Origin from 1914
The Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver in 1914 carrying 376 mostly Sikh passengers seeking to settle in Canada, but Canadian immigration law required a two hundred dollar deposit and continuous passage directly from India, a route that did not exist and made the requirement effectively unmeetable. Only 20 former Canadian residents were permitted to disembark; after two months anchored offshore the ship was forced to return to India, and when it reached Budge Budge on 26 September, police opened fire on the returning passengers, killing 20 and wounding nine, an episode that became a defining grievance in the Sikh diaspora's memory of exclusion.
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How the Komagata Maru Incident Blocked Sikh Immigration
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver in 1914 carrying 376 mostly Sikh passengers seeking to settle in Canada, following the small community that lumber workers and jubilee soldiers had already begun to build there. Canadian immigration law required a two hundred dollar deposit and continuous passage taken directly from India, a route that did not exist on any shipping line of the time and so made the requirement effectively unmeetable for anyone travelling from the subcontinent.
Only 20 former Canadian residents already known to the authorities were permitted to disembark. After two months anchored offshore with the rest of its passengers still aboard, the ship was forced to return to India, and when it reached Budge Budge on 26 September, police opened fire on the returning passengers, killing 20 and wounding nine.
What this changed for Sikhism's spread was less a change in numbers than a change in memory. The Komagata Maru never landed the community it was carrying, and the shooting that met its passengers on their forced return became a defining grievance in the Sikh diaspora's memory of exclusion, an episode the small Sikh settlements already forming in Canada carried forward long after the ship itself was gone.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names India directly: "and continuous passage directly from India, a route that did not exist and made the requirement effectively unmeetable."
Occurred In
Vancouver harbour, where the ship was refused entry; the fatal aftermath took place at Budge Budge, India, named in the description rather than anchored to a second place entity.
Spread Event Of
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