Komagata Maru Event revived in Indian National Memory through commemorative events

In this interview, Prof Anjali Gera Roy recounts the events of Komagata Maru and the projects that have been funded to commemorate the event after 100 years.

Source: Wikimedia/Leonard Juda Frank Public Domain

Almost a hundred years ago, a Japanese ship called Komagata Maru chartered by Gurdit Singh, a prosperous Sikh businessman from Malaya, which was carrying 376 passengers from Punjab was not permitted to land in Vancouver on grounds of a stipulation about a continuous journey from the port of departure and forced to return to Budge Budge near Kolkata where the passengers were fired at, imprisoned or kept under surveillance for years. While the Komagata Maru incident is repeatedly invoked in Canada to interrogate the limits of Canada’s celebrated multiculturalism, it appeared to have been completely erased from Indian national memory.

Source: Wikimedia / Public Domain

So, when the Government of India decided to celebrate the centenary of the Komagata Maru during 2014-15 through a number of programmes, including conferences, lectures, performances, films, archival research, memorials and so on, it was a welcome step in this direction. Recent attempts made by the Indian state to commemorate the Komagata Maru episode beginning with West Bengal’s renaming of the Budge Budge station as Budge Budge Komagata Maru station in October 2013 signals a long overdue recognition of the significant contribution of the ship’s passengers and their leader to the nationalist struggle against imperial rule.

As part of this recognition, the government of India and Canada funded many projects to commemorate the event. These projects were funded by Indo Canadian Shashtri Institute, Ministry of Culture and Indian Council of Social Sciences. Professor Anjali Gera Roy got an opportunity to be part of some of the projects which included organising and attending international conferences – the one in Canada about immigration of Indians and another in India about remembering the event, making a film project and organising poster exhibition by National Award winning Bengali patua artists who traditional made scroll painting and songs to go with it and who created scrolls and songs of Komagata Maru incident with their own interpretation. This project has now been translated into Gurmukhi, Hindi and English too. Apart from this, a website is currently under construction that will house all documentations, photos, proofs etc related to the event.

Source: Supplied By Prof Anjali Roy

Professor Anjali Gera Roy is professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Kharagpur. She was part of some of the projects funded by the Indian and Canadian government to commemorate the Komagata Maru event.

Source: AAP Image/ Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press via AP

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers remarks at the Komagata Maru Apology reception, Wednesday, May 18, 2016 in Ottawa, Ontario. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized "unreservedly" for making physical contact with a female opposition member of Parliament who said Trudeau elbowed her in the chest as he waded through a group of mostly opposition lawmakers.