The Komagata Maru incident has become central to ongoing debates on Canadian racism, immigration, multiculturalism, citizenship and Indian nationalist resistance. The chapters presented in this book, written by established and emerging historians and scholars in literary, cultural, religious, immigration and diaspora studies, revisit the ship’s ill-fated journey to throw new light on its impact on South Asian migration and surveillance, ethnic and race relations, anticolonial and postcolonial resistance, and citizenship. The book draws on archival resources to offer the first multidisciplinary study of the historic event that views it through imperial, regional, national and transnational lenses and positions the journey both temporally and spatially within micro and macro histories of several regions in the British Empire. This volume contributes to the emerging literature on migration, mobilities, borders and surveillance, regionalism and transnationalism. Apart from its interest to scholars of diaspora and nationalism, this book will deeply resonate with those interested in imperialism, migration, transnationalism, Punjab and Sikh studies.
This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal South Asian Diaspora.
1. Introduction: The journey of the Komagata Maru: national, transnational, diasporic Anjali Gera Roy and Ajaya K. Sahoo 2. Dissident mobilities: the Komagata Maru and Indian travellers in the Empire Pramod K. Nayar 3. The journey of Komagata Maru: conjuncture, memory and history Subhas Ranjan Chakraborty 4. Incorporating regional events into the nationalist narrative: the life of Gurdit Singh and the Komagata Maru episode in postcolonial India Darshan S. Tatla 5. Komagata Maru episode and the veteran Sikh British soldier’s revolt in the history of Indian nationalism Paromita Deb 6. Komagata Maru sails from the Far East: cartography of the Sikh diaspora within the British Empire Arunajeet Kaur 7. A century of miri piri: securing Sikh belonging in Canada Doris Jakobsh and Margaret Walton-Roberts 8. Remembering Komagata Maru: its many journeys, 1914–2014 Himadri Banerjee 9. Closely observed ships Suchetana Chattopadhyay 10. Immobile mobilities and free-flowing Sikh movements from Punjab Anjali Gera Roy
Anjali Gera Roy is a Professor in the Department of Humanities of Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, working on fiction, film and performance traditions of India, diasporas and Punjab. Ajaya Kumar Sahoo teaches at the Centre for Study of Indian Diaspora, University of Hyderabad. His research interests include international migration, South Asian diaspora, transnationalism, and religion.
