On May 18, 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to issue a formal apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru incident. This year marks the 102nd anniversary of the day when 376 passengers of mostly Sikh descent arrived in Vancouver aboard the Komagata Maru and were refused entry into Canada due to the discriminatory laws of the time.
Dr. Renisa Mawani is Associate Professor of Sociology at UBC and a Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. Her upcoming book, Across Oceans of Law, is a global and maritime legal history of the Komagata Maru.
Q: Why is it important for governments to address historic wrongs? How does remembering the Komagata Maru impact our attitudes toward present-day events like the Syrian refugee crisis?
Historical wrongs are not merely historical. They have significant and ongoing effects on the present and the future. We can see this very clearly with colonial occupations, some of which are evident in indigenous struggles for land, resources, and sovereignty today. But the legacies of colonialism are also evident in the politics of migration, the ways in which occupations and interventions have created mass migrations in which certain bodies are seen as expendable and others are given the protection of national and international agencies. These politics are playing out on a global scale today in the Mediterranean and in the devastating refugee crisis in Europe.
My hope is that we, as Canadians and as members of a larger global collective, will learn from the past, from remembering events like the Komagata Maru, but I am skeptical. Borders are open for some and closed for others and migrants are still being turned away and left to die.
Q: What impact do you think Prime Minister Trudeau’s formal apology will have?
Many people in the Sikh and South Asian communities in B.C. have been working tirelessly to receive a formal apology from the Canadian government for the events surrounding the Komagata Maru. It carries enormous symbolic value for many people. The Canadian government has apologized to Chinese Canadians for the Head Tax, to Japanese Canadians for internment during World War II, and to First Nations communities for the violence of residential schools. Apologies are certainly important as they suggest responsibility and accountability. However, I am concerned that this apology, like the ones that have preceded it, will be used as a form of closure, so that nothing concrete needs to be done to address Canada’s long history of colonialism and racism.
Q: Why is Prime Minister Trudeau issuing an apology for the Komagata Maru incident now after Stephen Harper’s 2008 apology?
Trudeau’s decision follows on an apology initially made by Stephen Harper in 2008. Harper offered this apology for the Canadian government’s deportation of the Komagata Maru passengers at a cultural event in Surrey, B.C. Members of the Sikh community were unhappy with the apology and asked that it be made formally in the House of Commons.
Professor Renisa Mawani discusses the Komagata Maru’s voyage – its arrival and return – through the figure of Gurdit Singh.