City to apologize for 1914 injustice
Councillor’s motion acknowledges racism against Komagata Maru passengers
Both the federal and provincial governments have formally apologized for their roles in the Komagata Maru controversy, in which 376 would-be immigrants from the Punjab in India were denied entry to Canada in 1914.
Now it’s Vancouver’s turn. Tuesday, Coun. Jean Swanson will introduce a motion to formally apologize “for the previous council’s injustices and their cruel effects on individuals and families impacted by the Komagata Maru incident.”
“It was a really racist thing that happened,” said Swanson. “The city was complicit in it, and I think the more you acknowledge things like this and bring them to the fore, the easier it is to prevent them from happening again.”
The second part of Swanson’s motion seeks to declare May 23 as “Komagata Maru Remembrance Day” in Vancouver. It would fall on the anniversary of the Komagata Maru sailing into Burrard Inlet on
May 23, 1914. The arrival of the Japanese tramp steamer alarmed the Vancouver Sun, whose front-page headline screamed “HINDU INVADERS NOW IN THE CITY HARBOUR ON KOMAGATA MARU.”
It also alarmed Vancouver’s mayor, Truman Baxter, who organized an anti-Asian rally that drew 2,000 people. “I have no ill feeling against people coming from Asia personally,” Baxter told the crowd, “but I reaffirm that the national life of Canada will not permit any large degree of immigration from Asia.
“I intend to stand up ... on this one great principle — of a white country and a white British Columbia.”
Raj Singh Toor’s grandfather, Puran Singh Janetpur, was one of the people denied entry — he’s in the front row of a famous Leonard Frank photo of the Komagata Maru’s passengers. The 24-year-old was a student who hoped to study at a Canadian university, but his hopes were dashed when Canada refused to let him disembark. The ship sat in Coal Harbour for two months.
“Sometimes they were 24 hours without food or water, sometimes for two or three days,” said Toor, a Surrey resident who immigrated to Canada in 1983. “They were starving, they were thirsty, they were getting sick. They had a very painful, hard time. The ship was sent back to India after two months, forcefully, under the shadow of a military ship.”
Twenty passengers from the ship were killed when they were fired on by police when it arrived back in India. “The rest were put in jail for a long period of time, including my grandfather, who served a five-year jail term,” said Toor. “Even after he left (prison) the British government put a restriction on him, he couldn’t move out of his village.”
Puran Singh Janetpur spent the rest of his life farming in India. Relatives offered to sponsor him to come to Canada in 1968, but he declined.
“He said, ‘No I have a painful, bitter memory, I will never go to Canada,’ ” said his grandson.