Baba Gurdit Singh
| Baba Gurdit Singh | |
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Baba Gurdit Singh
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| Born | 25 August 1860 Sarhali, Punjab Province, British India |
| Died | 24 July 1954 (aged 93) Sarhali, Punjab, India |
Baba Gurdit Singh (25 August 1860 – 24 July 1954) was the central figure in the Komagata Maru incident of 1914, one of several incidents in the history of early 20th century involving exclusion laws in both Canada and the United States designed to keep out immigrants of only Asian origin.
Singh was born in 1860 at Sarhali, in Amritsar District of British Punjab province (India). He chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, in 1914 to go to Canada, reaching Vancouver on 23 May 1914. The government did not allow the ship to anchor. The ship was attacked by the police at night. The attack was repulsed by the passengers and it created a great stir among the Indians in Canada.
His grandfather, Sardar Rattan Singh Sandhu was a high-ranking military officer in the Khalsa Army and had fought against the British during the Anglo-Sikh wars and he declined the British offer of a jagir after the annexation of the Punjab. Later on, his father Sardar Hukam Singh Sandhu went to Malaya where he settled down as a contractor.
Gurdit Singh received little education in his childhood, partly due to the harsh treatment of his teacher which caused him to leave school. However, at the age of 13, he privately acquired elementary education so as to be able to correspond with his father in Malaya.
Gurdit Singh visited Malaya in about 1885 and conducted business in Singapore and Malaya as a contractor. He returned from there in 1909. In 1911 he raised his voice against forced labour. He wrote to the Government complaining against officials who forced poor villagers to work for them without remuneration, and when he received no response, he exhorted the people of his village to refuse to be subjected to begar (forced labour).
Though he himself was a well-to-do fisherman in Singapore, Gurdit Singh chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, in 1914 to go to Canada, with the aim of helping his compatriots whose journeys to Canada were being blocked. The government of Canada had put restrictions on the entry of Indians.
The ship, renamed as Guru Nanak Jahaj, had a total of 376 passengers out of whom 351 were Sikhs and 21 Punjabi Muslims. The ship sailed from Hong Kong to Vancouver on 3 April 1914. The obstructions put up by the alien authorities and the hardships faced by its passengers turned them into staunch nationalists. The ship reached Vancouver on 22 May 1914 and it was not allowed to anchor and was attacked by the police at night. The attack was repulsed by the passengers and it created a great stir among the Indians in Canada. This is known as the Komagata Maru incident.
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Wikipedia