, friends, and children – connected to the narrative of violence. Thus, for instance, Pa-ji, Bibi-ji’s husband, compensates in Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? for a forlorn childhood as an orphan by creating an imaginary patrilineage of valiant warriors who had fought the British, “spin(ning) history using longing for yarn and imagination for loom” (Badami 2006, 203). What seems like an innocuous exercise in personal mythmaking turns into something more deadly in the effect that it has on the psyche of the young Jasbeer, Bibi-ji’s grandnephew. Bruised by the discrimination experienced in the immigrant homeland, and displaced from home, Jasbeer feels the anxiety

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and insecurity experienced by diasporic communities, not to mention the repeated slights of racial discrimination in everyday life, and he becomes easy prey to identitarian politics. He functions in the novel as a case study of disaffected youth attracted to violent ethnonationalisms. Traumatized by and resentful at his separation from his family, and reviled by his classmates in Vancouver for wearing the topknot, Jasbeer is a misfit in Canada. Constantly reprimanded on disciplinary grounds by school authorities, overindulged by Bibi-ji, and deeply influenced by Pa-ji’s stories of Sikh martyrs and the heroics of martial ancestors, Jasbeer has a festering sense of injustice and unhappiness that finds a focus in the inflammatory lectures of Dr. Randhawa, a preacher of separatism who exhorts Sikhs to support the cause of a Sikh homeland, Khalistan. Jasbeer is mesmerized. “Dr. Randhawa’s diatribe of conquest and betrayal and revenge appealed to him” (253), and he becomes radicalized. His grief, anger, and alienation make him susceptible to rhetoric that appeals to his desire to belong. Deeply attracted by the compensatory rhetoric of hypermasculinity calling on all Sikhs, the “lions of the Punjab,” to defend the faith, Jasbeer joins the youth wing of the Khalistan movement in Canada and eventually decides to leave for Punjab to join a religious school, the Damdami Taksal, in Bhinder, “to become a pure Sikh” by immersing himself in the scriptures (289). Pa-ji attempts to overcome Jasbeer’s sense of alienation by trying to instill a sense of pride in his Sikh roots. Pa-ji has Bibi-ji repeat the story of her father’s unfinished journey on the Komagata Maru while he fills the boy’s head with “ancient stories of wars and warriors,” railing at a continuum of injustice and betrayal (198). Jasbeer is deeply affected by the story of the ship and the stories of oppression faced by Sikhs from unjust Muslim rulers and the British, which for him meld into one continuous narrative of injustice and violence suffered unfairly by the Sikh community. Cultural anthropologist Veena Das (1992, 245) has shown how “this discourse is part of the political language being evolved by the militant movement to create a politically active group and to forge an effective unity among the Sikhs. Thus, a ‘we’ group is sought to be created out of a heterogeneous community that can function as an effective political agency in the context of the structures of the modern state in India.” Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? shows, in Das’s terms, how Sikh militant discourse as articulated by Dr. Randhawa and Pa-ji (though Pa-ji is not a supporter of

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Khalistan) “links together in one contemporaneous continuum events that are far removed in a causal logic that erases particularities and historical truths” (247). Badami (2006, 291) untangles this logic to reveal the points of rupture, as in the story of the young man called to testify to the violence of the Indian state in the disappearance of his brother, Lakki, for whom the “extremists” and the police are instruments of terror alike. The novel also shows how an event such as the Komagata Maru, with its panIndian significance in Indian nationalist history, and especially South Asian Canadian history, is mobilized as a case of injustice suffered by the Sikh community by diasporic subnationalists.14 By showing the injustice in the death of completely innocent people in the bombing of Air India Flight 182, the novel also shows the destructive effects of political and religious extremism, indicting the perpetrators as misguided. Many of the 329 passengers who perished in the explosion were Sikhs. By linking these two events together, the novel arguably perpetuates the narrative of accumulated grievances by simplifying the multiethnic victims of the Komagata Maru incident and the Air India bombing, even as it homogenizes the Sikh diasporic community at home and in Canada within one paradigm of victimhood and vengeance. The roots of the “Pun­ jab problem” are more complex than the novel can give credence to, and the narrative effect of telescoping complex events such as the Komagata Maru, the anti-Sikh pogrom, and the bombing of an Air India plane full of Canadian nationals of Indian origin flattens some of the disjunctions among these events. Nevertheless, there is no denying the affective power that Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? creates to condemn both the extremist actions that motivated the bombing of a plane full of innocent passengers and the ruthlessness of state power wielded unjustly, whether in Canada or in India. In emphasizing the historical connection between India and Canada as critical locations that have defined the psychobiography of Sikhs, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? examines issues of subnationalism that have their roots in the home country but are nurtured abroad by segments of the diasporic community insecure about their position in the adopted homeland.15 Writing in a historiographic metafictional mode that insistently probes the vexed relationship between memory and history in subjectivity, and (more pertinent to my argument) in an immigrant context, in defining the South Asian community’s place in the Canadian

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imaginary, the novel can be construed, in Yasemin Yildiz and Michael Rothberg’s (2011) terms, as an act of “memory citizenship.”16 Writing in the context of present-day Germany, which has large immigrant populations who do not have a cultural memory of the Holocaust but nevertheless engage with it as an act of memory citizenship, Yildiz and Rothberg define the term as performances of memory that are also acts of citizenship. Acts of citizenship, they argue, “go beyond the given and allow us to see how subjects become claimants when they are least expected or anticipated to do so” (34). They “define new ways of belonging. Performances of memory become acts of citizenship when they model new ways of beingin-common that complicate established understandings of what constitutes ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ forms of belonging” (34). In performing a valuable narrative of remembrance that recalls painfully the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 and the Air India bombing of 1985 as two formative episodes in Canadian national history, the novel engages in a spirited and agonistic act of citizenship. In remembering these two apparently discrete events together, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? emphasizes the public humiliation and state violence endured by the passengers of the Komagata Maru, and by innocent worshippers in the desecration of the Golden Temple in 1984, as root causes that engendered the calamitous events that followed and defines them as “critical events” in South Asian Canadian history.17 Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? sparks new perspectives on belonging for both immigrant groups and the state by re-evaluating events that have defined the contours of both state policy and community formation. The novel punctures the state’s vaunted multiculturalism in showing that nothing much has changed over the course of three-quarters of a century by drawing a parallel between the mulish racism of a “white Canada forever” policy that turned away the Komagata Maru in 1914 to the cutting gesture of nonrecognition in Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s notorious gaffe in misidentifying the mostly Canadian citizens who died aboard the ill-fated Air India Flight 182 in 1985 as Indians.18 Among other things, then, the novel’s act of memory citizenship also articulates a compelling call for “recognition” from the immigrant South Asian Canadian community, especially Sikhs, who first settled in Vancouver and Abbotsford in the late 1890s and were critical drivers of the lumber industry.19 In linking these two events, as well as the long shadows of the storming of the Golden Temple, the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, and

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the subsequent anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, the novel dramatizes the high ethical, social, and political stakes resulting from unfinished pasts that continue to affect the present. Although most scholarship on the Komagata Maru situates it as a Canadian episode, the transnational networks of the event are only now being illuminated, as the editors of this book argue. Seema Sohi (2014) has emphasized links between the Komagata Maru and the Ghadar Move­ ment, and Alia Somani (2012, iii) reads the twinned episodes of the Air India bombing and the Komagata Maru as having played “formative role(s) in the debate about the place of the South Asian diaspora within the Canadian nation.” She shows that reconstructions of the two episodes, as in Badami’s novel, are critical efforts at remembering that force the nation to be more inclusive. Here I argue that Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? recontextualizes the Komagata Maru beyond imperial regimes to illuminate transnational networks of memory operating within the migrant archives of the Sikh diasporic community in Canada that made members particularly sensitive to the call for a separate homeland, Khalistan, in the wake of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom perpetrated by the Indian state. Scholars such as N.G. Barrier (2006), Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair (2016), Giorgio Shani (2007), and Darshan Singh Tatla (2012), among others, have argued that 1984 exacerbated a lingering sense of betrayal by the Indian state and mobilized dramatically the call for Khalistan. In Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? – though Pa-ji and Bibi-ji are uncomfortable at first with the talk of mapmaking and divisions and “fiddling with borders” that Khalistani activists such as Dr. Randhawa espouse – this all changes after 1984 (257). The turning point in the novel comes when Pa-ji is killed inside the Golden Temple when Indian army tanks storm it in June 1984 to flush out Sikh fundamentalists such as Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala who had stockpiled ammunition and guns and were hiding within the temple complex. The novel presents this event as an egregiously misguided and ill-conceived decision by Indira Gandhi, like the emergency of 1976, when she suspended all civil liberties of the people: A knife in the heart. A dagger in the back. An insult. An outrage. Shock, then anger spread across the world like acid, burning into the soul of every Sikh, turning even the moderate, once in a while temple worshippers into true believers. Their most holy place had been desecrated by the Indian government. Tanks had rolled across marble floors, crushing ancient inlay. The

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library had been consumed by flames; centuries old manuscripts had been destroyed. Pilgrims had been killed. Nobody was sure how many – some claimed it was two thousand people and others insisted it was much higher. Humiliation, indignity, death. (Badami 2006, 335)

Even as the affect-laden language of this passage struggles to convey Sikhs’ angst and shock and bewilderment recorded in Bibi-ji’s question “how could this have happened in a temple?” (337), it casts the storming of the Golden Temple as a “critical event,” in Veena Das’s words (1992). By linking all the events that have shaped Bibi-ji’s psyche, and by extension the Sikh psyche, the novel shows the working of long-time cultural logic in contemporary events and examines the storming of the temple and the subsequent anti-Sikh pogrom instigated by the state as catalytic moments of rupture. In examining questions of violence, social suffering, and subjectivity, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? not only shows but also protests the institutional processes that produce violence and social suffering. The egregious complicity of state apparatuses, the police, and the judiciary in the horrific anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 transforms it into a critical event that forever converts a lingering sense of resentment and injustice into a deeply felt persecution complex, intensifying Sikh subnationalism. In Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary, Veena Das (2007, 1) shows how extraordinary violence, such as that which followed partition, “gets folded itself into the recesses of everyday life” of the survivors instead of becoming an “interruption” to which we bear witness. She argues that the violence of everyday life provides the necessary conditions for the “eventful” eruptions of collective violence such as those witnessed in the 1984 pogrom. In Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? we see this subtle merging of the everyday and the eventful in the changing ambience of the Delhi Junction, the restaurant run by Pa-ji and Bibi-ji. Once a communal gathering place where all immigrants came together, it soon mirrors the divisions and dissensions of the subcontinent: fights break out between previously congenial acquaintances, and friends and strangers divide along community lines and different ideological persuasions. Dialogue and debate give way to silence, and when Leela Bhatt, Bibi-ji’s friend, tells Bibi-ji that she is flying home to Bangalore on Air India Flight 182 from Toronto Bibi-ji keeps silent about the rumours that she has heard about possible sabotage of the flight: “Perhaps she should have said something to Leela. But it was none of her business what hap-

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pened to them. No, it was not her business at all” (Badami 2006, 383; emphasis added). Ironically, the operative pronoun them in Bibi-ji’s thoughts “others” non-Sikhs and rehearses the exclusionary rhetoric that Bibi-ji has railed against all her life in Canada. Provoked by the death of her husband and her niece Nimmo’s husband and children in the events of 1984, she has entrenched the politics of “us and them” in her mind. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? underlines the irony of the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 as an event that once brought a fledgling South Asian community together, now mobilized for radically different ends. In 1914, it was a shining example of interethnic solidarity in a small South Asian community that scrambled resourcefully to fight the injustice and violence directed at it by the state. In 1985, violence turned inward in the community following the bombing of Air India Flight 182. Whereas 1914 was a moment of unity when Sikhs who had hitherto been distanced from the anticolonial movement became radicalized, 1985 marked a moment of division when ethnic and religious differences came to the fore and fanned the flames of the hitherto muted Sikh separatist movement in India, taking on a militant mode, supported largely by the Sikh diaspora in Canada and the United Kingdom. In the 1980s, in the face of the growing subnationalist movement for a Sikh state, the immigrants were seen as too politicized, preaching a brand of religious fundamentalism and subnationalism that threatened to dismember both the host nation and the homeland. Can You Hear the Night­ bird Call? captures the divisive fallout of the Sikh subnationalist movement within the small diasporic community of South Asians in Vancouver: “Insults are hurled ... Mrs. Patel’s car windows smashed, and the Delhi Junction spray painted” (Badami 2006, 373). Violence extends to Sikhs who protested the Canadian government’s seeming hospitality to Sikh secessionists and extremists: “A Sikh lawyer’s head is bashed in with an iron rod because he protested Canadian immigration policies ... that he claimed ... allowed secessionists and extremists from Punjab safe haven in Canada” (373).20 The violence escalates quickly – from arguments and insults traded in a shared communal eating space (the restaurant), to smashing other ethnic groups’ car windows, to the brutal head bashing of an individual – and finds its most frightening expression in the terrorist bombing of Air India flight 182 that Leela Bhatt and 328 other Canadian citizens, mostly of South Asian ancestry, are on, showing the slow blurring of the ordinary into the “eventful” in Das’s terms.

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The bombing of that flight remains the “largest single act of terrorism carried out in Canada” (Dorais 2006, 214). A century ago the Komagata Maru became a lightning rod for freedom from British rule that mobilized the expatriate Indian community in North America and Europe into a highly successful transcontinental decolonization movement led by the Ghadar Party and included marquee names of the diasporic Indian community such as Taraknath Das and Lala Hardayal. The small Indian community had come together to fight valiantly on behalf of their compatriots, collected large funds, arranged for legal counsel, but all in vain. The largely apolitical voyagers, humble farmers seeking better lives, returned home highly radicalized by the blatant hypocrisy of the British Empire that they had served so loyally and became sympathetic to the nationalist movement. Rajini Srikanth (2002, 87) examines the Komagata Maru incident in light of the “intersection of memory, transnationalism, and political participation in diasporic Asian communities in North America,” highlighting its significance in forging solidarity not just among the South Asian community besieged by a narrow identitarian politics but also among the larger Asian American community across North America. She notes the resurgence of interest in the Komagata Maru affair among political activists and cultural interpreters and sees in these recoveries a call for vigilance against allowing such official discrimination to recur. Badami’s representation of the Komagata Maru as a catalytic moment in politicizing the Sikh community and making its members aware of the doublespeak of the British shrewdly portends its divisive effect. This is first seen in the text through Gurpreet Kaur’s resentment of Sher Singh, the Canadian-settled husband of their neighbour, whose tales of easy money in Canada inspire her husband, Harjot Singh, to double-mortgage their land to try his luck abroad. Although the plight of the 350 passengers denied entry into Canada mobilized and energized the Indian community against the racism of Canadian authorities, the Indian community stands divided now not only among itself but also from the majority community, which sees members of the Indian community as troublemakers. Bookended by the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 and the bombing of Air India Flight 182 of 1985, two events that telescope the complexities and contradictions of the troubled history of South Asians (particularly Sikhs) in Canada, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? explores these seemingly

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discrete yet politically and culturally linked events spanning the twentieth century as unfinished pasts whose lingering and volatile effects continue to shape the South Asian diasporic subjectivity in Canada. In exploring questions of memory and historical forgetting, of trauma, terrorism, and related issues of national belonging, citizenship, and subnationalisms nurtured in the diaspora, the novel firmly underscores the connected histories of India and Canada to argue that home and abroad, here and there, are not two worlds but one. The demands for a Sikh homeland might have eased, but their reverberations continue to be felt, especially in the “misrecognition” that Sikhs have suffered in North America following 9/11.21 In many ways, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? is about unfinished pasts and unfinished journeys and the urgent need to revisit these pasts, to face unburied ghosts, and to transform these pasts into something usable that nurtures and heals instead of divides and festers.22 By transforming the tragic story of the Komagata Maru into a resonant literary trope that gestures to an inspirational episode of interethnic solidarity and tells of the proud history of the Ghadar Movement, the novel turns an unresolved past into a usable past. The Komagata Maru is not a Sikh or Canadian story alone but one that has lessons for all immigrant communities. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? problematizes diasporic subjectivity by linking it to the collective subjectivities of the specific communities and ethnicities along which the diaspora diffracts. For members of transnational diasporas, subjectivity grows out of the experience of marginalization and unstable relations of difference in the dominant society, both where they currently live and where they used to live. The text also raises questions about the violence, both inwardly experienced and outwardly directed, in the forced dislocation of Bibi-ji’s grandnephew, her sense of guilt about betraying her sister festering for decades, and the dangers of diasporic subnationalisms that infect community life. The novel raises questions not just of diasporic individual subjectivity but also of literary history. How do diasporic texts locate themselves between home and the world? In narrating two key incidents of exclusion and xenophobia, and diasporic subnationalism, respectively, the novel locates itself firmly as a Canadian text that ambitiously seeks to move from its excentric position to the centre of debates about Canadian national identity and its vaunted multiculturalism to examine issues of diasporic nationalism nurtured in its bosom and infected and intensified,

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so to speak, by the violence of racial discrimination and hostility. In selfconsciously linking these two events as part of a continuing saga of exclusion and erasure, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? remembers the forgotten histories of liminal and marginalized groups that need to be reincorporated into the body politic to build a more inclusive Canada. In invoking these two catalytic events in such textured and nuanced ways that connect the histories of Canada and India, the novel demonstrates how traumatic events such as the partition of India and the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 are not confined to the history of the Indian subcontinent but bleed into other national imaginaries with violent repercussions. The novel also succeeds in consolidating the Komagata Maru and the explosion of Air India Flight 182 as archetypes that function as the bedrock of communal memory and a storehouse of literary tropes and images that nourish a vibrant South Asian Canadian literary culture.23 In “Colonial Legacies, Multicultural Futures: Relativism, Objectivity, and the Challenge of Otherness,” Satya Mohanty (1995, 113) defines a rigorous multiculturalism as one in which “genuine respect depends upon a judgment based on understanding, arrived at through difficult epistemic and ethical negotiations.” He argues that the version of multiculturalism demanding that we suspend judgment on purely a priori grounds is at best a weak pluralistic scenario of noninterference and peaceful coexistence based on the abstract notion that everything about the other culture is equally valuable. The racist perspective of a “white Canada forever” might have been replaced by a more tolerant multiculturalism, but Canada is still a deeply divided society in which immigrants remain separate and unequal. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? examines Sikh diasporic subjectivity with an intimacy rooted in empathy for the historical slights and tragedies suffered by Sikhs. Embittered by her own losses, Bibi-ji might have become distanced from Leela, but she comes to realize that she too has paid dearly for her greediness and the crime of “stealing” her sister’s groom. The novel closes with Jasbeer trying to find his old home in the now unfamiliar neighbourhood of Delhi. With two epilogues – newspaper reports from the Globe and Mail and Tribune from Canada and India, respectively, both reporting the travesty of justice in which the primary accused in the bombing and the anti-Sikh pogrom were acquitted for lack of evidence – the novel indicts the miscarriage of justice. By laying bare the genealogy of violence and mapping the history that led to these events, the novel also functions as a testimony and record of social suffering.

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Even though seventy years separate the two incidents, Badami recalls the ongoing discrimination faced by immigrants of colour through the remarks of Prime Minister Mulroney, who commiserated with the Indian government on the tragic deaths of so many Indian citizens aboard the flight, oblivious of the fact that the majority of those who lost their lives were Indo-Canadian citizens. Mulroney’s well-meaning but inept comments merely underline the foreign status of nonwhite citizens in Canada and foreground the continuum of the discrimination, racism, and ignorance that South Asians face despite having lived in Canada since the late 1890s. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? uses memory – a nonstatist and collective countermemory – as a discursive tool for civil, political, and ethical action. It culls the memory of individual, family, and community and juxtaposes it against the remembrance practices of the state as embodied in commission reports and public monuments to highlight those moments of rupture and erasure that belie an official discourse of inclusiveness and justice.













Notes 1 See Failler (2009, 2012) for the memorializations of these two events by the state and for the discrepancies between official discourse and individual and community memories. 2 Badami has narrated the traumatic anecdote that was the seed for this novel in many interviews: “It was the autumn of 1984 just after Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards. I’d been married two weeks. My husband and I were travelling back to Delhi after our honeymoon. From our bus window I saw a Sikh man set on fire, then thrown over a bridge.” http://mtlreviewofbooks.ca/v4/reviews/can-you-hear -the-nightbird-call/. 3 Of the 36 others, 12 were Hindus, and 24 were Muslims, also mostly from Punjab. It is also worth noting that the shore committee mobilized by the local Indian community to fight the cause of the hapless passengers included members of all religious denomi­ nations, not just Sikhs. See the pioneering study by Johnston (2014) for details on passenger lists and Waraich (2005) for documents related to this incident. 4 For a forceful argument about the importance of seeing these two events in “relation” as posited in Badami’s novel, see Dean (2012). For useful discussions of the bombings, see Chakraborty (2012) and Failler (2009, 2012). 5 See Failler (2009) for a nuanced discussion of the South Asian Canadian community’s acts of remembrance as a countermemorial to the state’s inept handling of the Air India bombing. 6 An ongoing investigation by the RCMP has so far convicted one person, Inderjeet Singh Reyat, for his involvement in the bombing; two others were acquitted in 2005. All three were alleged to have connections with the Sikh separatist movement, their supposed motivation for the bombing. See the report of the commission appointed by the government to investigate the bombing (Rae 2005) as well as a host of newspaper reports (e.g., Dowd 2010a, 2010b).

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7 The unfinished journey of the Komagata Maru has been memorialized in numerous art and media representations and academic conferences, especially in 2014, which marked its centenary year. Ram Sharan Vidyarthi’s Komagata Maru ki Samudra Yatra (The Komagata Maru’s Sea Voyage) (1970) in Hindi, Sohan Singh Josh’s The Tragedy of the Komagata Maru (1983), and Kesar Singh’s novel Komagata Maru (1993) in Punjabi are some of the notable works from India on this dramatic incident. Sharon Pollock’s play The Komagata Maru Incident (1976) and Ajmer Rode’s Punjabi play Komagata Maru (1984) are two of the early literary and cultural interpretations of the incident from Canada. The two opening poems in Sadhu Binning’s collection of poems No More Watno Dur? (1994), “The Heart-Breaking Incident” and “Welcome,” use the incident to gesture to the lingering raw wounds of that memory for South Asian Canadians today. Lions of the Sea, a fictionalized account of the event by Jessi Thind (2004); a much-celebrated and award-winning documentary film, Continuous Journey, by Ali Kazimi (2004); a CBC Radio play, Entry Denied, by Sugith Varughese (2002); and more recently the novel Chanting Denied Shores: The Komagata Narratives, by Tariq Malik (2010), are some of the current retellings of the event. Deepa Mehta, a noted Indian Canadian film director, is also working on a film script on this subject, tentatively titled “The Exclusion.” 8 See Kaur (2012) for a more substantive reading of the event in contemporary cultural and literary texts. 9 See Johnston (2014) for a comprehensive analysis of this event. 10 “The bombing of AI Flight 182 remains the worst act of terrorism in Canadian history” (Dorais 2006, 214). Almost twenty-five years after the bombing, the questions left unanswered are still making headlines. See Blaise and Mukherjee (1987), Dorais (2006), Jiwa (1986, 2006), and Somani (2012) for considerations of the bombing. In response to several calls for inquiries, the Canadian government appointed a commission in 2006 headed by Justice John Major that issued a report in 2010 citing numerous failures of intelligence, security, and investigation that led to the bombing. In 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper also formally apologized to the families of the victims and to the South Asian Canadian community, indicating that for too long the crash had been considered a South Asian rather than a Canadian tragedy: “‘Your pain is our pain. As you grieve, so we grieve,’ said Mr. Harper. ‘And, as the years have deepened your grief, so has the understanding of our country grown’” (Brethour 2010). 11 For a substantive history of the Sikh subnationalist movement in the diaspora, see Tatla (1999). For the emotive resonance of the Sikh Empire for Punjabis, and Sikhs in particular, see Singh and Rai (2008). 12 To date, there has been only one conviction. Ripudaman Singh and Ajaib Singh Bagri, two of the primary accused, were acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence. See Jiwa (2006). 13 The martial race theory is one instance of a British colonial policy of divide and rule that has had a destructive fallout in India after independence. Codified in a series of official recruiting handbooks for the Indian army, the martial race theory and attendant recruitment policies did not so much recognize groups with a propensity for martial skills as create such groups. The census categorization of different groups as martial and nonmartial races lies at the root of some of the Sikh community’s grievances: the disproportionate recruitment of Sikhs in the army during colonial times and the fall in this rate of recruitment after independence as the newly independent Indian state did away with British racial and ethnic categorizations in its army recruitment policies. For an informed discussion, see Rand (2006). Punjab was among the last states to come

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under British colonial rule, and the Sikhs were considered allies of the British, for instance, during the mutiny in 1857. See Tatla (1999) for a fuller analysis of the antecedents of the Sikh subnationalist movement. See Suchetana Chattopadhyay’s chapter in this collection for a fine analysis of the Komagata Maru’s connection with nationalists in India. Not all members of the diasporic community, and certainly not all diasporic Sikhs in Canada, support the Sikh separatist movement in the novel. Both Bibi-ji and Pa-ji find Dr. Randhawa distasteful at first. The text is careful to note how the Sikh subnationalist movement provokes varied reactions, showing fissures within the small South Asian community in Vancouver. For historiographic metafiction, see Linda Hutcheon’s (1988) foundational work on this subject as well as the meditations of Hayden White (1973). Pramod Nayar (2013, 18) cites the public dehumanization suffered by Sikhs during the horrific 1984 pogrom in India and uses Yildiz and Rothberg’s (2011) insights on “memory citizenship” in migrant archives in the context of Holocaust narratives in contemporary Germany to make a compelling argument about narratives of the anti-Sikh pogrom as performances of memory citizenship such that “to ‘remember’ is not only about recall but about becoming a member (re-member) again of a community, of becoming a citizen.” I carry Nayar’s argument further, not just in the specific diasporic context of Sikhs but also in the larger South Asian community in Canada to suggest that Badami’s novel can be read as an act of memory citizenship. In productively framing the narrative between the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 and the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in June 1985, it performs a valuable discursive intervention. See Johnston (2014) for a comprehensive analysis of this event. “‘Canadians, and particularly Canadian politicians and public leaders, felt these were brown guys fighting over something happening 15,000 miles away,’ says Ujjal Dosanjh, former B.C. premier and current Liberal MP” (quoted in Brethour 2010). See Tatla (2012), who dissects the various reasons for the failure of the separatist movement for Khalistan and that has now subsided into pleas for recognition. Dosanjh was one among many Sikh Canadians attacked by Sikh militants for opposing the Khalistan movement. Various reasons are cited for the decline of Sikh subnationalism, including the decline of the Indian National Congress and the rise of regional parties in Punjab, beyond the Akali Dal, which has led to a readjustment of relations between the centre and states to give states more autonomy. See Shani (2007) on the evolution of Sikh subnationalism beyond Khalistan to a deterritorialized notion of a Sikh Quam. Since 9/11, Sikhs have been the targets of overt discrimination and attacks because their turbans and beards have provoked a misrecognition of them as Muslims. Beginning with the shooting of Balbir Singh Sodhi in Texas in 2001 and the Oak Creek Gurdwara shootings on October 5, 2012, when six people were killed and four others were injured, Sikhs have been the victims of several hate crimes. See Mehta (2013) for an overview of the attacks and strategies for resistance. I borrow the notion of “unfinished pasts” from a panel organized by Chandrima Chakra­borty for the Modern Languages Association in Vancouver, in January 2015, in which I presented a paper on unfinished mourning in the context of the anti-Sikh pogrom as presented in Jaspreet Singh’s Helium (2013) (Kaur 2015). Uma Parameshwaran writes that “two historical events that need to become the cornerstones of the Indo-Canadian ethos are the Komagata Maru incident of 1914, and the

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Air India tragedy of June 1985. We have to write about these events, talk about them, cross-reference them at every turn until they become literary and cultural archetypes of the history of Canada” (quoted in Somani 2012, 1). It is notable that two of the most powerful representations of the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 have come from Canada, consolidating the vital role that Canada plays in the cultural imaginary of Sikhs worldwide as a locus of fearless debate on and inquiry into social injustices. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? – like Singh’s Helium – was written by an Indo-Canadian writer and spans two continents.

References Badami, Anita Rau. 2006. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? Toronto: Vintage. Barrier, N.G. 2006. “Trauma and Memory within the Sikh Diaspora: Internet Dialogue.” Sikh Formations 2, 1: 33–56. Binning, Sadhu Singh. 1994. No More Watno Dur? Toronto: TSAR. Blaise, Clark, and Bharati Mukherjee. 1987. The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy. Markham, ON: Penguin. Brethour, Patrick. 2010. “Why Canada Chose to Unremember Air India and Disown Its Victims.” Globe and Mail, June 25. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/ why-canada-chose-to-unremember-air-india-and-disown-its-victims/article1212010/ ?page=all. Chakraborty, Chandrima. 2012. “Air India Flight 182: A Canadian Tragedy.” Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 24: 173–76. Daiya, Kavita. 2008. Violent Belongings: Partition, Gender, and Postcolonial Nationalism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Dambock, Elisabeth. 2009. “Transcending Traditional National History Conceptions: Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?” http://www.fu-berlin.de/sites/ cas/service/transkulturelle_lesetipps/CAS-Transkultureller_Lesetipp-Badami.pdf? 1307217638. Das, Veena. 1992. “Time, Self, and Community: Features of Sikh Militant Discourse.” Contributions to Indian Sociology 26, 2: 245–59. –. 2007. Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. Berkeley: University of California Press. Dean, Amber. 2012. “The Importance of Remembering in Relation: Juxtaposing the Air India and Komagata Maru Disasters.” Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 27: 197–214. Dorais, Veronique. 2006. Rev. of Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?, by Anita Rau Badami. Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal 38, 2: 214–15. Dowd, Allan. 2010a. “Canadian Convicted of Lying in Air India Bomb Case.” September 18. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/air-india-bombing-suspect-pleads-guilty/. –. 2010b. “Kanishka Bomb Maker Inderjit Reyat Found Guilty of Perjury.” Dnaindia. com, September 19. https://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-kanishka-bombmaker -inderjit-reyat-found-guilty-of-perjury-1439943. Failler, Angela. 2009. “Remembering the Air India Disaster: Memorial and Counter Memorial.” Review of Education, Culture, and Pedagogy 31, 2–3: 150–76. –. 2012. “‘War-on-Terror’ Frames of Remembrance: The 1985 Air India Bombings after 9/11.” Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 27: 253–70. Hutcheon, Linda. 1988. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, and Fiction. New York: Routledge.

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Jiwa, Salim. 1986. The Death of Air India Flight 182. London: W.H. Allen. –. 2006. Margin of Terror: A Reporter’s Twenty-Year Odyssey Covering the Tragedies of the Air India Bombing. Toronto: Key Porter. Johnston, Hugh. 2014. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar, Expanded and Fully Revised Edition. Vancouver: UBC Press. Josh, Sohan Singh. 1983. The Tragedy of the Komagata Maru. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House. Kaur, Rajender. 2012. “The Komagata Maru in History and Literary Narrative: Cultural Memory, Representation, and Social Justice.” South Asian Popular Culture 10, 2: 151–65. –. 2015. “History, Community, and Diasporic Subnationalism: The Komagata Maru in Anita Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?” Paper presented at a Modern Languages Association panel, Vancouver, January. Kazimi, Ali, dir. 2004. Continuous Journey. Produced in association with TVOntario with the assistance of the South Asian Heritage Foundation. Peripheral Visions Film and Video, Toronto. –. 2012. Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru: An Illustrated History. Van­ couver: Douglas and McIntyre. Malik, Tariq. 2010. Chanting Denied Shores: The Komagata Narratives. Calgary: Bayeux Arts. Mandair, Arvind-Pal S. 2013. “After 1984? Violence, Politics, and Survivor Memories.” Sikh Formations 9, 2: 267–70. Mehta, Parvinder. 2013. “Rethinking Multiculturalism: Sikh Integration after the Oak Creek Tragedy.” Sikh Formations 9, 2: 235–42. Mohanty, Satya. 1995. “Epilogue: Colonial Legacies, Multicultural Futures: Relativism, Objectivity, and the Challenge of Otherness.” PMLA 110, 1: 108–18. Nayar, Pramod. 2013. “Writing Survival: Narratives from the Anti-Sikh Pogrom, India 1984.” In The Other India: Narratives of Terror, Communalism, and Violence, edited by Om Prakash Dwivedi, 14–26. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press. Parameshwaran, Uma. 2003. “Dispelling the Spells of Our Memory: Another Approach to Reading Our Yesterdays.” In Diaspora and Multiculturalism: Common Traditions and New Developments, edited by Monika Fludernik, xxxi–xliv. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Pollock, Sharon. 1976. The Komagata Maru Incident. Toronto: Playwrights Co-Op. Rae, Bob. 2005. Lessons to Be Learned: The Report of the Honourable Bob Rae, Independent Advisor to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness on Outstanding Questions with Respect to the Bombing of Air India Flight 182. Ottawa: Air India Review Secretariat. Rand, Gavin. 2006. “Martial Races and Imperial Subjects: Violence and Governance in Colonial India 1857–1914.” European Review of History 13, 1: 1–20. Rode, Ajmer. 1984. Komagata Maru. Amritsar, India: Nanak Singh Pustakmala. Schwab, Gabriele. 2010. Haunting Legacies: Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. New York: Columbia University Press. –. 2014. “Ghostly Transferences: On Memory and Haunting.” Paper presented at Violent Nations: The Otherings of 1984, Hofstra University, New York, 2014. http:// www.hofstra.edu/pdf/academics/colleges/hclas/rel/sikh/sikh-violent-nations -abstracts.pdf. Shani, Giorgio. 2007. Sikh Nationalism and Identity in a Global Age. New York: Routledge. Singh, Jaspreet. 2013. Helium: A Novel. New York: Bloomsbury. Singh, Kesar. 1993. Komagata Maru. Patiala, India: Punjabi Publications Press.

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Singh, Patwant, and Jyoti M. Rai. 2008. Empire of the Sikhs: The Life and Times of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh. London: Peter Owens. Sohi, Seema. 2014. Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America. New York: Oxford University Press. Somani, Alia Rehana. 2012. “Broken Passages and Broken Promises: Reconstructing the Komagata Maru and Air India Cases.” PhD diss., Department of English, University of Western Ontario. Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/ etd/410. Srikanth, Rajini. 2002. “The Komagata Maru: Memory and Mobilization among the South Asian Diaspora in North America.” In Re/collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History, edited by Josephine D. Lee, Imogene L. Lim, and Yuko Matsukawa, 31–53. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Tatla, Darshan Singh. 1999. The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood. Seattle: University of Washington Press. –. 2012. “The Unbearable Lightness of Diasporic Sikh Subnationalism! From Anguished Cries of Khalistan to Pleas for ‘Recognition.’” Sikh Formations 8, 1: 59–85. Thind, Jessi. 2004. Lions of the Sea. Victoria, BC: Trafford. Varughese, Sugith. 2002. Entry Denied. Radio play. CBC Radio. Vidyarthi, Ram Sharan. 1970. Komagata Maru ki samudra yatra (The Komagata Maru’s Sea Voyage). Mirajapura, India: Krantikari Prakashan. Waraich, Malvinderjeet Singh. 2005. Komagata Maru: A Challenge to Colonialism: Key Documents. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books. White, Hayden. 1973. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Yildiz, Yasemin, and Michael Rothberg. 2011. “Memory Citizenship: Migrant Archives of Holocaust Remembrance in Contemporary Germany.” Parallax 17, 4: 32–48.

12

Past Wrongs and a New National Imaginary Remembering the Komagata Maru Incident Alia Somani

When I was a graduate student in English literature in 2006, the Koma­ gata Maru incident became a central focus of my research in part because it represented in dramatic form something about my own identity as a South Asian Canadian and as someone who has always had to negotiate the politics of race in a society in which whiteness is privileged. When I began my research, however, there were only a small number of literary, cinematic, and cultural responses to this event. Anita Rau Badami’s (2006) novel Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? – which opens with the story of a man aboard the ill-fated steamer who was turned away – had just been published, but it was one of only a relatively small number of texts dealing with the event. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s apology for the Komagata Maru incident would not be issued until 2008; Ali Kazimi’s illustrated account of the 1914 event would not be published until 2012; Ajmer Rode and Jarnail Singh’s museum exhibit dedicated to the memory of the passengers aboard the ship would not open until the summer of 2011; and Tariq Malik would not publish his novel Chanting Denied Shores: The Komagata Narratives until 2010. These texts took various forms, including novels, plays, museum exhibits, websites, illustrated books, apologies, and so on. My project became an attempt to trace these fragments, which, isolated from one another, might appear insignificant but which, collectively, I read as a sign that the once-obscured stories of minorities and their exclusions were increasingly emerging in the present and in the national consciousness. In a sense, I wanted to challenge the dominant understanding of the Komagata Maru incident as an event that occurred in Canada’s past and to consider how this history continues to traverse the boundaries 265

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of space and time, unsettling the divisions between past and present, nation and diaspora.1 More specifically, I wanted to ask how were these contemporary acts of memory challenging the nation’s attempts to forget or suppress past events involving racial exclusion and thus contesting Canada’s hegemonic nationalist project? Theories of the Nation In Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nation­al­ ism, Benedict Anderson (1983, 6) suggests that the modern nation can shift and change, depending on how it is imagined. For Anderson, the nation exists in the imaginations of those who see themselves as belonging to a shared space and “a deep, horizontal comradeship,” even though they might never meet one another face to face. As Anderson writes, the modern nation is “imagined” “because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear from them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.” Like Anderson, though in a different way, Eric Hobsbawm (1983) draws attention to the symbolic ways in which nation-states are formed. For Hobsbawm, the nation is built on a set of “invented traditions” “which appear or claim to be old [but] are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented” (1). Hobsbawm points out that traditions that often seem to be timeless – such as singing the national anthem or raising the national flag – are actually invented by members of the hegemonic classes to construct a certain narrative about the nation and to create a kind of cohesion among its members. Drawing on such theories of nationalism and nation formation, I consider the possibility that, if a nation is indeed an “imagined” or “invented” space formed around a common memory, then the nation might change when the memories of it change and when it is imagined differently. Beneath Canada’s traditions of tolerance, peace, and good governance are the forgotten histories of racial oppression and violence: the near eradication of Aboriginal people, the imposition of a Chinese head tax, the internment of Japanese Canadians, the detention and turning away of the Komagata Maru, the destruction of Africville, and the failure to acknowledge the Air India bombing as a Canadian event. To marginalize or erase such histories from the narrative of the nation is not only to write out symbolically the presence of minority communities for whom these his­ tories are of particular importance but also to recast Canada as a white

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nation. In contrast, recuperating and retrieving these forgotten events from the depths of Canada’s historical archives unhinges the Komagata Maru from its “historical past” and forces the nation to recognize and remember minority communities and their tragedies, thus granting these communities spaces in the nation. In other words, a deliberate remembering of the nation’s forgotten past, a remembering of the Komagata Maru incident as an unhealed wound and an ongoing source of trauma, can serve an important purpose: it can alter the composition and text of the Canadian nation and thereby ultimately transform Canada into a more heterogeneous space. My argument is influenced by the work of Homi K. Bhabha, who suggests that the nation is always tied up with narrative. In his edited collection Nation and Narration, Bhabha (1990) famously points out that nations are narrations. Whereas the nation tends to project a phantasmic account of national progress, a linear march forward across space and time, Bhabha suggests that (subaltern) counternarratives “disturb those ideological maneuvers through which ‘imagined communities’ are given essential identities” by rewriting the nation as fractured rather than cohesive, heterogeneous rather than homogeneous (300). Bhabha draws on but also critiques Anderson’s argument that the nation is characterized by a certain temporality, namely that of simultaneity and synchronicity, and reads this temporality as a mere illusion, as subterfuge, concealing and containing the nation’s inner divisions and fractures. For Anderson, each person reading the newspaper at the same time is the nation, but for Bhabha “the space of the modern nation is never simply horizontal” (293); it is both synchronic and diachronic, and thus its linearity is always at risk of being ruptured by multiple counternarratives. In Bhabha’s formulation, therefore, the struggle for narrative power is essentially a struggle to write the history of the nation. The modern nation is not a timeless geopolitical entity that emerges organically but a symbolic space that comes into being through narrative – through a process of remembering and forgetting past events. As Canadian critic Daniel Coleman (2006, 8) argues, to produce and sustain its public persona, “to sit comfortably with [its] claims of multicultural civility,” Canada has had to engage in a conscious (and violent) discourse of forgetting: it has had to forget the violence perpetrated against racialized minorities, the genocidal atrocities committed against Indigenous people, and a “whole range of injustices in between them.” Against “official”

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forgetting, minority writers, artists, and activists attempt to map their histories onto the nation’s public record, a space where those histories might be memorialized and inscribed into the narrative of the nation. In this chapter, I examine a museum exhibit in British Columbia that has played an important role in the process of memorializing diasporic histories: Ajmer Rode and Jarnail Singh’s Komagata Maru Stories. Canonical History Textbooks Before exploring the museum exhibit in detail, however, I want to track the national imaginary by exploring Canadian history textbooks from the 1940s to the present day. My aim is to analyze how Canada’s past is remembered and thus to consider how the narrative of the nation might have shifted over time. In discussions of my work, I have encountered some resistance to my use of canonical history textbooks. The assumption has been that these texts are not only too dull and tedious to analyze but also lack the “literary” qualities that we value in English departments. I disagree with such claims. If we are to understand how the nation comes into being through narration, a study of textbooks, especially those taught in school, seems to be both appropriate and necessary. As Louis Althusser (1971, 133) reminds us, schools are part of the ideological state apparatus: “The school ... teaches ‘know-how,’ but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its ‘practice.’” My logic is derived in part from the work of the late postcolonial scholar Edward Said (1978). In Orientalism, Said argues that the Orient does not simply exist but is also discursively produced and created through texts. Similarly, I argue that the Canadian nation is not just there but is also produced through a range of discursive formations. Canonical history textbooks, because we tend to think of them as authoritative and objective accounts of the nation, are particularly valuable as objects of study. In Canada, two of the earliest and most well-known texts – Arthur Lower’s Colony to Nation: A History of Canada, published in 1947, and Donald Creighton’s The Story of Canada, first published in 1959 and then as a second edition in 1971 – narrate the nation in ways that we might perhaps predict: by omitting histories such as the Komagata Maru incident and by representing Canada as a story of white triumphalism in which explorers and invader-settlers, all of whom are white and all of whom are male, emerge as heroic and celebratory figures. Lower registers some of the histories of racial discrimination, but only to justify and sanction them,

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whereas Creighton, writing some twelve years later, tends to overlook them entirely.2 Subtle differences aside, both Lower and Creighton represent the nation as a struggle between the French and the English, and in so doing they imagine the nation as coming into being because of the valiant efforts of its imperial founders, its white forces. In Canadian history textbooks that emerged in the 1990s, we can see a shift in how the nation is imagined: thus, texts such as the two-volume History of the Canadian Peoples (Finkel, Conrad, and Jaenen 1993; Finkel, Conrad, and Strong-Boag 1993) and A History of the Canadian Peoples (Bumsted 1998) reinsert into the nation histories of ordinary people and minority groups, even though they maintain the same kind of narrative trajectory as earlier texts, tracing Canada’s movement “from colony to nation.” What is different in these accounts is the tone in which history is recorded: it is less authoritative than earlier accounts of the nation and more conscious of the multiplicity of historical perspectives. Take, for instance, History of the Canadian Peoples: 1867 to the Present (Finkel, Conrad, and Strong-Boag 1993). In the introduction, the authors acknowledge that “most academic histories written before 1970 either ignored, or treated unsympathetically, women, people of colour, and issues relating to private life” (xiii). Texts from the 1990s are framed as being more inclusive, as histories written from below. Rather than naturalizing racist ideologies and thus implicitly condoning them, as some of the earlier texts had done, these texts also draw attention to and clearly critique racial violence. Bumsted, for example, begins by documenting what he calls the “invasion” rather than the “arrival” of European settlers and the eradication of Indigenous populations. He also critiques Canada’s treatment of Chinese people when he explains that the Canadian railway “was built on the backs of Chinese coolies” (1998, 215). Critic Ken Osborne (2003, 597) attributes the shift in how the nation is remembered in history textbooks, a shift that he says began in the 1970s, to a series of external pressures: In a Canada that was in fact and in policy increasingly multicultural, where hitherto-ignored minorities were making their presence felt, where the rhetoric of human rights was increasingly heard, and where the old masternarratives were found wanting, the conventional story of Canada’s “two founding peoples” came under increasing scrutiny. Room had to be found in the national story for First Nations Canadians, as well as for women and

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cultural minorities. In addition, the turn to social history complicated the traditional narrative, not only by drawing attention to the topics previously ignored, but also by calling taken-for-granted assumptions of significance and periodization into question.

Osborne seems to suggest that the imagined shape of the nation can change, that external pressures such as the growing presence of minorities and the focus on multiculturalism might compel those writing hegemonic accounts of history to remember the nation differently. From the 1970s onward, the nation, Osborne suggests, was remembered as a more inclusive and more pluralistic space than it had been previously. But there are limits to this new inclusive perspective. Because these Canadian history textbooks retained the shape of earlier ones in terms of their basic chronology, minority histories continued to be framed as marginal in relation to the ostensibly more important narrative about the struggle between the French and the English. In these texts, therefore, there is still no mention of the Komagata Maru incident, even though they claim to trace Canada’s history from the colonial period to the 1990s. More recent history textbooks such as Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel’s Canada: A National History (2003) and Roger Riendeau’s A Brief History of Canada (2007) are not dramatically different from those written a decade earlier, except in one instance: they include the Komagata Maru incident as part of the history of Canada, though they do so in ways that are sometimes problematic. In Riendeau’s account of the incident, the name of the ship is never mentioned; it is simply referred to as an “alien” ship (229), and the event is not registered in the index of the book. Riendeau seems to acknowledge, on the one hand, the racism that underpinned the event when he explains that the ship left the shores “amid cries of White Canada Forever” and, on the other, to deny it by reducing the event to a symbol of “British Columbians’ insensitivity to Asian immigration” (229, 228). Similarly, though Conrad and Finkel discuss the Komagata Maru incident in their account, they overlook its complexity and the full extent of its violent underpinnings. Rather than noting that the passengers aboard the ship were threatened at gunpoint and forced to leave Canadian shores, for example, Conrad and Finkel frame the turning away as a much more civil act, and as a matter of legality, describing the passengers as being “detained on board for two months in Vancouver harbour while their case was heard before the courts” and then

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being “ordered to leave” (291). These historical retellings show us that there are contradictory pressures at work: on the one hand, a desire to ascertain and record historical “truths”; on the other, a reluctance to admit that the country had racist national policies. Whereas the early texts engage in a straightforward disavowal of diasporic traumas, the more recent texts reveal a desire to write histories that recognize racial minorities and their exclusions as part of Canada but also a certain reluctance to displace hegemonic accounts of the nation. We cannot ignore the fact that, when read chronologically, these textbooks reveal that there has been a subtle shift in the national imaginary, a gradual albeit reluctant move from forgetting to remembering. Cautiously, I want to attribute this shift to the efforts of writers, artists, and activists from minority communities who have done the hard work of inserting forgotten histories into the national imaginary and thus sought to reimagine the nation itself. Komagata Maru Stories Among the creative fictions that revisit diasporic histories of exclusion and trauma is Ajmer Rode and Jarnail Singh’s the Komagata Maru Stories, a museum exhibit held first in Surrey and then in Abbotsford during the months of July and August 2011.3 Together, the paintings (by Singh) and the narrative accompaniment (by Rode) offer on one wall a chronological account of the Komagata Maru incident from the departure of the ship from Hong Kong to the struggles of the passengers who remained locked in Vancouver’s harbour for two months, fighting for their rights as British subjects to settle in Canada, and finally to the forced return of the passengers to India. On another wall, in the middle of the room, is a large portrait of Gurdit Singh, the Sikh businessman who led the journey. Juxtaposed against an ethereal sky-blue background, Singh is represented as formidable and godlike. The size of the portrait, together with its placement at the centre of the exhibit, serves to highlight his importance as a historical figure. Against the forgetting of the journey in history textbooks, the exhibit asks us to remember Singh and the struggles of the passengers in 1914. Through its representation of the Komagata Maru incident as an event tied to transnational networks of colonial rule and exploitation, the exhibit also invites us to locate the Canadian nation within a more complex system of power and politics. The Komagata Maru Stories exhibit remembers the event not only as a Sikh history but also as part of a transnational Indian history and a

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Canadian history. This is significant. The exhibit can be understood as a response to some members of the South Asian Canadian community who, in the 1970s and 1980s, wanted to remember the incident as an exclusively “Sikh event.” According to Rajini Srikanth (2002, 88–89), after the Indian government’s raid of the Golden Temple and the state-sponsored attack against the Sikh community in 1984, the diasporic Indian community became increasingly divided along religious lines. Local activists in Vancouver suggested that the communal tensions in India “contributed to the Sikhs’ feeling [in Canada] that the Komagata Maru should be memorialized as a Sikh event” (89). Rode and Singh, in their insistence on showing that the passengers aboard the ship were barred from Canada because they were Indian, remember the tragedy as a shared struggle that cuts across communal (or religious) divisions. In Figure 12.1, for instance, we can see an image of the passengers aboard the ship as they arrive in Vancouver. Among the Sikh men, identifiable by their beards and turbans, is an image of a Muslim man in a fez and a clean-shaven Hindu man sporting a Gandhi cap. Suggested is the cosmopolitan Indian nation, and the Komagata Maru incident emerges as a struggle that links Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs against oppression and racial injustice. In another image, Rode and Singh capture the diversity of the shore committee, a historical collectivity composed of Indians living in British Columbia who sought to help the passengers. This image presents three men from the shore committee discussing the voyage and shows that, though two of the men are identifiable as Sikh, one, who appears to be the historical figure of Husain Rahim, is wearing a kind of turban that deliberately marks him as Hindu. By documenting such detail, Rode and Singh are careful to suggest that diasporic pasts should be memorialized in ways that draw attention to the differences of those involved. The exhibit seems to suggest that, for members of the South Asian Canadian community, one way of coming to terms with the experience of loss and exclusion is by memorializing the ideas of community and collective struggle. Thus, one painting presents an account of members of the South Asian community ashore offering food and supplies to the starving passengers aboard the ship. The image is composed of dark shades of blue and grey, which suggests that the men were forced to deliver the rations at night to conceal from Canadian officials their efforts to help their fellow countrymen. Rode’s narrative accompaniment adds another dimension to the image. Rode imagines a letter written by Gurdit Singh

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Figure 12.1  Painting by Jarnail Singh. The image depicts the passengers arriving in Vancouver. | Courtesy of Ajmer Rode and Jarnail Singh.

to the governor general of Canada. In the letter, Singh expresses his concern that the passengers are starving: “The food situation worsened on Komagata Maru. SIMPLY NO FOOD. Some passengers will die if the situation continues.” The phrase in capital letters emphasizes the passengers’ suffering. The letter, juxtaposed with the painting, suggests that the shore committee and the passengers aboard the ship were forced to form an alliance not only against racism in Canada but also against British imperial rule in India. Drawing attention to the transnational dimensions of the Komagata Maru incident, the exhibit dramatizes and undermines the British Raj’s promise of equality: “They say every one is equal in the British Raj, lion and goat drink water side by side, milk flows in the rivers of Canada!” Here Rode and Singh seem to be asking us to see the incident not as a Canadian event but as an act of injustice tied to British imperialism and one that had global implications and consequences. Another image depicts the Indians ashore gathered at the gurdwara to help raise funds for the passengers. The gurdwara, historically a site of

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community gatherings, reinforces the notion of community and solidarity. Yet another image depicts three Indian men ashore discussing the struggle of the passengers. The narrative that accompanies the image reads “we are determined to keep the passengers here. If they are turned away because they are Indians, how can we hope to get respect for ourselves in this country, our new home?” The exhibit represents the incident both as a site of struggle and pain and as a site of potential healing. More importantly, it does so not only by documenting the suffering and alienation experienced by the passengers but also by drawing attention to a kind of compensatory narrative: thus, against the experience of exclusion, it presents examples of collaborative struggle and resistance. The exhibit not only partakes of the process of memorializing diasporic histories but also suggests explicitly that remembering the past is a matter of necessity. The written text that accompanies the paintings in the gallery reminds viewers that to forget the past runs the risk of repeating it. At the opening of the exhibit, the narrative reads that, “unless we realize the in­ justice done to the Komagata Maru passengers, unless we acknowledge our past mistakes, unless we purge racism and casteism from our conscience and social conduct, the phantom of the Komagata Maru will continue to haunt us.” Two things are worth noting here. First, the exhibit seems to insist on the importance of remembering the past in the present and of incorporating it into the national consciousness. Second, the reference to the injustice of caste draws attention to another important dimension of the event. As Rode (2012) noted in an interview, many of the passengers aboard the ship were high caste and wealthy, and some of them practised untouchability and caste prejudice in Punjab: It’s probably a bit of a touchy thing which never surfaces in our dialogues on Komagata Maru. What I meant was that these people on the Komagata Maru and from here, they were fighting against injustice and Canadian racism, and at the same time most of the people were doing the same thing: that is, committing the same crimes back in India against lower castes. So the Komagata Maru incident is very complicated.

The images in the exhibit – many of which depict the passengers wearing suits, vests, and ties – seem to support Rode’s statement: the men might have enjoyed a certain amount of (caste and class) privilege in relation to some of their fellow countrymen. The exhibit therefore offers a

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Figure 12.2  Painting by Jarnail Singh. The image depicts a woman and her child aboard the Komagata Maru. | Courtesy of Ajmer Rode and Jarnail Singh.

complex understanding of the incident, one that refuses to be reduced to a binaric struggle between “white Canadians” and “brown Hindus,” “perpetrators” and “victims”; it also suggests that the passengers can be neither cast as “abject victims” nor celebrated as “revolutionary heroes.” Yet the exhibit makes clear that barring the passengers was an act of racial injustice and that they suffered tremendous hardship at Canada’s border. The image of the woman and the child in Figure 12.2 is accompanied by a description directly below it: “Look at this child, hungry, thirsty, sick. Not a pinch of water, not a bit of bread.” As viewers, we are invited to see the image as a reminder of a documented historical reality: the passengers were often denied adequate food and water by Canadian officials determined to bar them from entry into Canada. Here Rode and Singh can be understood as building on the earlier work of Sharon Pollock (1976), whose play The Komagata Maru Incident depicts a mother and her child

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aboard the ship. However, whereas Pollock’s play empties out some of the political significance of the event by replacing the men with one woman and her unseen child, Rode and Singh’s exhibit presents a messier portrait of the past in which the suffering woman and her child exist alongside the men, both victims and (possibly) perpetrators of violence. Throughout the exhibit, Rode and Singh challenge the nation’s image of multicultural benevolence and point to its dark (and deliberately forgotten) history of racial violence. Thus, they depict images of the Canadian officials of the period and reconstruct the racist proclamations that were part of the public discourse in 1914. In one narrative account, we are told that the historical figure of H.H. Stevens, a Conservative MP, was “rabidly against any Indians landing on Canadian shores” and that, in one of his speeches made at Dominion Hall in Vancouver, he openly proclaimed that he intended “to stand up absolutely on all occasions on this one great principle – of a white country and a white British Columbia” (emphasis added). According to historian Peter Ward (1978, 91), Stevens was a “leading anti-Oriental spokesman,” and he publicly “voiced the central concern of west coast nativists, the belief that unassimilable Asian immigrants threatened the province’s cultural homogeneity.” By invoking the figure of Stevens, the Komagata Maru Stories exhibit draws attention to and documents the history of racism and violence against South Asians in Canada early in the twentieth century; it also forces us as viewers to acknowledge a past that the nation has tried to forget. But the exhibit also refuses to present the past in simple ways. It suggests, for instance, that, just as it is necessary to remember the men aboard the ship for any acts of injustice that they might have perpetrated, so too it is crucial to recall the violence perpetrated by the Canadian state. Perhaps more importantly, through the process of recalling such details, such complexities, Rode and Singh insist that the injustice was real, that the tragedy did in fact take place, and that we should remember it. Conclusion Rode and Singh’s exhibit in 2011 contributes to the archive of South Asian Canadian writing and art about the Komagata Maru case that I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, an archive that I would like to return to briefly here. Perhaps what surprised me the most was the diversity of texts that began to emerge on the incident. Initially, there were texts that we might expect – historical accounts, journalistic reports, literary fictions,

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and documentary films – but later the texts appeared in forms such as apologies, museum exhibits, websites, and so on. It seemed as though the more recent texts were building on the efforts of earlier writers and artists. Rode and Singh’s exhibit, for example, seemed to draw on and extend the earlier efforts of Pollock (1976). One particularly interesting “text” for me was the official apology issued by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2008 for the Komagata Maru incident. Official apologies, as I have argued elsewhere, constitute a form of state forgetting: in apologizing, the state seems to say “let’s get over the past and move on.” But these apologies, because they are forced to revisit the past, can shore up historical memory, even though that might not have been the intention. This is exactly what occurred in the aftermath of Harper’s 2008 apology: instead of closing off the past, the apology opened up a space for minorities to demand more adequate statements, for compensation, and ultimately for a nation that remembers (Somani 2011, 12–13). My point is that, if state attempts to forget past traumas serve to reinforce the nation’s image of goodness and civility, then minority acts of remembrance perform the opposite function: to question, subvert, and even rewrite Canada’s nationalist project. As we commemorate the centenary of the Komagata Maru incident, the archive of texts on South Asian Canadian traumas is growing with such proliferating force that the nation’s attempts to forget are being regularly thwarted and the hegemonic narrative of the nation swiftly undermined. I read this archive – this new body of texts – not only as an attempt to resurrect and memorialize a hidden past but also as part of an ongoing struggle to expose the history of colonialism and racial inequality in Canada, to redefine the relationship between the nation and its minority communities, and above and beyond to unsettle the hegemonic core of the Canadian nation.





Notes 1 A proliferation of texts about the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in 1985 has also appeared in recent years. In fact, texts such as Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? (2006) and Kazimi’s Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru (2012) refer to both the 1914 event and the 1985 bombing. Thus, though I focus here on representations of the Komagata Maru case, the logic that applies to representations of the former tragedy extends to representations of the latter tragedy. 2 Lower (1947, 446), for example, mentions and justifies the Chinese Exclusion Act: “Even before its completion the Canadian Pacific Railway had begun to arrange for

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steamer service across the Pacific. Most of the British Columbian sections of the road had been built by Chinese labour and that experience had decided British Columbians that the Asiatic was not going to be allowed to crowd into their province and swamp its white population. Against the Chinese, Canada built up such defenses as the ‘head-tax.’” 3 I thank Ajmer Rode and Jarnail Singh for generously allowing me to use images from the exhibit and for discussing their work with me. The images in this chapter were republished in a book titled A Journey with the Endless Eye: Stories of the Komagata Maru Incident (Rode and Singh 2014).

References Althusser, Louis. 1971. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation).” In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays by Louis Althusser, translated by Ben Brewster, 85–126. New York: Monthly Review Press. Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Badami, Anita Rau. 2006. Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? Toronto: Knopf Canada. Bhabha, Homi K. 1990. “DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation.” In Nation and Narration, edited by Homi K. Bhabha, 291–320. London: Routledge. Bumsted, J.M. 1998. A History of the Canadian Peoples. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Coleman, Daniel. 2006. White Civility: The Literary Project of English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Conrad, Margaret, and Alvin Finkel. 2003. Canada: A National History. Toronto: Longman. Creighton, Donald. 1959. The Story of Canada. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. –. 1971. The Story of Canada. 2nd ed. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. Finkel, Alvin, Margaret Conrad, and Cornelius Jaenen. 1993. History of the Canadian Peoples: Beginnings to 1867. Vol. 1. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman. Finkel, Alvin, Margaret Conrad, and Veronica Strong-Boag. 1993. History of the Canadian Peoples: 1867 to the Present. Vol. 2. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1983. “Introduction.” In The Invention of Tradition, edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 1–14. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Kazimi, Ali. 2012. Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. Lower, Arthur. 1947. Colony to Nation: A History of Canada. Toronto: Longmans, Green. Malik, Tariq. 2010. Chanting Denied Shores: The Komagata Maru Narratives. Calgary: Bayeux Arts. Osborne, Ken. 2003. “Teaching History in Schools: A Canadian Debate.” Curriculum Studies 35, 5: 585–626. Pollock, Sharon. 1976. The Komagata Maru Incident. 2nd ed. Toronto: Playwrights Co-Op. Riendeau, Roger. 2007. A Brief History of Canada. 2nd ed. New York: Facts on File. Rode, Ajmer. 2012. Interview with Alia Somani. December 12. Rode, Ajmer, and Jarnail Singh. 2011. Komagata Maru Stories. Exhibit, Newton Cultural Centre, Surrey, BC. –. 2014. A Journey with the Endless Eye: Stories of the Komagata Maru Incident. Victoria, BC: Ekstasis Editions.

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Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Somani, Alia. 2011. “The Apology and Its Aftermath: National Atonement or the Management of Minorities?” Postcolonial Text 6, 1: 1–18. http://postcolonial.org/ index.php/pct/article/view/1216. Srikanth, Rajini. 2002. “The Komagata Maru: Memory and Mobilization among the South Asian Diaspora in North America.” In Re/collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History, edited by Josephine Lee, Imogene L. Lim, and Yuko Matsukawa, 78–94. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Ward, Peter. 1978. White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy towards Orientals in British Columbia. 3rd ed. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

13

The Politics of Empire Minor History on a Global Scale Renisa Mawani

In Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1986) reread Franz Kafka’s work in new and stimulating ways. Aimed at radically challenging conventional inter­pret­ ations of his oeuvre, their book advances broader philosophical arguments on language, power, taxonomy, and genre. Kafka’s work, they claim, defies pre-existing categories. Deleuze and Guattari introduce the concept of “minor literature” as a way to describe the many elements and dimensions of Kafka’s writing. “The three characteristics of minor literature,” as they explain it, “are the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation” (18). For Deleuze and Guattari, minor literature is not solely about content but also form. Kafka’s writing challenges the bounded­ ness of literature and thereby exceeds the closure of disciplinary categorization. “We might as well say that minor no longer designates specific literatures,” they clarify, “but the revolutionary conditions for every literature within the heart of what is called great (or established) literature” (18). Their reflections on minor literature, as I suggest below, open important methodological reorientations for how we conceptualize, imagine, and rewrite history, including histories of the British-built and Japanese-owned SS Komagata Maru. Several scholars have read and interpreted Deleuze and Guattari’s reflections as an invitation that moves beyond Kafka’s work and the field of literature more broadly. Minor literature invokes critical methods, including innovations and orientations that can be extended and deployed in other fields. The past several years have witnessed a series of new “minors,” 280

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including “minor jurisprudence” and “minor history” (Goodrich 1996; Minnkinen 1994; Stoler 2009; Tomlins 2015). If minor jurisprudence seeks to provincialize law’s claims to sovereignty and authority by conceptualizing legal knowledges as “plural, subaltern, and subversive” (Tomlins 2015, 242), minor history is equally disruptive in its intention and approach. It calls into question what counts as historical knowledge and as “History” more generally. For Ann Laura Stoler (2009), “‘minor’ histories should not be mistaken for trivial ones. Nor are they iconic, mere microcosms of events played out elsewhere on a larger central stage.” Rather, minor history, as Stoler conceives it, “marks a differential political temper and a critical space. It attends to structures of feeling and force that in ‘major’ history might be otherwise displaced” (7). In this reading, minor history recuperates not only plural and subaltern histories but also traces of history that might be unseen, forgotten, ignored, and/or submerged. This form of minor history, inspired largely by Deleuze and Guattari’s (1986) interventions, resonates deeply with other historiographical challenges. In a 1993 lecture, delivered nearly a decade after the Englishlanguage publication of their book on Kafka, Ranajit Guha (2002), the founder of subaltern studies, formulated the term “small histories” as an alternative method of writing history. Guha was responding to the colonial and statist approaches that continued to dominate Indian historiography. “The small voice of history” was to disrupt the dominant protagonists of history (elite men) for the marginal figures of historiography, including women, peasants, and the subaltern. These small histories were to interrupt conventional versions of history, “breaking up its storyline and making ‘a mess of its plot’” (316). This reorientation – from a top-down history to a history from below – was as much about the form of history writing as it was about its content. The unruliness of small histories, Guha speculated, “will force the narrative to stutter in an articulation instead of delivering in an even flow of words” (317). One objective was to challenge the teleology of colonial and statist histories: “Perhaps the linearity of its progress will dissolve in loops and tangles; perhaps chronology itself, the sacred cow of historiography[,] will be sacrificed at the alter of a capricious, quasi-Puranic time which is not ashamed of its cyclicality” (317). The small voice of history was to usher in a “new historiography sensitized to the undertones of despair and determination in woman’s voice, the voice of a defiant subalternity committing to writing its own history” (317).

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Despite the clear echoes between minor literature and the small voice of history, the two approaches are imagined from different starting points and with distinct arcs. For Guha (2002), small histories were aimed at re­cuperating minor historical figures that demanded a search for new archives and novel modes of reading. Deleuze and Guattari (1986), by contrast, were never interested in recuperating a lost figure of literature. Rather, they were driven by genre – how to categorize and think through Kafka’s writing and the works of others who write minor literature in major languages. A minor history, unlike a small one, is not necessarily a history from below. It takes a corpus of work and follows its disruptions and disorientations. The voyage of the Komagata Maru, like Kafka’s writings, might be one such event. Beginning with the ship – and following its routes through space and time – defies the conventional genres of historiography. The moving ship exceeds categorization. To be sure, the voyage of 376 migrants from Punjab looks very different from Canada, from India, and from the undulating Pacific and Indian Oceans between (Mawani 2018). Following Deleuze and Guattari, minor history, we might say, offers a method of writing that directly challenges systems of classification and scale, including the imposed spatial distinctions among national, imperial, regional, and global histories, impositions that are often unravelled through the movements of people, objects, and processes under study. In their reflections on Kafka, Deleuze and Guattari (1986) were primarily concerned with demonstrating how his work was conceptualized and categorized in literature and as literature. Minor literature, as they formulate it, offers one way to enter the labyrinth of Kafka’s work “without being weighted down by the old categories of genres, types, modes and style” (Bensmaia 1986, xiv). Following their concerns with radical and subversive readings, minor history, as I develop it here, attends not only to affective histories that are marginal, forgotten, displaced, or unseen. Perhaps more importantly, minor history actively challenges structures that constrain ways of approaching and writing history. Minor histories are rhizomatic, to borrow once again from Deleuze and Guattari (1987). They are neither singular nor plural. These are histories of movement that crosscut time and space and cannot be easily contained, arrested, or pinned down. In other words, they exceed the frame. These are living histories, evolving as they are written, revealing the inadequacies and constraints of taxonomy, temporality, division, and periodization.

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Taken together, the chapters in this book present the voyage of the Komagata Maru as an example of minor history on a global scale. Beginning in different geographical locations, emphasizing distinct points in history, and drawing on historical and literary archives, the contributors characterize the ship as a moving and evolving history, one critical to Can­ada, India, and the British Empire, and a journey that traverses past/present/ future and national/regional/imperial boundaries. How does one write the history of a ship that had many lives and was mired in imperial and inter-imperial jurisdictional struggles among Canada, Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, and India? How does one recall the significance of its 1914 voyage, its role in transforming Canadian immigration policy and in inspiring an unprecedented Indian national security regime? How does one narrate the voyage of a ship that crossed the Pacific and Indian Oceans, thus situating it firmly within global and inter-imperial contexts, but without losing sight of its regional specificity? To write such a history, I suggest, is to refuse “old categories of genres, types, modes and style” (Bensmaia 1986, xiv). The chapters in this volume do just that. They invite new ways of rethinking and rewriting the journey of the Komagata Maru by placing the voyage in longer and wider geographical and historical contexts within and across national and imperial boundaries. To date, the ship’s passage has been weighted down by the genre of national history. Over the past decade, the voyage has generated considerable scholarly and creative attention in Canada, an interest that has only proliferated since the centenary celebrations of 2014, out of which this volume and at least one other have emerged (see Bhanga and Grewal forthcoming). Much of the existing scholarship on the Komagata Maru, its passengers, and their movements from Hong Kong to Vancouver has centered on histories of immigration law, Canadian racism, and the resilience of South Asian communities along Canada’s west coast (Johnston 2014; Kazimi 2004, 2012; Macklin 2010; Price and Bains 2014). The ship’s journey has become iconic in a double sense. First, it is routinely called forth as an “incident” that potently illustrates the long history of racial exclusions in Canada, as evidenced in legislation directed at migrants from India and elsewhere. Second, the Komagata Maru is evoked as a touchstone that marks the historical and ongoing resistance of South Asian communities in British Columbia and beyond. Building on these important insights, the chapters in this volume draw attention to the historical, contemporary,

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and ongoing implications of the voyage in novel and even subversive ways. Several authors situate the ship in other temporalities, exploring the effects of indenture regimes on “free” Indian migration (Mongia), echoing this 1914 voyage in more recent arrivals of other migrant ships (Hasan et al.), and finding traces of older racial exclusions in other regimes of bor­ der regulation, including Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (Bhandar). Others point to the significance of the Komagata Maru in Japan and its importance within anticolonial networks in early-twentiethcentury Calcutta (Chattopadhyay; Mizukami). Two additional contributors examine how the voyage was represented elsewhere in the British Empire through the production and circulation of transnational print culture (Fletcher; Spector-Marks). In addition to broadening histories of the ship and its implications, several of the contributors invite new methodological approaches through the creative excavation of other archives (Hameed). Together the contributors challenge existing accounts of the ship in ways that unmoor the vessel from Canadian national histories and move beyond disciplinary divisions as well as geographical and temporal divides. In the growing body of scholarship on the vessel, its passengers, and its transpacific voyage, the Komagata Maru is still commonly and problematically described as an “incident.” This claim depends on perspective and scale. Whereas exclusion of the passengers can be regarded as one incident among many in Canada’s history, with the explicit legal objective of creating a “white Canada forever” (Kazimi 2004), its effects were much wider, deeply entangled with geopolitics and biopolitics and cemented through global expressions and manifestations of racial power. Shortly after the passengers were deported from Vancouver Harbour, and while the vessel was still at sea, the First World War commenced. The arrival of the ship outside Calcutta was met with new and coercive legislation – the Ingress into India Ordinance and the Foreigners Ordinance, passed within one week of each other – that granted Indian authorities the ability to arrest, register, detain, and imprison anyone suspected of anticolonial activities while abroad (Mawani 2018; Sohi 2014). Accounts of 1914 have been dominated by histories of the Great War. However, it was also a devastating year for Indians in the subcontinent and across the diaspora. The effects of the passengers’ deportation from Vancouver Harbour to Dia­mond Harbour reached far beyond Canada and India and extended well beyond 1914. The ship’s passage produced additional forms of imperial surveillance, coercive legal regimes, and new strands of Indian

The Politics of Empire

radicalism that continued and even proliferated well after the war ended (Chatto­padhyay 2016, and this volume; Mawani 2018). To capture these effects, the journey might be reread and retold rhizomatically, not as an incident, but as a minor history on a global scale. The journey of the Komagata Maru cannot be narrated or understood solely through a national frame alone. The ship’s arrival in Vancouver and then Calcutta laid the groundwork for violent legal regimes that would have profound implications for Indians travelling to Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. Although the voyage, as Gurdit Singh had intended it, was to challenge restrictions on Indian mobility across the British Empire, it produced additional legalities that imposed further limits on those seeking to enter and exit the subcontinent. The Ingress into India Ordinance and the Foreigners Ordinance were not repealed until 1922, after Singh was arrested and imprisoned (Mawani 2018). These juridical developments remain hidden when we conceive of the ship as an incident that unfolded only in Canadian history. To be sure, the sources, evidence, and archives that scholars draw from often determine historical frames, whether national, regional, or global. In their efforts to prevent the Komagata Maru from landing in Van­couver Harbour, Canadian authorities produced a plethora of writings – memos, correspondence, statutes, and cases – that were reported on and often drew extensive commentary in newspapers across the British Empire. Yet much of the existing scholarship draws from archival repositories at the City of Vancouver, University of British Columbia Special Collections, Simon Fraser University, and Library and Archives Canada. Since 2011, many of these records have been digitized and are now widely available on Komagata Maru: Continuing the Journey, a website developed in a collaboration between Simon Fraser University and Citizenship and Im­ migration Canada. By making records easily accessible to researchers, students, and other public history enthusiasts, the website has generated considerable interest in the history of the ship. Although the site is an invaluable resource that contains government and community documents, and is continually updated with new information from South Asian and Punjabi communities, it shapes how histories of the ship are written today and possibly in the future. Rather than undermining national frames and expanding the vessel’s wider significance in India and the British Em­pire, the Komagata Maru website might inadvertently reinforce the voyage as a “Canadian incident,” depending on how sources are assembled,

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approached, and read. Minor history demands new archives and modes of reading that reject the boundedness of the nation-state. Importantly, several chapters in this volume break from the reliance on Canadian archives and sources, offering new histories to counter those we already know. Some contributors have sought alternative repositories – both historical and fictional – through which to explore the voyage of the Komagata Maru. Kaori Mizukami moves away from official correspondence between colonial authorities and bureaucrats, which has long been privileged in histories of the ship. Instead, she foregrounds the writings of Yokichi Shiozaki, co-owner of the Komagata Maru, who accompanied the vessel on its journey from Hong Kong to Vancouver. Others, including Ayesha Hameed, Tariq Malik, and Rajender Kaur, reimagine the ship’s passage through novels, films, and poems that expand its histories and memories to include creative readings and writings. Their chapters illuminate how a single ship, chartered by Gurdit Singh in 1914, and which journeyed across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, joined histories of colonial rule and anticolonial dissent in different parts of the empire with other struggles, both historical and contemporary. The book recasts the voyage of the Komagata Maru from a national incident to a global event that continues to echo on multiple registers: in the “migrant crises” in the Mediterranean and, more directly, in relation to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s apology in Parliament to South Asian Canadians. Given the recent proliferation of scholarship on the Komagata Maru, one might ask what more can be said about the voyage? Is there anything else to be written, or do we know everything there is to know about the vessel, its passengers, and its effects? Are there other histories, archives, and memories that need to be recovered and explored? The response is a resounding yes. Several of the contributors to this volume point to archives and language sources that require further exploration. Others invite us to revisit existing sources with new questions regarding the connections between imperial projects, whether colonial and/or settler colonial. If Mizukami’s chapter highlights the significance of Japaneselanguage sources, Chattopadhyay’s chapter points to the importance of Indian archives – in her case the State Archives of West Bengal – in connecting the history of the Komagata Maru to other anticolonial struggles in interwar Calcutta. Complementing one another, Ian Fletcher and Irina Spector-Marks highlight the global significance of the Komagata Maru through early-twentieth-century print culture, joining the ship to other

The Politics of Empire

jurisdictions in the British Empire and to additional histories of exclusion and struggle. When read together, these chapters make clear that the ship was not just an incident. Rather, it was an event that carried substantial consequences for many places in the British Empire, including Canada and India, as my brief mention of the Ingress into India Ordinance and the Foreigners Ordinance suggests, but also Hong Kong and South Africa. Although the Komagata Maru was a single ship that travelled a specific route, from Hong Kong to Shanghai, Moji to Yokohama, and Vancouver to Calcutta, its effects were far reaching. The ship evoked and conjoined longer histories of transatlantic slavery, Indian indenture, and Indigenous dispossession, connecting the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans (see, in this volume, Bhandar; Hasan et al.; and Mongia; see also Mawani 2018). In light of the chapters by Fletcher and Chattopadhyay, which highlight the importance of the Komagata Maru in India through print culture and anticolonial networks, respectively, it is perhaps surprising that the ship has received so little attention in colonial histories of the subcontinent and in accounts of struggles for Indian independence. To be clear, Punjab historians have been at the forefront of translating Punjabi sources into English and rethinking the ship’s journey in terms of anticolonial insurgency (Tatla 2012; Waraich and Sidhu 2005). Since the ship’s centenary anniversary, Indian scholars beyond Punjab have expressed a growing interest in recuperating the ship as an important though largely forgotten part of Indian colonial history (Bhanga and Grewal forthcoming). The significance of the Komagata Maru in Punjab and elsewhere in the subcontinent is one of many areas that still require further study. Situating the ship in colonial Punjab and Calcutta, for example, invites additional consideration of important regional divides as well as India’s significance in other jurisdictions of British imperial control (Metcalf 2008). It encourages a vital rethinking of the historical connections between colony and settler colony and between migrants and Indigenous peoples as conjoined histories that defy national borders (Lowe 2015; Mawani 2009, 2014). To situate the voyage of the Komagata Maru within other colonial histories will certainly unmoor the ship from Canada. In so doing, it might open additional ways to connect what appear to be dissimilar and disparate histories of colonial dispossession over time and across space. When the passengers arrived in Vancouver Harbour, many of their supporters were well aware of the long-standing efforts aimed at legally and politically dispossessing Indigenous peoples from their ancestral and unceded

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territories. Insisting that the land did not belong to the Dominion of Can­ ada, critics and onlookers urged that the passengers should be permitted to land. The dominion had no jurisdiction over the land in question, some claimed; Indigenous peoples remained the rightful owners (Mawani 2012). As legal historians Shaunnagh Dorsett and John McLaren (2014) point out, scholarship on the British Empire needs to focus on the movements and circulations within and across colonial and settler colonial contexts. Following these suggestions, we might question how the deraci­nation of Punjabi farmers overlapped and intersected with Indigenous dispossession in British Columbia. Situating the ship within a wider global, colonial, and imperial context can shed light on these shared projects of territorial dispossession and on the anticolonial struggles these processes generated. It expands the ship’s voyage and its importance beyond Canada and India, British Columbia and Punjab. Rethinking the Komagata Maru through other histories and geographies asks us to reconsider the wider objectives and longer consequences of British imperial legalities and policies: how authorities taxonomized and divided peoples and communities in ways that continue to lead to conflict, struggle, and solidarities today. The contributors to this volume push us to move in this direction, both in terms of content and form. Just as Kafka’s literature as minor literature, the voyage of the Komagata Maru as minor history might become a “rallying point or model” for writing history more generally (Bensmaia 1986, xiv). Note Acknowledgment: Many thanks are due to the contributors to this volume for their wonderful chapters. I would also like to thank Davina Bhandar and especially Radhika Mongia for comments on earlier drafts. References Bensmaia, Reda. 1986. “Foreword: The Kafka Effect.” In Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, ix–xxii. Translated by Dana Polan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bhanga, Indu, and Jaspal Grewal, eds. Forthcoming. The Komagata Maru: Context, Significance, Legacy. Patiala, India: Punjabi University Press. Chattopadhyay, Suchetana. 2016. “Closely Observed Ships.” South Asian Diaspora 8, 2: 203–22. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1986. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Translated by Dana Polan. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. –. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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Dorsett, Shaunnagh, and John McLaren. 2014. “Law’s Engagements and Legacies: The Legal Histories of the British Empire: An Introduction.” In Legal Histories of the British Empire: Laws, Engagements, and Legacies, edited by Shaunnagh Dorsett and John McLaren, 1–12. Abingdon, UK: Routledge-Glasshouse. Goodrich, Peter. 1996. Law in the Courts of Love: Literature and Other Minor Jurisprudences. London: Routledge. Guha, Ranajit. 2002. The Small Voice of History: Collected Essays. Delhi: Permanent Black. Johnston, Hugh. 2014. The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar, Expanded and Fully Revised Edition. Vancouver: UBC Press. Kazimi, Ali, dir. 2004. Continuous Journey. Produced in association with TV Ontario with the assistance of the South Asian Heritage Foundation. Peripheral Visions Film and Video, Toronto. –. 2012. Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru: An Illustrated History. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. Lowe, Lisa. 2015. The Intimacies of Four Continents. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Macklin, Audrey. 2010. “Historicizing Narratives of Arrival: The Other Indian Other.” In Storied Communities: Narratives of Contact and Arrival in Constituting Political Com­ munity, edited by Hester Lessard, Rebecca Johnson, and Jeremy Webber, 40–67. Vancouver: UBC Press. Mawani, Renisa. 2009. Colonial Proximities: Crossracial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871–1921. Vancouver: UBC Press. –. 2012. “Specters of Indigeneity in British Indian Migration, 1914.” Law and Society Review 46, 2: 369–403. –. 2014. “Law as Temporality: Colonial Politics and Indian Settlers.” University of California Irvine Law Review 4, 1: 101–30. –. 2018. Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in the Time of Empire. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Metcalf, Thomas. 2008. Imperial Connections: India in the Indian Ocean Arena, 1860–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press. Minnkinen, Panu. 1994. “The Radiance of Justice: On the Minor Jurisprudence of Franz Kafka.” Social and Legal Studies 3: 349–63. Price, John, and Satwinder Bains. 2014. “The Extraordinary Story of the Komagata Maru: Commemorating the One Hundred Year Challenge to Canada’s Immigration Colour Bar.” Asia-Pacific Journal 11, 29, 1: n.p. http://apjjf.org/2014/11/29/John-Price/ 4149/article.html. Sohi, Seema. 2014. Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America. New York: Oxford University Press. Stoler, Ann Laura. 2009. Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tatla, Darshan Singh. 2012. Voyage of the Komagata Maru or Indian Slavery Abroad. New Delhi: Unistar Books and Punjab Centre for Migration Studies. Tomlins, Christopher. 2015. “Law as ... III – Glossolalia: Toward a Minor (Historical) Jurisprudence.” University of California Irvine Law Review 5: 239–61. Waraich, Malwinderjit Singh, and Gurdev Singh Sidhu. 2005. Komagata Maru: A Challenge to Colonialism: Key Documents. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books.

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Poems Still Chanting Denied Shores Tariq Malik

Fate of All Tides Now Here we all are Sprawled across buckled rusting decks Our bloodlines stretching a century back To this day Anxiously peering over shoulders At what might have been The waiting The shouting The wringing of hands Has finally been silenced Mercifully Hidden behind the western horizon Is what awaits us at Buj Buj The first deafening volley has already been fired In the first imperial war Our silences can no longer echo here Yet Twice daily the tides continue Ebbing and cresting in exhalation The crescent waxing Waning into the night The fate of all tides is to return Will not this rising tide Lift my boat as well as yours? 290

Poems 291

Refugee Banished from Kuwait during the first Gulf War and crossing over into Turkish Mosul from Iraqi Zakhu, we could carry our belongings no further. We tore our family photos out of their frames. A handful tossed Iraqi currency into the waters below. Thus it was At the Iraqi border town of Zakhu Our displaced refugee lines snaked through ancient valleys Around us towns lay razed obliterated In wanton acts of retaliation When you gas a village And bulldoze its inhabitants Only the tile work of the floors remains Even here There were messages Keening in the wind Taut across rusted barbed wires Echoing Ancient armies have crept through these fissures Only twisted molten stones remain Attesting to this knowledge The wells are poisoned The fields salted And you are not the last To pass this way.

292 Malik

X Marks the Spot Cartographic dotted lines connect Point A to B Point A in Punjab To Point B in One-Coover 15,000 miles apart And now Only fifteen hundred impossible feet away The shore And Point X From midstream stranded ship To beckoning shore Was that on any map? Factored in some overlooked equation Marking the point of isolation Midstream exclusion? Today Where minnows stipple the water’s surface “X” marks this spot Where an anchored rust bucket Was held captive for sixty days And nights The chants have long since been silenced The demands diminished The water holds no echo No memory Yet This remains a crime scene And the culprit is still at large Here Gurdit dreamt of a firestorm That would consume One-Coover Here a ship’s passenger watched humbled Indian crows Transformed into northern ravens

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“X” marks the spot Where a battle cry once echoed Where rust bled into water Interlaced with salt “X” marks the spot Where grown men wept For soil beneath their feet The deck heaves Yearning Against the anchor I am the chosen raven Delivered Amongst your flock of prized pigeons I am the bunker coal Tossed at shiny people Mine the honed timber flotsam Hurled at your threats Mine the salt sprinkled into salinity Mine the blood spilled Clawing grasping At land’s edge Where saltwater encounters icecaps Mingles with melting icebergs Here the fresh-water shock Of numbed returning salmon Bumping into each other Offering up their bounty Gathering their strength for the next assault

294 Malik

Lost Edens Banished from homelands of flawed Edens Unable to sustain my dreams I have hugged shorelines Scaled entire continents There is no chasm I cannot cross with a single leap of faith I have endured gulag fortifications Been reinvented Reborn into new skins identities I have survived turmoil warfare persecution prejudice Don’t talk to me of the future I am barely able to survive my own obliterated personal history My invaded house in Kuwait during the invasion Littered with tossed books Missing my children’s toys I have walked away from graveyards And cremation sites of my ancestors My body smeared with their ashes Their mud still caking my bare feet A Ghadari baba had once sung Of breathing the dust of his homeland The dissolved bones of his elders I have lived far too long in no-man’s lands Where I had no business being At every step someone’s hand reaches into my pocket To get here I have sacrificed all that I could not carry upon myself I come here cloaked in imagined and colourful costumes I carry the lingering scent of curry turmeric ginger I adorn new skins I adopt new homelands Seek fresh opportunities dignity Denied to me in my birthplaces

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And Now And now If you ask me But where are you really really from My reply is I am from everywhere you are from Like you I am from Africa 40,000 years ago I thundered out of Eden Heading north by northeast And stumbled onto this continent 15,000 years ago in pursuing woolly mammoths Over southwards receding warmth I leapt across ice bridges and descended Into these raw unformed mountain valleys Shields fiords grasslands 100 years ago my ship rounded Brockton Point And came to an abrupt standstill Yet continued gathering steam for the final push We were to continue Tugging at our anchor for another 33 years Before the floodgates to this Eden Would eventually yield 5 days ago I crossed several imaginary dotted lines Descending into the Arrivals lounge at YVR 5 hours ago my car rolled over a speed bump At the Blaine-Vancouver check post 5 minutes ago I stepped off the ferry I should be home by now Yet I am not fully there Just a week from now On 23 June I shall clear the final 1,500 feet Between creaking ship tugging at its anchor And beckoning denied shore

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I shall wet my feet again in the Pacific And kiss that hallowed ground And hug that shore And then Only then Shall I belong Wherever I am

Appendix 1 Historical Figures Cited in the Chapters

The historical figures listed below are those referenced by the authors in their chapters rather than a comprehensive list of all the actors relevant to the journey of the Komagata Maru. Some figures are often deemed to be central in Canadian historiographies, but we have also included those deemed to be minor. As Renisa Mawani argues in the final chapter, “minor” historical figures can be significant on a global scale. It is interesting to note that few data have been collated thus far about those considered to be minor actors. Where data are available, we have included the years of birth and death. Bird, J. Edward (1868–1948) Bird was a Canadian barrister hired by the Vancouver Khalsa Diwan Society to represent the passengers of the Komagata Maru and to represent Munshi Singh, one of the passengers, at the test case. Bird was an advocate of equality and opposed the race-based immigration restrictions. Burrell, Martin (1858–1938) Burrell was a Conservative MP for Yale-Cariboo in British Columbia and the minister of agriculture required to report on the Komagata Maru situation in Vancouver to the prime minister. He was the senior government negotiator in discussions with immigration officials, city authorities, passengers, and the shore committee, and he brokered the agreement to give provisions to passengers before they were forced to depart.

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Cassidy, Robert Cassidy was co-counsel with Bird representing the passengers aboard the Komagata Maru seeking the right to land and stay in Canada. Dallas-Smith, Captain Dallas-Smith was assistant commandant of the Dacca Military Police Battalion, responsible for accompanying the passengers of the Komagata Maru under armed escort by train from Calcutta to Punjab. Hopkinson, William Charles (1880–1914) Hopkinson was the immigration inspector with the Canadian Immigration Branch who first boarded the Komagata Maru when it arrived in Van­couver Harbour. He was born and raised in India to an Indian father and a white mother and was an inspector of police in Calcutta. He openly provided intelligence to the British by monitoring Indian immigration and Indian nationalist activities along the Pacific Coast. He reported to the deputy minister of the interior in Ottawa and to the agent of the government of India in London. The US Immigration Service also retained him for surveillance. In October 1914, while at the provincial courthouse in Vancouver to testify for one of his informants, Bela Singh, Hopkinson was shot by Baba Mewa Singh, a known Ghadarite, who knew that Hopkinson had authorized the shooting deaths of two devout Sikhs in the gurdwara on West Second Avenue in September 1914. Baba Mewa Singh, and his accused accomplice, Sohan Lal Aulakh, faced trial for the murder. Kaur, Harman Kaur was the wife of Balwant Singh, who, with the work of Indians in Canada and having been involved in anticolonial activities in India, entered Canada in 1911. Kaur, Harnam Kaur was the wife of Bhagwan Singh, both of whom travelled on the Komagata Maru in 1914. Kaur, Kartar Kaur was the wife of Bhag Singh, who, with the work of Indians in Canada and having been involved in anticolonial activities in India, entered Canada in 1911.

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King, William Lyon Mackenzie (1874–1950) In 1908, King was the deputy minister of labour who travelled to India to assure the British Raj that Canada would restrict the movements of people from India and aid in suppressing anti-British activities. He also wrote a report on why Canada should oppose immigration from Asia, especially India, and argued that Canada should be a white man’s country for social, economic, political, and national reasons. He later became the prime minister of Canada, one of the country’s longest serving. McBride, Sir Richard (1870–1917) McBride was the premier of British Columbia at the time of the arrival of the Komagata Maru in Vancouver Harbour. Oliver, Frank (1853–1933) Oliver was the minister of the interior who increased the amount required for prospective immigrants to $200. Although the increase was not overtly based on culture, ethnicity, or nationality, the Immigration Act stipula­ted that the governor-in-council (i.e., the federal cabinet) could prohibit any class of immigrants whenever it was considered necessary or expedient. Petrie, David Petrie was a high-ranking police officer present at Budge Budge, Calcutta, during the confrontation with the Komagata Maru passengers. Rahim, Husain (1856–1937) Rahim was an active member of the Vancouver shore committee who, alongside Baba Bhag Singh, briefly took over the charter of the Komagata Maru after its arrival in Vancouver Harbour. As a member of the shore committee, Rahim managed funds raised for the passengers (he was accused of misappropriating some of these funds after the ship left Van­ couver). When Rahim arrived in Vancouver in 1910 on the SS Moana, he was arrested by Immigration Inspector Hopkinson. Rahim was a member of the Socialist Party of Canada and a suspected Ghadarite. But he successfully fought against his deportation and gained legal residency in Canada. While in Vancouver, he managed a real estate business run by local Sikhs, the Canada-India Supply and Trust Company. Rahim had spent time in India and Japan before moving to Canada. Although there

300 Appendix 1

is some contention about his background as a Hindu or Muslim, he was a descendant of a merchant family in Gujarat. Sarhali, Baba Gurdit Singh (1860–1954) His name appears multiple ways in historical and contemporary texts, including Sardar Gurdit Singh, Baba Gurdit Singh, Baba Gurdit Singh Sarhali; the most common usage is Gurdit Singh. Gurdit Singh was a businessman in Singapore and Malaya who chartered the Komagata Maru in 1914 to go to Canada. His son, Balwant Singh, travelled on the ship as a young boy. After the ship was forced to go back to Calcutta, British colonial authorities met the passengers, and a massacre took place at Budge Budge. Gurdit Singh escaped during this attack and remained underground until 1920, when he surrendered; he spent the next five years in prison. Shiozaki, Yokichi Shiozaki was the Japanese owner of the Komagata Maru and on board when the ship was detained in Vancouver Harbour. In 1936, Shiozaki wrote a short essay on the incident based on his experience entitled “Sekai no jimoku o shōdōseshi Komagata Maru jiken no shinsō” (The Actual Facts of the Komagata Maru Incident That Attracted Attention around the World). Singh, Balwant (1882–1917) Balwant Singh arrived in Vancouver in 1906 and became the first granthi (“priest”) of the Khalsa Diwan Society gurdwara. Like Bhag Singh, in 1911 he challenged Canadian immigration rules by bringing his wife and two children to Vancouver. He was successful, though authorities did not extend these family entry rights to all immigrants arriving from India. In 1913, Balwant Singh travelled from Canada to London as part of a delegation from the Indian community to protest Canada’s immigration rules. In 1914, he briefly travelled on the Komagata Maru from Moji to Yokohama, Japan, travelling back to Vancouver on a different ship. Other passengers reported that, while on the Komagata Maru, Balwant Singh distributed antiBritish material. He was on the shore committee. He was arrested and charged in Vancouver after Immigration Inspector Hopkinson’s murder.

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By the end of the year, Balwant Singh had left Canada and headed to Shanghai, then Thailand, where he extended his revolutionary, Ghadar Movement activities. In 1917, he was found guilty of conspiracy and sedition and executed by British authorities. Singh, Bela (1883–1934) Before arriving in Canada in 1906, Bela Singh was in the Sikh regiment. He opposed anti-British revolutionary activities among Sikhs and was a known informant for the Department of Immigration and Colonization in Vancouver, specifically for Immigration Inspector Hopkinson. His information was translated into English and shared with officials in Ottawa and London. He shot and killed Bhag Singh and Battan Singh and wounded five others in September 1914 in the Khalsa Diwan Society gurdwara. After two attempted convictions, he was acquitted. He testified at the trial of one of the men (Sohan Lal Aulakh) accused of aiding and abetting in the murder of Hopkinson. In 1916, he returned to India, at times sharing information with colonial authorities on anti-British activities and the radical Babbar Akali. He was murdered in 1934 in Punjab. Singh, Bhag (1872–1914) Bhag Singh was secretary of the Vancouver shore committee who, alongside Rahim Husain, briefly took over the charter of the Komagata Maru after its arrival in Vancouver Harbour. Before immigrating to Canada in 1906, he served in the Indian army cavalry, the Hong Kong police, and the Shanghai police. In 1911, Bhag Singh became well known to authorities after he (and Balwant Singh) won the right to bring their families from India. While the Komagata Maru was still in Vancouver Harbour, Bhag Singh, along with Balwant Singh and Harnam Singh, was arrested for carrying revolvers in the United States. He was released and returned to Vancouver soon after the ship left. On September 5, 1914, he (and Battan Singh) was killed in the shooting of seven men by Bela Singh in the Khalsa Diwan Society gurdwara. Singh, Chait Chait Singh was a resident of Calcutta investigated by British colonial authorities for his sympathies with the Ghadar Movement.

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Singh, Dewan Dewan Singh was living in Bengal when the Komagata Maru arrived in Calcutta. He was suspected of asking the Rajput infantry unit deployed to meet the passengers to rebel against the authorities. When they refused and he was caught, he was imprisoned. Singh, Mewa (1881–1915) Mewa Singh came to Canada in 1906 and was a granthi at the Khalsa Diwan Society gurdwara, and he supported the right of the Komagata Maru passengers to enter Canada. He was one of four Sikhs who had crossed the border to meet the Bengali activist Taraknath Das in the United States and to purchase revolvers. He was arrested by Canadian authorities on his return and found guilty of smuggling weapons. Immigration Inspector Hopkinson and Immigration Agent Malcolm Reid pressured Mewa Singh to give evidence against Sikh activists in Vancouver, which he partly did, leading to a fine but no prison time. He was released shortly after the Komagata Maru departed. Three months later he shot Hopkin­son, whom he saw as the source of tensions within the Indian commun­ity and responsible for the shooting deaths of Bhag Singh and Battan Singh in the gurdwara. He was tried and hanged in New Westminster in Jan­uary 1915. Singh, Munshi (1888–?) Munshi Singh boarded the Komagata Maru in Yokohama in the hope of farming in Canada. He was selected to be the litigant in a test case in support of the passengers, represented by J. Edward Bird, who was given only a few hours to interview Munshi before the Immigration Board of Inquiry. The case went to the British Columbia Court of Appeal, which ruled that the Department of Immigration and Colonization was not subject to interference by the courts. After the ship arrived at Budge Budge in Calcutta, Munshi Singh was one of fifty-nine men who followed the orders of authorities to go directly to Punjab. Singh, Raghunath Raghunath Singh was a passenger and doctor on board the Komagata Maru travelling with his wife and six-year-old son. He was hired to be the

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ship’s doctor. He had been in Hong Kong with the India Service Medical Department serving as a subassistant surgeon. After much protest that he and his family were not emigrants, and that his leave from the military regiment in India was expiring, he was allowed to disembark the ship in Vancouver Harbour and permitted to stay with his family as a tourist. When he returned to India in 1915, while stationed in Punjab, he shared information with local colonial police authorities about radical Indians in Canada as well as passengers aboard the Komagata Maru then living in Punjab. Stevens, Harry (1876–1936) Stevens was a Conservative MP and vocal opponent of allowing the Komagata Maru passengers into Canada. He worked with Immigration Inspector Malcolm Reid to keep passengers on the ship, organized a public meeting to rally opposition to Indian immigration, and restricted food and supplies for the passengers. He also contacted Prime Minister Robert Borden after the passengers were given deportation orders but refused to leave Vancouver Harbour. Stevens asked for a naval ship to be sent to force the Komagata Maru to leave, authorized by British and Canadian officials on July 23, 2014. Williamson, Grit, and Davis A law firm in Hong Kong that advised Gurdit Singh that there were no restrictions on the immigration of Indians to Canada. Yamamoto, Tokujiro- (1881–?) Yamamoto became the captain on board the Komagata Maru in Kobe, Japan, after the owner of the ship, Shiozaki, got angry with the previous captain for recruiting the passengers. While detained in Vancouver Harbour, Yamamoto went ashore regularly and reportedly talked to Canadian officials, the Japanese consul in Vancouver, and the owners’ shipping agent. He remained captain on the journey to Calcutta and was detained there until after the Komagata Maru Committee of Inquiry completed its investigation in 1916.

304 Appendix 1

Passengers There are multiple passenger lists for the Komagata Maru. None is definitive since there are inconsistencies in the spelling of passengers’ names and places of origin. Some of the passengers had the same first names, and most had Singh as a last name. Also, the last name Singh does not necessarily mean that the passenger was a Sikh, since Hindus sometimes adopted Singh as a family name (e.g., Dr. Raghunath Singh, a Rajput Hindu). The order of names is listed as it appeared on the manifest. Singh, Assa Singh, Bhagat Singh, Achhar Singh, Arjan Singh, Sujan Singh, Indar Singh, Mit Singh, Baghel Singh, Narain Singh, Surain Singh, Inder Singh, Thaman Singh, Bur Singh, Hakam Singh, Harnam Singh, Lal Singh, Jawala Singh, Sawan Singh, Mangal Singh, Thakur Singh, Daljit Singh, Bhan Singh, Bir Singh, Dr. Raghunath Kaur, Kishen (wife of Dr. Raghunath) Singh, Nihal (son of Dr. Raghunath) Singh, Kartar

Singh, Harnam Singh, Amar Singh, Teja Singh, Kishan Singh, Rattan Singh, Lal Singh, Bansi Singh, Bhag Singh, Narain Singh, Rur Singh, Deva Singh, Dalip Singh, Chanda Rattan, Ram Singh, Gurdit Singh, Mall Singh, Naraung Singh, Nand Singh, Jehar Singh, Naraung Singh, Wadhava Singh, Gajjan Sing, Inshalla Singh, Indar Singh, Dyal Singh, Surain Singh, Beant Singh, Hira Singh, Pir

Singh, Ratan Singh, Paran Singh, Banta Singh, Mala Singh, Munsha Singh, Atar Singh, Sher Singh, Bagga Singh, Harnam Singh, Dalip Singh, Harbishan Mohammed, Khan Singh, Gulab Singh, Bela Singh, Nadur Singh, Shinhan Singh, Jahangir Singh, Dyal Singh, Kapur Bahaudin Singh, Narain Singh, Sapuran Singh, Indar Singh, Narain Singh, Khusha Singh, Hazara Singh, Sundar Singh, Narain Singh, Wazir

Historical Figures Cited in the Chapters 305

Singh, Nor Singh, Usham Singh, Rur Singh, Nar Singh, Harnam Singh, Ishor Singh, Arjan Singh, Chanda Singh, Bahal Singh, Bur Singh, Shinha Singh, Pal Singh, Bishan Khan, Gauhar (Gaur) Ali, Qasim Singh, Sher Singh, Ram Singh, Nand Singh, Munha Singh, Santa Singh, Harnam Singh, Chanda Singh, Bhagwan Khan, Amir Mohammed Singh, Husharia Singh, Sundar Singh, Sher Singh, Sarup Singh, Nand Ralla Singh, Munsha Singh, Kapur Singh, Pala Singh, Munsha Singh, Pratap Singh, Prem Singh, Bakhtar Khan, Anwar

Singh, Surain Singh, Sewa Singh, Kishan Singh, Kehar Singh, Bishan Singh, Gaibal Singh, Dogar Singh, Bhan Singh, Kehar Bhola Singh, Taihal Singh, Bhan Singh, Arjan Chand, Ram Singh, Suba Singh, Vir Singh, Dewa Mohammed, Mian Singh, Kehar Singh, Gurdit Singh, Bishan Singh, Thakar Singh, Panjab Singh, Shansher Singh, Bishan Singh, Pakbar Singh, Thakar Singh, Mangal Singh, Karam Yasin Singh, Arjan Hadyat Singh, Vir Singh, Sadhu Singh, Gurmukh Singh, Kehar Singh, Harnam Singh, Jand Singh, Bhagwan Singh, Bahadur Singh, Gobind

Singh, Sarup Alahi, Karam Singh, Malla Singh, Mall Singh, Indar Singh, Arjan Singh, Haji Singh, Jimand Singh, Sirkhuru Singh, Barkat Singh, Chanan Singh, Keshar Singh, Bhagwan Singh, Indar Ali Singh, Sundar Singh, Bir Singh, Sada Ramizan Singh, Hira Mohammed, Faqir Singh, Ram Singh, Budh Singh, Nand Singh, Hardit Singh, Ishar Singh, Badan Singh, Kishan Singh, Lal Singh, Khar Singh, Munsha Singh, Mehma Singh, Puran Singh, Jiwan Singh, Mangal Singh, Basant Singh, Jaingal Singh, Badan Khan, Sirkuru Khan, Aur

306 Appendix 1

Khan, Lakhraj Singh, Hir Ram, Gadhi Jawaya Singh, Indar Singh, Santa Singh, Indar Singh, Nanak Singh, Vir Singh, Bishan Singh, Ganda Singh, Gurdit Singh, Amar Singh, Dan Ram, Pohlo Singh, Harnam Singh, Santa Singh, Jiwan Singh, Rala Singh, Gurbhajan Singh, Jagat Singh, Partap Singh, Tara Singh, Kahal Singh, Indar Singh, Sota Singh, Phuman Singh, Shiv Singh, Ganesha Singh, Palla Singh, Ralla Singh, Bhag Singh, Rajinder Singh, Vir Singh, Mota Singh, Katar Singh, Mastu Singh, Parbha Singh, Bhagat

Singh, Ram Singh, Rai Singh, Kundar Singh, Basu Singh, Amrik Singh, Puran Singh, Bax Singh, Surain Singh, Kirpa Singh, Puran Singh, Kishan Singh, Natha Sher, Farek Ali, Bagh Mohamed, Sher Singh, Tara Singh, Lachman Singh, Kakh Singh, Bakhei Singh, Puran Singh, Mall Singh, Santokh Singh, Sundar Singh, Bijla Dad, Karam Singh, Amar Ramja Singh, Bachitar Munshi Singh, Palla Singh, Chanar Singh, Gurmurkh Singh, Balla Singh, Bhajan Singh, Ram Singh, Chanan Singh, Mongal Singh, Attar Singh, Jai

Singh, Narain Singh, Sundar Singh, Bishan Singh, Shar Singh, Sundar Singh, Serjan Singh, Sundar Singh, Mena Singh, Nanad Singh, Bedhi Singh, Sucha Singh, Lall Singh, Karam Singh, Indar Singh, Sundar Singh, Ajaib Singh, Natha Singh, Kehar Singh, Mahanga Singh, Mohan Singh, Dalip Singh, Indar Singh, Gay Singh, Bagga Ram, Karta Singh, Ishar Singh, Bhang Singh, Gawand Singh, Gal Singh, Ranjit Singh, Lucha Singh, Bahgel Singh, Harnam Singh, Santa Singh, Jati Singh, Sundar Kaur, Kishen (wife of the above)

Historical Figures Cited in the Chapters 307

Singh, Gunna Singh, Mangat Singh, Shirha Singh, Indar Singh, Laka Singh, Ayar Singh, Kirpa Singh, Fauja Singh, Pratap Singh, Kera Singh, Kishan Singh, Assa Singh, Wazir Singh, Harnam Singh, Sher Singh, Bhagat Singh, Kehu Singh, Dan Singh, Ghagar

Singh, Kartar Singh, Mastan Singh, Harnam Singh, Prem Singh, Nand Singh, Buta Singh, Dhian Singh, Mastan Singh, Mit Singh, Mit Singh, Sundar Singh, Bela Singh, Chet Singh, Indar Singh, Kishan Singh, Kakar Singh, Mana Singh, Partap Singh, Maya

Singh, Bahadar Singh, Gaudesha Singh, Chanan Singh, Santa Singh, Paran Singh, Gurmukh Singh, Darblajan Singh, Bachan Singh, Fauja A baby girl Singh, Nabt Kamal Thandy Singh, Gurdit S. (charterer) Singh, Bant (son of above) Singh, Santa

Shore Committee Members Aulakh, Sohan Lal Singh:  one of the men injured when Bela Singh opened fire in the Khalsa Diwan Society gurdwara; he later served as secretary of the United India League, an umbrella organization for all Indian nationals in British Columbia, and was a correspondent with the revolutionary Ghadar Party in San Francisco. He also faced trial for abetting, counselling, and procuring Mewa Singh, who shot Immigration Inspector W.C. Hopkinson. Muhammed, Akbar:  previously a member of the Hong Kong police and later a Ghadar Party member. Rahim, Husain:  took over the ship’s charter from Gurdit Singh; he was a member of the Socialist Party of Canada and set up a special committee of the Socialist Party for Indians. Singh, Balwant:  later a Ghadar Party member. Singh, Bhag:  took over the ship’s charter from Gurdit Singh; shot by Bela Singh in 1914.

308 Appendix 1

Singh, Gurdit:  active in the Hindustani Home Rule League of Canada, the Doaba Sudar Society of Canada, fundraising in the United States for Sikh nationalist Bhagat Singh’s legal defence, and later the Indian National Congress movement and Babbar Akali movement in India. Singh, Kartar:  arrested in 1914 for having Mewa Singh murder Hopkinson but released; in 1915, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Lahore Conspiracy case involving anti-British activities. Singh, Mewa:  acquainted with those supporting Indian independence and colonial informants and responsible for shooting Hopkinson. Singh, Mitt:  present when Bela Singh opened fire in the Khalsa Diwan Society gurdwara and later active in the Babbar Akali movement in India. References Simon Fraser University (SFU). 2011. Komagata Maru: Continuing the Journey. Digital archives. http://komagatamarujourney.ca/. Singh, Gurdit. (1928) 2007. Voyage of Komagata Maru, or India’s Slavery Abroad. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books and Punjab Centre for Migration Studies. Waraich, Malwinderjit Singh, and Gurdev Singh Sidhu. 2005. Komagata Maru: A Challenge to Colonialism: Key Documents. Chandigarh, India: Unistar Books.

Appendix 2 BC Government Apology, May 23, 2008

On May 23, 2008, the Province of British Columbia introduced and endorsed a motion to apologize formally for the events of May 23, 1914, when 376 Indian passengers on the Komagata Maru were denied entry into Canada. Motion No. 62, as moved by Michael de Jong, government house leader, reads thus: Be it resolved that this Legislature apologizes for the events of May 23, 1914, when 376 passengers of the Komagata Maru, stationed off Vancouver harbour, were denied entry to Canada. The House deeply regrets that the passengers, who sought refuge in our country and our province, were turned away without benefit of the fair and impartial treatment befitting a society where people of all cultures are welcomed and accepted.

Reference Government of British Columbia. 2008, May 23. Official Report of Debates of the Legislative Assembly (Hansard) 34, 4: 12790. https://www.leg.bc.ca/Pages/BCLASS-Legacy.aspx #%2Fcontent%2Flegacy%2Fweb%2F38th4th%2Fvotes%2Fv080521.htm.

309

Appendix 3 Canadian Government Apology, May 18, 2016

On May 18, 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized in the House of Commons on behalf of the Canadian government for the Komagata Maru incident. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by acknowledging the hard work done by many of my colleagues. From my own caucus, I’d like to thank the Members from Surrey-Newton and Winnipeg North for their tireless advocacy. They have petitioned the Canadian government for years to make the apology that will be made today. I thank them for their commitment to this cause. From the Opposition benches, special mention must be made of the Members from Calgary Heritage, Calgary Midnapore and the former Member for Surrey North. Each deserves recognition for the work they have done to seek resolution for victims and their families. As do the many organizations that have sought the same, in particular, the Professor Mohan Singh Memorial Foundation. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in this House to offer an apology on behalf of the Government of Canada, for our role in the Komagata Maru incident. More than a century ago, a great injustice took place. On May 23, 1914, a steamship sailed into Burrard Inlet in Vancouver. On board were 376 passengers of Sikh, Muslim and Hindu origin. Those passengers, like millions of immigrants to Canada since, came seeking better lives for their families. Greater opportunities. A chance to contribute to their new home.

310

Canadian Government Apology, May 18, 2016 311

Those passengers chose Canada. And when they arrived here, they were rejected. They were rejected because in the early years of the last century, the Gov­ ernment of Canada put in place a law that prohibited passengers from disembarking in Canada if the vessel they were on had stopped at any point during its journey here. This would have prevented immigrants from faraway countries such as India from entering Canada, because in that era, it was impossible to travel great distances by sea without making any stops. Because of this law, when the Komagata Maru arrived in Canada, only a small number of passengers were allowed to disembark. The ship, and all remaining passengers on it, was ordered to leave. Members of the local Sikh community tried to convince authorities to reverse their decision, but those efforts were unsuccessful. And on July 23, 1914 – two months after it arrived – the Komagata Maru was escorted out of [the] harbour by the Canadian military, and forced to return to India, where 19 passengers were killed and many others imprisoned. Mr. Speaker, Canada does not bear alone the responsibility for every tragic mistake that occurred with the Komagata Maru and its passengers. But Canada’s government was, without question, responsible for the laws that prevented these passengers from immigrating peacefully and securely. For that, and for every regrettable consequence that followed, we are sorry. I apologize, first and foremost, to the victims of the incident. No words can fully erase the pain and suffering they experienced. Re­ grettably, the passage of time means that none are alive to hear our apology today. Still, we offer it, fully and sincerely. For our indifference to your plight. For our failure to recognize all that you had to offer. For the laws that discriminated against you, so senselessly. And for not formally apologizing sooner. For all these things, we are truly sorry. I also wish to apologize to the descendants of the passengers of the Komagata Maru, including those who are here with us here today. We can never know what your lives would have been like had your relatives been welcomed to Canada. The ways in which your lives would have been different.

312 Appendix 3

The ways in which Canada would have been enriched. Those possibilities are lost to history. For that – and to you – we apologize. Just as we apologize for past wrongs, so too must we commit ourselves to positive action – to learning from the mistakes of the past, and to making sure that we never repeat them. That is the unique promise and potential of Canada. We believe that every person – no matter who they are, no matter where they came from – deserves a real and fair chance at success. Canada’s South Asian community exemplifies this success every day. We believe that our diversity is a source of strength. That we are strong not in spite of our differences, but because of them. And we believe in the values enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including multiculturalism. Our government will ensure that these values are always upheld. Mr. Speaker, before I finish, I would like to acknowledge one more Member who has helped to bring the Komagata Maru incident to our national attention – the Minister of National Defence. Before entering political life, the Minister was the commanding officer of The British Columbia Regiment Duke of Connaught’s Own – the same regiment that once forced out the Komagata Maru. A century ago, the Minister’s family might well have been turned away from Canada. Today, the Minister sits beside us, here, in this House. In a House that includes immigrants. That includes the daughters and sons – the granddaughters and grandsons – of immigrants. The very makeup of this House should remind all of us that when we have the choice between opening our arms to those in need or closing our hearts to them, we must always choose the more compassionate path. When we see injustice, we must speak up, and attempt to make things right. When we make mistakes, we must apologize, and recommit ourselves to doing better. Mr. Speaker, Canada is a country unlike any other. We are blessed to call it home. Let us always endeavour to do better, and to be better. Let us do that in honour of the victims of the Komagata Maru incident, and every courageous person who leaves behind family and familiar things, to bring to Canada the very best of who they are. Thank you.

Canadian Government Apology, May 18, 2016 313

Reference Government of Canada. 2016, May 18. House of Commons Debates (Hansard), 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, 1515–21. http://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/ en/42-1/house/sitting-58/hansard.

Contributors

Satwinder Kaur Bains is the director of the South Asian Studies Institute and an associate professor of social, cultural, and media studies at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research interests include migration and integration, cross-cultural education and curriculum theory, ethnicity and race, South Asian diaspora studies, Sikh identities, and cultural historiographies. Davina Bhandar is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Athabasca and an adjunct professor in the School of Communications and the Department of Gender Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University. She is a political theorist with research interests in the South Asian diaspora of British Columbia, feminist critical race studies, theories of citizenship, border securitization, and migration. Suchetana Chattopadhyay is an assistant professor of history at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Her areas of expertise include communism in India, urban social history of India, Muslim intellectuals and workers, working-class movements, twentieth-century Calcutta, colonial surveillance, imperial masculinity, empire and violence, imperialism and race, and Indian political activists abroad. Rita Kaur Dhamoon is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Her research

314

Contributors 315

interests include identity/difference politics and power, including multicultural policies and theories, culture, Canadian nation building, gender politics and feminism, intersectionality, critical race studies, postcolonial and anticolonial politics, Sikh diasporas, and the relationships between people of colour and Indigenous people in Canada. Enakshi Dua is currently the director of the Centre for Feminist Research at York University and an associate professor of equity studies in the School of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. Her research includes historical constructions of the categories of nation, race, and gender in Canada, immigration processes, women and health, equity policies, criminalization, and the racialization of masculinity and femininity, globalization, and bio­diversity. She has over twenty years of experience in antiracist feminist organizing at the community level and has held administrative positions that deal with feminist, antiracist, and equity issues within the academy. Ian Christopher Fletcher is an associate professor of history at Georgia State University, where he teaches modern British and world history. His research focuses on social movements, contentious politics, and global turbulence across the long twentieth century, especially the Edwardian era and the long global 1960s. He is active in the Peace History Society, the Southeast World History Association, and other initiatives. Ayesha Hameed is a lecturer in visual cultures as well as a program leader of the MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work explores contemporary borders and migration, critical race theory, Walter Benjamin, and visual cultures of the black Atlantic. Among other places, her work has been performed or exhibited at ICA London (2015), Kunstraum Niederoesterreich Vienna (2015), Homeworks Space Program in Beirut (2016), and RAW Material Company (2017). Nadia Z. Hasan is currently located at the York Centre for Asian Research, York University. She has a PhD in political science with a specialization in transnational feminism. Her research critically analyzes epistemologies of women’s engagements with Islam in Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora. She also works on South Asian diasporas in Canada and representations

316 Contributors

of Islam in popular culture. Nadia is a founding member of the South Asia Research Group and teaches courses in South Asian studies, religion, gender, and feminism. Rajender Kaur is a professor of English literature at William Paterson University of New Jersey. Her research focuses on postcolonial theory and literature, contemporary and world literatures, gender and culture in South Asia, and literary and cultural theory. Sailaja Krishnamurti is an assistant professor of religious studies at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax. Her research and teaching take a feminist critical race approach to religion and representation in the South Asian diaspora and in contemporary culture. Tariq Malik is a poet, author, and artist based in Vancouver. His writing and art focus on the Pacific Northwest and its interaction with colonial India in general and the province of Punjab in particular. Rainsongs of Kotli, his first book, was published by TSAR Books in 2004. The object of his most recent preoccupation is a duet of historical fictions, a first novel set on the North American west coast during the prewar period of 1907–14 and the events surrounding the arrival of the Komagata Maru, a watershed incident largely forgotten outside the South Asian community. Chanting Denied Shores: The Komagata Maru Narratives was published by Bayeux Arts in Calgary in 2010. A sequel to this novel (Meet Me in the Garden of Madness) will pick up the loose threads of the Komagata Maru narrative with the return to India and the Jhallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. Renisa Mawani is a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia and the recurring chair of the Law and Society Program. Her areas of interest include colonial legal history, critical theory, race and racism, affect, time and temporality, oceans and maritime worlds, Indigeneity, colonial India and the diaspora, and posthumanism. Kaori Mizukami is a PhD student in the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo. She was in India from 2014 to 2017 conducting research at the Ghadr Memorial of Jalandhar, Punjab. Her research interests include the history of modern India, the history

Contributors 317

of Indian national movements, and the history of immigration, especially Indian immigrants. Her previous graduate work focused on East Indian immigrants and Indian revolutionaries in the Pacific Northwest from 1900 to 1914. Radhika Mongia is an associate professor of sociology at York University, Toronto, and the author of Indian Migration and Empire: A Colonial Geneal­ ogy of the Modern State (Duke University Press, 2018). Omme-Salma Rahemtullah is an independent researcher and a community radio producer. She holds an MA in immigration and settlement studies from Ryerson University. Alia Somani is a professor of English and postcolonial literature at Sheridan College in Toronto. Her areas of research include postcolonial literature, Canadian literature, and diasporic studies. Her doctoral research focused on the intersections among memory, trauma, and literary fictions and looked specifically at instances of trauma experienced by diasporic groups in Canada. Irina Spector-Marks teaches world history at the Bryn Mawr School for Girls. Her research focuses on the articulation of imperial citizenship in transnational print culture created by Indians in South Africa and Canada. Nayani Thiyagarajah is a director, producer, and writer dedicated to stories for the screen. She received her Bachelor of Journalism degree from Ryerson University and her Master of Arts degree in interdisciplinary studies from York University, focused on cultural production, diaspora, and gender and feminist studies. Through her screen work, Nayani is focused on preservation and celebration through documentation, shar­ ing both imagined and lived narratives stemming from her multiple communities. Nishant Upadhyay is an assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Her work focuses on the intersections of race, caste, and Indigeneity in the making of Indian diasporas in North America.

Index

Note: “(f)” after a page number indicates a figure or map Maru incident, 13–14, 134–35, 286, 309, 310–12; rejection of, 134–35 Arima, Yutaka, 166, 171–72, 176 Ash, Micaela, 241n15 Asian migration. See migrants and migration; South Asian migrants assertion and citizenship rights, 35, 37, 111, 137, 183 asylum seekers: advocacy organizations, 132; detention centres, 206; disembarkation resistance, 206; immigration policy, 126–27, 132–33. See also irregular arrivals; migrants and migration; refugee claimants Aulakh, Sohan Lal Singh, 307 Australia, 22, 39, 45, 206

activism (diaspora), 17–18, 181–87, 188–89, 194n35 African Americans, 51, 53n8 African Chronicle, 182, 187, 188–89 African Times and Orient Review, 49–51 Ahmad, Muzaffar, 71 Air India bombing: inquiries, 260n10; investigations, 246, 259n6; Komagata Maru link, 244–59, 261n16, 261n23, 277n1; passenger misidentification gaffe, 252, 259, 261n18; racialization, 246, 259n5; as unfinished journey, 248 Aiyar, P.S., 182, 189, 191 Ali, Agha Shahid, 245 All-India Muslim League, 41, 43 Anatopism slide projection, 208–9 Anderson, Benedict, 266, 267 anti-Asian riots, 6 Anti-Asiatic League of Canada, 103 anti-colonial journalism, 35, 37, 41– 51, 65 anti-Sikh pogrom: as critical event, 254; memory, 244, 245, 246, 248, 251, 253, 261n16, 272; refugee claimants, 127; unfinished event, 261n22 apologies: as forgetting, 22–23, 277; formal statements, 309, 310–12; Komagata

Bacon, Francis, 203–4 Badami, Anita Rau, 244–59, 259n2, 265, 277n1 Ballantyne, Tony, 37 Banerjee, Chinmoy, 133 Banerjee, Sukanya, 181 Bannerji, Himani, 135 Basu, Bhupendranath, 45, 52n5 BC Supreme Court, 7, 133–34 Bengal Kirti Dal, 71, 72 Bengali revolutionaries, 65–68

318

Index 319

Besant, Annie, 39, 41, 43, 44 Bhabha, Homi K., 267 Bhownaggree, Sir Mancherjee, 45, 189 Bill C-31, 128 Bill C-51, 137n2 Billig, Michael, 216–17 Binning, Sadhu, 246, 260n7 Bird, Edward J., 87, 88, 107, 109, 110, 182, 185, 297 “Black July,” 130 blind race prejudice, 39 Bonacich, Edna, 150, 153 Borden, Robert, 89 border imperialism, 20, 123, 136–37 Bose, Sudhindra, 38–39 Brah, Avtar, 5 Brief History of Canada, A, 270 British army, 17, 78–79 British Columbia government apology, 13, 309 British East Africa (Kenya), 47 British Empire: decline, 105–8; events, 115; martial race theory, 79, 260n13; wartime loyalty, 58–59. See also imperial citizenship (British Empire Citizenship) British Empire subjects. See imperial citizenship (British Empire Citizenship) British Indians. See imperial citizenship (British Empire Citizenship) British Nationality and Status of Aliens Bill, 41 British Protected Persons (BPPs), 85 British Raj: disloyalty to, 72, 85, 90, 180, 190; loyalty to, 77, 80, 191, 273; media control, 184; on passengers return, 184 British West Africa, 51 British Women’s Emigration Association, 224 Buchignani, Norman, 7 Budge Budge riot and massacre: about, 171, 188; memories, 73, 173; responses to, 60, 64, 72, 191 Bumsted, J.M., 269 Burrard Inlet, 5, 80, 82, 91, 168 Burrell, Martin, 297

Burroughs, William, 200 Burrows, James K., 153 Burton, Antoinette, 37 Byrd, Jodi, 25 Calcutta: census, 69; taxi driver strike, 69–70; underground militancy, 57, 64–68. See also India CAMP film, 200, 209–10(f), 211 Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?, 244–59, 261nn15–16, 265, 277n1 Canada: anti-Asian riots, 6; birth rate, 223; diasporic newspapers, 182, 184, 187; employment standards study, 156; family law, 221, 225–26, 233; female population, 223; immigration statistics, 37, 77, 125, 131; nation-state and enfranchisement, 26n1; navy, 175–76; property law, 226; social reform movement, 225–26, 241n10; women’s movement, 240n8 Canada (immigration policy): apologies (official), 13–14, 277, 286, 310–12; assimilation, 221–22; asylum seekers, 126–27, 132–33; exclusion, 8–10, 12– 14, 127, 137n2, 147–51, 252, 258–59, 269–70, 276; families and permanent residency, 89; farm labour, 86; female migrants, 89, 124–25, 222–25; forgetting and remembering, 22–23, 266–71, 274, 276, 277; head tax, 102, 277n2; historiography, 124–28, 268–71; human smuggling, 133–34, 135; immigration statistics, 37, 77, 125, 131; inclusion vs racialization, 12–14, 127, 252, 258–59, 269–70, 276; interracial sexuality, 124–25; labour as cheap, 142–46, 151–55; labour contracts, 143, 149–50, 153–55; labour market (split), 151–55; laws, 5–6, 76–77, 85–87, 101– 5, 125, 128, 133, 137n2, 146–47; legal action (test case), 7, 11, 36, 44, 87– 90, 109–12, 182–83, 236; memory, 22– 23, 266–71, 274, 276, 277; migrant categories, 86; migration dependence, 221, 240n5; migration restrictions, 98–105, 113–14, 125, 127–28, 142,

320 Index

146–47; mixed-race marriage, 222; monetary restrictions, 101–2, 105, 125; multiculturalism, 12–14, 127, 136–37, 245, 252, 258–59, 269–70, 276; nuclear family, 220–27; passport system, 102, 105, 106; permanent residency and families, 89; points system, 125; public health screening, 10; public opinion, 87, 127, 132, 135, 136, 145; quota system, 125; racial discrimination, 8–10, 101–5, 125–27, 246, 259n5; racism (terminology), 26n2; refugee claimants, 126–27, 131–37; relations with India, 102–3, 105, 106–7; split labour market, 151–55; surveillance strategies, 18, 89, 106, 151; temporary vs permanent, 89, 137n2, 144–45, 155– 57; and terrorist threats, 128, 129, 135– 36; white female migration, 222–25, 240n9. See also migrants and migration; white settler identity Canada: A National History textbook, 270 Canadian Council for Refugees, 131–32 Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988), 127 Canadian Tamil Congress, 132, 137 Cassidy, Robert, 110, 298 Chakraborty, Chandrima, 261n22 Chandra, Ram, 190 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 126 Chatterjee, Ramananda, 38, 46 child marriage, 227–29 Chinese Exclusion Act, 151, 277n2 Chinese head tax, 277n2 Chinese labour, 153 Chion, Michel, 201, 202–3, 204–5 Chirol, Valentine, 38 Chow, Olivia, 131 citizenship: categories, 84–87; memory citizenship, 252, 261n16; modernity, 227, 233; terminology, 26n1. See also imperial citizenship (British Empire citizenship) Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), 7, 11, 285 civilization: differences, 227–33; and polygamy, 227–28 Clark, W.H., 107

Cleveland, Sir Charles, 60–61 Coleman, Daniel, 267 Colonial-Born Indian Association, 182 colonialism: about, 4; analytics, 15–18; anticolonial journalism, 35, 37, 41–51, 65; imagery, 203–4; itinerant subjectivity, 4, 5, 15, 24, 57, 123; and nationstate, 22–23, 266–71; resistance politics, 18–19, 33–92; settler land dispossession, 9, 25, 52, 240n5, 287–88. See also white settler identity Colony to Nation: A History of Canada textbook, 268–69, 277n2 Commonwealth summit (Sri Lanka), 136 Community Historical Recognition Program, 11 Conrad, Margaret, 269, 270–71 Continuous Journey documentary film, 21, 198(f)– 202, 205, 211 Continuous Journey Regulation: vs direct passage, 81; freedom vs management of movement, 150–51; imperial citizenship rights, 7, 106; legitimacy of, 104–5; and Safe Third Country Agreement, 199, 205; temporal comparisons, 199, 205; test case, 7, 11, 36, 44, 89–90, 109–12, 182–83, 236; wording, 5–6 Continuous Passages Act, 6 coolie system. See indentured vs nonindentured (free) migration Cotton, Henry, 189 Coulthard, Glen Sean, 52 Cox, Oliver, 155 Creese, Gillian, 151 Creighton, Donald, 268–69 Crewe, Lord, 41 Crisis weekly publication, 53n8 cultural productions: documentary film, 21, 198(f)–202, 205, 211; literature, 244–59, 260n7, 261nn15–16, 265, 277n1; memory archives, 20–22, 244– 59; museum exhibition, 265, 268, 271– 77; theatre productions, 11–12 Daiya, Kavita, 244 Dallas-Smith, Captain, 63, 298

Index 321

Das, Narain, 62 Das, Taraknath, 187, 256 Das, Veena, 250, 254 Datta, Bhupendra Kumar, 68 Deleuze, Gilles, 198, 280–82 diaspora: activism, 17–18, 181–87, 188– 89, 194n35; discord vs solidarity, 254– 57, 261n20; diversity, 272–74; in literature, 246–47, 251, 261n15; periodicals, 181–83; subnationalism, 253– 57, 261n20. See also shore committee differences, 229–33 discrimination. See racism disease, 10, 80–81 Disraeli, Benjamin, 187 dissident mobilities, 5 Dorsett, Shaunnagh, 288 Dosanjh, Ujjal, 261n18, 261n20 East India Company, 97–98 Elgin, Lord, 148–49 Eltis, David, 96 emigration: law, 102, 105, 146–47, 148– 50; policy, 38–39, 45–46, 97–100, 102– 7; terminology, 99. See also migrants and migration eugenics movement, 224, 240n7 exclusion. See immigration exclusion family. See nuclear family relations family law, 221, 225–26, 233 farm labour, 86 Federal Franchise Act (1885), 26n1 female migrants: exclusion, 215–39; homesteaders, 224, 240n6; immigration policy, 89, 124–25, 222–25; interracial sexuality, 124–25; labour, 223–24, 226; order-in-council admission, 218; othering, 225, 229, 234; pregnancy and birthright, 135; ship passengers, 82, 275(f)–276; white, 222–25, 240n9. See also migrants and migration; nuclear family relations; women Finkel, Alvin, 269, 270–71 First World War, 57–59, 68, 80, 190–91 Fleras, Augie, 26n2 Foo Sang, 63 Foreign Jurisdiction Act (1890), 77

Foreigners Ordinance (India), 284, 285, 287 forgetting and remembering, 22–23, 266–71, 274, 276, 277 Foucault, Michel, 216, 238–39 freedom vs management of movement, 36, 79, 154 From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf, 200, 209–10(f), 211 Gandhi, Mohandas, 35, 39, 40, 43, 171 Gardiner, A.G., 35 gender: immigration exclusion, 215–39; male citizenship rights, 217, 240n3; temporary foreign workers, 146. See also female migrants Germany, 188, 192n1 Ghadar Movement and Party: beginnings, 57; communism, 71; vs Indian National Congress, 180, 187–91, 194n34; ship passengers, 80, 87, 117n31, 129, 169; surveillance of, 61; underground network, 65–68. See also nationalism Ghadr newspaper, 181–82, 187, 189–90, 191, 192n6 Gandhi, Indira, 253, 259n2 Gillian, R.W., 113–14 Globe and Mail, 133, 216, 220, 223, 225, 231, 233 Gokhale, G.K., 39 Golden Temple, 247, 248, 252, 253–54, 272 Gorman, Daniel, 79, 84, 85 Goswami, Dharani, 71 governmentality, 238–39 Grewal, Inderpal, 229, 234 Guattari, Felix, 280–82 Guha, Ranajit, 281–82 Guru Nanak Jahaz, 82 Haitian Revolution, 115 Halim, Abdul, 71 Hardayal, Lala, 181, 256 Hardinge, Lord, 90 Harper, Stephen, 13–14, 22, 134–35, 260n10, 277 Heller, Charles, 207

322 Index

Hindoos (archaic designation), 8, 102, 202 Hindu: archaic designation, 8, 102, 202; female migration, 215–39; migration exclusion, 103, 145; passengers, 5, 9, 259n3, 272; revolutionaries, 57, 65, 103 Hindu Women’s Question (HWQ), 215–39 Hindustan, 202 Hindustanee newspaper, 182, 184, 187 Hirayama, Rokurō, 175 historiography, 5–8, 268–71 History of the Canadian Peoples, A (textbook), 269 history textbooks, 268–71 Hobsbawm, Eric, 266 Hofmeyr, Isabel, 43 Holocaust, 248, 252, 261n16 Hong Kong, 18, 81–82, 103, 170, 183; gurdwara, 81 Hopkins, Terrance, 115 Hopkinson, William Charles, 18, 89, 106, 107, 184, 193n16, 298 Hoshiarpur, Inder Singh, 72 Hudson’s Bay Company, 222 human smuggling, 133–34, 135 Hylton, Richard, 211n1 illegal arrivants, 3 immigrants (terminology), 239n1 Immigration Act (Canada): amendments, 5–6, 7, 220; deportation appeal (test case), 7, 11, 36, 44, 89–90, 109– 12, 182–83, 236; orders-in-council, 107– 8, 125; reforms, 128. See also Canada (immigration policy) immigration exclusion: females, 215– 39; historiography, 3–8; inclusion vs racialization, 12–14, 127, 252, 258–59, 269–70, 276; media coverage, 179–83, 192n2. See also Canada (immigration policy); imperial citizenship (British Empire citizenship); racism immigration policy. See Canada (immigration policy) Immigration and Refugee Board, 131, 132–33

Immigration Restriction Act (South Africa), 39 imperial citizenship (British Empire citizenship): anticolonial journalism, 35, 37, 41–51; assertion, 37; citizens vs subjects, 180, 190, 192n5; colonial analytic, 15–18; decline, 105–8; differences, 84–85; equality vs inequality, 79, 106, 110–14; freedom vs management of movement, 16–17, 36–37, 79, 107, 150–51, 154; male rights, 217, 240n3; nationalism and print media, 189–92; racialization, 16–17, 76–80, 84–85, 90–91, 171–72; rights, 9, 26n3, 36–49, 106, 150, 182–83, 189–90, 217, 240n3. See also citizenship Imperial Conference, 219–20 Imperial Naturalization Bill, 41, 47, 50 Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE), 225 indentured vs nonindentured (free) migration, 96, 113, 147, 148–50, 151– 55, 158n10, 158n12 India: army, 70–71, 79, 260n13; census, 69; centenary commemorations, 26n4; citizenship categories, 84–85; emigration law, 97–100, 102, 146–47, 148–50; emigration policy and relations with Canada, 102–3, 105, 106–7, 146–47; female migration, 215–39; indentured migration, 97–101; labour movement, 68–73; male migrants, 217–20; martial race theory, 79, 260n13; migrant returnee legislation, 284, 285, 287; nationalist media coverage, 179–92, 287; revolutionary movement, 57, 64–68, 106, 117n31, 169–70, 171; taxi driver strike, 69–70 India, 43–46, 49, 181–82, 184, 187–89 Indian British subjects. See imperial citizenship Indian Emigrant, 183 Indian Emigration Act, 102, 146–47, 148–50 Indian National Congress (INC): conference, 72; decline, 261n21; vs Ghadar Party, 180, 187–91, 194n34;

Index 323

imperial citizenship rights, 41, 43, 47, 189–90; newspapers, 181–82 Indian Opinion, 42–43 Indian Social Reformer, 191 Indians’ Relief Act (South Africa), 41, 48 Indigenous peoples: colonial land dispossession, 9, 25, 52, 123, 240n5, 287– 88; eugenics, 240n7; vs Indian, 202; labour segregation, 152–53; migrant deportation protests, 132; mixed marriages, 222; polygamy, 241n15; racial hierarchies, 48, 123, 152–53; settler colonialism, 25, 123 Indonesia (asylum seekers), 206 Indra, Doreen, 7 Ingress into India Ordinance, 284, 285, 287 International Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 126 International Organization for Migration (IOM) detention centre, 206 irregular arrivals, 122, 126–28, 131, 157n2. See also asylum seekers Italo-Ethiopian War, 171–72, 174 itinerant subjectivity, 4, 5, 15, 24, 57, 123 Jackel, Susan, 223–24 Jamaica and Morant Bay rebellion, 111 Japan: emigration, 102; incident interpretations, 163–77; navy, 165–66, 168, 173–74; neutrality, 163, 165, 175–76, 177; strong vs weak countries, 173– 74, 177 Jaya Lestari 5 ship, 206 Jinnah, Mohammed Ali, 43 Johnston, Hugh: immigration policy, 8–9, 13, 111–12; imperial citizenship, 79; revolutionary nationalism, 80, 87 Josh, Sohan Singh, 71–72 Justicia 4 Migrant Workers, 158n8 Kafka, Franz, 280–82, 288 Kajiyama, Masayoshi, 164(f) Kale, Madhavi, 84, 115n2 Kaur, Harman, 215–16, 218, 298 Kaur, Harnam, 215–16, 217, 219, 298

Kaur, Kartar, 215–16, 218, 298 Kazimi, Ali, 7, 12, 21, 198–202, 265, 277n1 Kealey, Linda, 225 Keith, Arthur Berriedale, 52 Kelly, John, 241n12 Kenney, Jason, 134, 154, 156, 157 Khalistan, 248, 250, 253, 261nn19–20 Khalsa Akhbar newspaper, 185 Khalsa Diwan Societies, 156 Khan, Amir Mohammad, 65 Khilafat movement, 70 King, William Lyon Mackenzie: about, 299; diplomatic mission, 147–50; immigration exclusion, 84, 85–86, 103, 147–50; riots, 6; white supremacy, 84 Kirti-Kisan Party, 71 Komagata Maru incident: about, 3, xi– xix; Air India bombing link, 244–59, 261n16, 261n23, 277n1; apologies, 13– 14, 134–35, 154, 156, 157, 265, 277, 286, 309–12; archives, 9–10, 91n3, 285–86; chronology, xi–xix; colonial analytic, 15–18; commemorations, 11– 12, 26n4, 121, 141–43, 154, 156, 157; cultural productions, 246, 260n7, 265, 271–77; customs clearance permit, 170; as event vs incident, 96–97, 142, 157n1, 283–84, 285, 287; exclusion vs multiculturalism, 12–14; fictional accounts, 172–73; film recording, 202; flag neutrality, 176, 177; forgetting and remembering, 22–23, 266–71, 274, 276, 277; Ghadar Movement link, 57, 61, 67, 80, 87, 117n31, 129, 169, 180, 187–91; government control, 56–62, 151; historical figures, 297–308; historiography, 5–8, 268–71; Japanese interpretations, 163–77; legal event, 108–15; marginalization, 121–22; media coverage, 83–84, 179–92; as minor history, 23, 281–86, 288; moral lesson, 173–74, 177; museum exhibition, 265, 268, 271–77; naming, 82, 168; naval intervention, 175–76; owner, 163–64(f), 286; as past exclusion incident, 8–10, 12–14; perspectives on, 8–18, 23–26; public opinion,

324 Index

145, 185; resilience, 11–12; return voyage, 62, 64, 171; route(map), xx(f), 82; surveillance, 57–62, 151; time and sound imagery, 199–211; as unfinished journey, 248, 257, 261n22; website, 9–10, 91n3, 285–86 Komagata Maru passengers: about, 5, 198(f), 246, 259n3; captain and crew members, 163–64(f), 170–71, 174–76, 177, 303; conditions and treatment of, 82–83, 88, 108, 272–73, 275; deportation order, 7, 11, 36, 44, 89–90, 109– 12, 182–83, 236; differences, 24–25, 272–75; disharmony, 83; experiences and memory, 73–74; female, 82, 275(f)–276; food shortages, 88, 272– 73, 275; government control of, 184, 193n19; lawyer, 87, 88, 107, 109, 110, 182, 185, 297; letters, 76, 82–83, 87– 88, 183–86; list, 304–7; media access, 183–84, 193n19; medical examinations, 80–81; medical officer, 82, 83; relationship with crew, 170–71, 174–76, 177; religion, 83, 272–73(f); skirmishes and violence, 170–71; time and waiting, 199, 200, 205–11. See also Sikh migrants labour: contracts, 149–50, 153–55, 158n12; farm, 86; indentured vs nonindentured (free), 96, 113, 147, 148– 50, 151–55, 158n10, 158n12; migrants as cheap labour, 142–46, 151–55; racial segregation, 152–55; terminology, 99; women, 223–24, 226 Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 79, 101–2, 104 Law Commission of India, 98 law firms, 78, 82, 303 Lawson, Dr. E.H., 80–81 “left-to-die boat” case, 199, 206–7 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 129–30, 131, 136 Live-In Caregiver Program, 146 Lower, Arthur, 268–69, 277n2 MacDonald, Chief Justice, 111 MacGill, J.H., 217–18 MacKay, Rev. John, 230, 232–33

MacNeill, A.H., 88 Mal, Jawahr, 62 male citizenship rights, 217, 240n3 Malik, Tariq, 23, 260n7, 265, 286, 290–96 management vs freedom of movement, 36, 79, 154 manual labour, 99 martial race theory, 79, 260n13 Marx, Karl, 239 Mauritius, 97, 101 McBride, Sir Richard, 84, 299 McClintock, Anne, 216, 235, 237 McInnes, T.R.E., 89, 104 McKenna and McBride Commission, 153 McLaren, Angus, 224 McLaren, John, 288 medical examinations, 80–81 Mehta, Deepa, 12, 260n7 memoirs, 21, 78, 169–71, 176 memory: citizenship and performance, 252, 261n16; cultural productions, 20–22, 244–59; forgetting and remembering, 22–23, 266–71, 274, 276, 277; nation-states, 266–68; statist vs non­ statist, 74, 244–45, 252, 259; water, 197 Métis land rights, 240n5 Mezzadra, Sandro, 205–6 middle passage, 199, 211n1 migrants and migration: advocacy organizations, 132, 158n8; asylum seekers, 126–27, 132–33, 206; categories, 215–16, 239n1; cheap labour, 142–46, 151–55; good vs bad migrant dichotomy, 121, 136–37; indentured vs nonindentured (free), 96, 113, 147, 148– 50, 151–55, 158n10, 158n12; irregular arrivals, 122, 126–28, 131, 157n2; legal frameworks, 95–115; merchant sailors, 209–10(f), 211; middle passage, 199, 211n1; nationalization, 114, 118n50; nautical, 201–4, 209–11; “necessary ignorance,” 99; othering, 135, 225, 229, 234; poetry, 290–96; racialization, 101–5, 114, 118n50, 125, 154, 215–16, 239n1; reciprocity, 114–15; regulations, 98–105, 113–14, 125; resistance, 76–

Index 325

91; rights, 131, 143; sound and image, 201–4; temporal borders, 199, 200, 205– 11, 211n1; temporary vs permanent, 142–45, 155–57; terminology, 239n1; as terrorist threat, 128, 129, 135–36. See also Canada (immigration policy); emigration; female migrants minor history, 23, 281–86, 288 minor jurisprudence, 281 minor literature, 280–82, 288 Minto, Viceroy Lord, 85, 91n1 Modern Review, 38, 46–49 Mohanty, Satya, 258 Moore, Christopher, 112 Morley, Viscount John, 148–50 Mormons, 227, 241nn15–16 Mukherjee, Saroj, 72 Mulroney, Brian, 252, 259 multiculturalism: definition, 258; depoliticization, 134–35, 137; inclusion vs racialization, 12–14, 127, 252, 258–59, 269–70, 276; law, 127 museum exhibition, 265, 268, 271–77 Muslims: and Hindus, 65, 70; passengers, 5, 9, 272; political parties, 41, 43; and Sikhs, 248, 250; women, 231–32 Muszynski, Alicja, 153 Nam Sang, 62 Nanak, Guru, 71 Natal Indian Patriotic Union, 182 National Association for the Advance­ ment of Colored People (NAACP), 53n8 National Council of Canadian Tamils, 132 National Council of Women, 234 nationalism: and competition, 16; definition, 181; diasporic activism, 181–83; and family, 235, 237–38, 241n12; and imperial citizenship, 181, 187–92; race and gender, 237–39; revolutionary, 65–68, 169–70, 171; as spectacle, 227– 36; theories, 266–68. See also Ghadar Movement and Party nation-state narratives, 78, 95, 114, 118n50, 216, 266–71 Natives’ Land Act (South Africa), 51

nautical migration, 197–211 Nayar, Pramod, 5, 261n16 Neilson, Brett, 205–6 newspapers: audience, 183; divergence, 187–89; immigration exclusion, 179– 83, 192n2; Indian nationalism, 181–92; language, 182; political party affiliations, 216, 240n2; shared discourse, 189–92 Niergarth, Kirk, 148 Nippon Kōgyō Shimbun, 166–68 No One Is Illegal protest, 132 nonwhite migrants. See Canada (immigration policy); racism; white settler identity North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 207 nuclear family relations: analysis, 220– 27; civilization, 227–28; hegemony, 216, 221, 223, 232, 237–38; as national family, 216, 234–35, 237–38, 241n12; vs polygamy, 217–20, 235–36; role, 221 Oak Creek Gurdwara shootings, 261n21 Ocean Lady ship, 121, 122, 127–34, 135 Oceanic Viking ship, 206 Oliver, Frank, 86, 299 On Sang ship, 63 Orlow, Uriel, 200, 207–9 Osborne, Ken, 269–70 othering, 135, 225, 229, 234 Panama Maru, 11, 36, 40, 42, 107 Pankhurst, Emmeline, 36 Parameshwaran, Uma, 261n23 passengers. See Komagata Maru passengers patriarchy: family law, 226; polygamy, 228–34, 241n11 permanent vs temporary migration, 142–45, 155–57 Perry, Adele, 221, 222–23, 225 Petrie, David, 60, 299 Pezzani, Lorenzo, 207 Phillipe v Eyre, 111 Phillips, Justice, 219, 236 Plaatje, Sol T., 51

326 Index

plantation labour, 97, 115n2 poetry, 23, 290–96 Polak, Henry S.L., 38 Pollack, Sharon, 246, 260n7, 275–76, 277 polygamy: and civilization, 227–28; criminalization, 227; nationalism, 237, 241nn15–16; vs nuclear family relations, 217–20, 235–36; and patriarchy, 228–34, 241n11; and primitivism vs modernity, 227–33 Poopalapillai, David, 137 Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique), 46–47, 53n7 property rights (women), 226 Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act (Bill C-31), 128 public opinion, 87, 127, 132, 135, 136, 145 Punjab: caste prejudice, 274; colonial history, 72, 79, 81, 248, 260n13, 287; communism, 71–72; as homeland, 246, 250; immigration exclusion, 77– 81, 103, 259n3; migrant returnees, 56–60, 62–63, 188; migrant soldiers, 81, 124. See also Sikh migrants racism: blind race prejudice, 39; and difference, 229–33; dispossession, 154; eugenics movement, 224, 240n7; and gender, 215–39; hierarchies, 48, 123, 152–53; immigration policy, 8–10, 101–5, 125–27, 246, 259n5; imperial citizenship, 16–17, 76–80, 84–85, 90– 91, 171–72; vs inclusion, 12–14, 127, 137, 252, 258–59, 269–70, 276; labour segregation, 152–55; legal frameworks, 95–115; martial race theory, 79, 260n13; memory, 266–71; and nation, 114, 118n50, 266; terminology, 26n2. See also immigration exclusion; white settler identity Rahim, Husain, 182, 272, 299, 307 Rai, Lala Lajpat, 41, 43, 44, 45–46, 53n6 Rajapaksa, Mahinda, 130 Rancière, Jacques, 37 reciprocity, 114–15 refugee claimants: appeal, 133–34; claims, 126–27, 133; deportation

orders, 133; statistics, 131, 132–33. See also asylum seekers; migrants and migration Regulation of Immigrants Ordinance, 51 Reid, Malcolm, 87, 88, 108, 112, 185 Riendeau, Roger, 270 resistance politics: asylum seekers, 206; colonialism, 18–19, 33–92; revolutionaries, 65–68; satyagraha (passive), 38, 39–40, 117n37, 171 riots: anti-Asian, 6; Tamil, 130. See also Budge Budge riot and massacre Roberts, John, 126 Robertson, Rev., 228–29, 233 Rode, Ajmer, 260n7, 265, 268, 271–77 Rodgers, Tara, 203–4 Roosevelt, President Theodore, 147–48 Rothberg, Michael, 252, 261n16 Roy, Anjali Gera, 26n3 Safe Third Country Agreement, 127–28, 199, 205 Sahoo, Ajaya K., 26n3 Said, Edward, 229, 268 Saitō, Makoto, 168 Sarhali, Baba Gurdit Singh. See Singh, Gurdit satyagraha (passive resistance), 38, 39– 40, 117n37, 171 Savarkar, V.D., 36 Schwab, Gabriele, 247–48, 249 Scott, J.D., 89 Scott, W.D., 220 sea as temporal border, 205–7, 211n1 settler colonialism. See colonialism Shabazz Palaces, 197 Shiozaki, Yokichi: about, 167, 300; Canadian navy recollections, 175–76; essay, 21, 165–66; memoir, 169–72, 176, 286; ship owner, 163–64(f) ships: freedom vs management of movement, 36; irregular arrivals, 126–27; “left-to-die boat” case, 199, 206–7; stranded, 207–8(f), 209; surveillance, 58, 62. See also individual names of ships shore committee: activism, 183–87, 188– 89, 194n35; diversity of, 259n3, 272; fundraising, 83, 156, 273–74; legal

Index 327

services, 17, 109; letters and publicity campaigns, 185–86; members, 307–8. See also diaspora Sihra, Nand Singh, 38, 42 Sikh migrants: about, 56–57, 77–78; caste prejudice, 274; colonial control and surveillance of, 57–64; deportation appeal (test case), 7, 11, 36, 44, 89–90, 109–12, 182–83, 236; historiography, 287; homeland, 246, 250; link with Tamil migrants, 121–37, 144, 157n2; population, 124; racism and imperial citizenship, 8–9, 26n3, 76–80; returning émigrés and treatment of, 64–68; soldiers, 79, 124; worship, 83. See also Komagata Maru passengers; Punjab; South Asian migrants Sikhs: apology rejection, 134–35; army recruitment, 260n13; census, 69; diaspora and subnationalism, 17–18, 22, 24, 246–47, 251–57, 261n15, 261nn20– 21, 272–74; houses of worship (gurdwaras), 81, 273–74; labour movement and militancy, 56–57, 65–73; legacy of violence, 244–59, 259n2; taxi driver strikes, 69–70 Simon Fraser University (SFU), 7, 9–10, 13, 285–86 Singh, Ajit, 72 Singh, Amar, 82, 87–88 Singh, Balwant, 72, 190, 215, 217, 300– 1, 307 Singh, Bela, 301 Singh, Bhag, 215, 217, 301, 308 Singh, Bhagat, 87 Singh, Bhagwan, 215 Singh, Bhai Bhag, 83 Singh, Chait, 66, 67, 69, 301 Singh, Daljit, 83, 185–86 Singh, Dewan, 67–68, 302 Singh, Dr. Raghunath, 82, 83, 302–3 Singh, Genda, 72–73 Singh, Gurdit: about, 300; arrest plans, 56, 57; business interests, 24; citizenship rights, 41, 111, 185; commemoration, 26n4; direct passage challenge, 81–82; early landing appeal, 83; fictional depiction, 172; film animation

imagery, 201; imprisonment, 109, 285; letters, 81, 87, 88, 272–73; media coverage, 48, 185, 189; memoirs, 21, 78; museum exhibition portrait, 271; passenger treatment, 88, 185; on ship, 164(f); ship charter, 5, 11, 81–82, 108; shore committee member, 308; speeches, 71, 73, 189 Singh, Harman, 87–88 Singh, Harnam, 82, 87–88 Singh, Jarnail, 265, 268, 271–77 Singh, Kartar, 308 Singh, Kesar, 260n7 Singh, Mewa, 302, 308 Singh, Mitt, 308 Singh, Munshi: about, 302; deportation order and appeal, 89–90, 109–12, 182– 83; judgment, 7, 126, 236 Singh, Prithi, 72 Singh, Rajah, 217, 218 Singh, Ripudaman, 260n12 Singh, Sant (Saint) Nihal, 38, 40 Singh, Santa, 70–71 Singh, Sardar Harchand, 59 Singh, Sher, 67–68 Singh, Sundar, 82, 87–88, 217 Singh, Surain, 64–65 Singh, Tara, 64 Singh, Teja, 89 Singh, Vir, 87–88 Singh Bagri, Ajaib, 260n12 Singh Jakh, Bhagwan, 89 Singh Reyat, Inderjeet, 259n6 Singh Sodhi, Balbir, 261n21 Sinha, Mrinalini, 181 Six-Day War, 207–8 Slater, S.H., 106–7, 113 slave trade, 97, 115n3, 211n1 social reform movement, 225–26, 241n10 Sohi, Seema, 253 sound: inner ear, 203–4; metaphors, 203– 4; and nautical migration, 201–4, 209– 11; quality of, 204–5; and time, 200 South Africa: anti-colonial journalism, 46; immigration exclusion and im­ perial citizenship, 39, 40, 107, 183; immigration law, 41, 48, 50; Indian

328 Index

diasporic newspapers, 182; military volunteers, 191; racialization, 39, 40, 41, 48, 51, 117n37 South Asian migrants: apology rejection, 134–35; diaspora, 17–18, 22, 24–25, 246–47, 251–57, 261n15, 261nn20–21, 272–74; exclusion and resistance, 9–12, 76–91, 125–26, 152; female migrant exclusion, 89, 215–39; immigration statistics, 77, 125; labour exploitation, 124; riots about, 6; surveillance, 151; temporary vs permanent, 156; Ugandan refugee claimants, 126. See also Komagata Maru passengers; shore committee; Sikh migrants Spivak, Gayatri, 229 Sri Lanka, 129–30, 206 Srikanth, Rajini, 84, 256, 272 SS Komagata Maru. See Komagata Maru incident state authority: citizenship modernity, 233; governmentality, 238–39; migration regulations, 98–101, 113–14, 125; national family, 234–35, 236; social reform movement, 238–39 statist vs nonstatist memory, 74, 244–45, 252, 259 Statistics Canada study, 156 Sterne, Jonathan, 203–4 Stevens, Harry H., 90, 192n5, 218, 219, 228, 236, 276, 303 Stoler, Ann Laura, 15–16, 241n12, 281 Story of Canada, The, 268–69 Strong-Boag, Veronica, 26n1 Suez Canal, 207–8(f), 209 Sun Sea, 121, 122, 127–34, 135, 137 Supreme Court of British Columbia, 7 Supreme Court of Canada, 126 Tamil migrants: advocacy organizations, 132; asylum seekers, 122, 126–27, 137n2, 206; deportation orders, 133; ethnic violence history, 129–30; good/ bad migrant dichotomy, 121, 136–37; pregnancy and birthright, 135; protests, 131, 136; responses to, 131–37 Tamil Refugee Coordinating Committee, 132

Tamil Tigers. See Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Tatla, Darshan S., 26n4 taxi driver regulations, 69–70 temporal borders: legal jurisdiction, 206–7; as sea, 205–7, 211n1; and time, 199, 200, 208–11 Temporary Foreign Migrant Farm Worker Program, 146 temporary foreign workers: as cheap labour, 144, 146, 151–55; employment standards study, 156; gender, 146; legislation, 137n2; organizations, 158n8; vs permanent migration, 142–45, 155–57 Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP), 142–45, 155, 156, 157n6 Thind, Jessi, 246, 260n7 Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, 191 time and waiting, 199, 200, 205–11 Toronto Star, 216, 223, 225 Toronto Tamil migrants protest, 131, 136 Trudeau, Justin, 14, 286, 310–12 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, 127 Tuck, Eve, 123–24 Tumowal, Kishan Kaur, 82 Ugandan refugee claimants, 126 United India League, 184 United States policy, 53n8, 147–48 University of British Columbia, 11 University of the Fraser Valley, 11 Ursel, Jane, 221 Valverde, Mariana, 221, 241n12 Viceroy of India, 85, 90, 91n1, 102–3 Victoria Times Colonist, 216, 222, 223–24, 228, 230, 232, 234 Vietnamese boat people, 126 Vukov, Tamara, 198 Walia, Harsha, 122–23 Ward, Peter, 201, 276 water and memory, 197 “White Canada Forever” song, 201, 270 white settler identity: differences to, 227–33; femininity and othering, 135,

Index 329

225, 229–31, 234, 240n9; home metaphor, 234; interracial sexuality, 124– 25; metaphors, 227–33, 234; vs multiculturalism, 252, 258–59; nationstate narratives, 78, 216, 266–71; nuclear family relations, 220–27, 235, 241n12; othering, 135, 229–31, 234; racial exclusion, 6–7, 36–38, 47–49, 84, 100, 123–24, 142, 145, 171–72, 238; song, 201, 270; terminology, 239n1. See also Canada (immigration policy); colonialism Williamson, Grit, and Davis, 82, 303 women: labour, 223–24, 226; migration exclusion, 215– 239; population, 223;

property rights, 226. See also female migrants; nuclear family relations women’s movement, 240n8 Workers and Peasants Party of Bengal (WPP), 71 Yamamoto, Captain Tokujirō, 62, 164(f), 303 Yang, Wayne, 123–24 Yellow Limbo, 200, 207–8f, 209 Yildiz, Yasemin, 252, 261n16 Yoshida, Sadao, 21, 164–65, 166–68, 172–77 Yūshū magazine, 165–66