The Sikh migrants who challenged Canadian immigration law

The passengers aboard the SS Komagata Maru were part of a dramatic challenge to Canada’s former practice of excluding immigrants from India.

In 1914, the Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver carrying some 376 passengers, all British subjects from India. The events that followed illustrated that Canada was considered “a white man’s country” by those in power and affirmed the second-class status of South Asians within the British Empire.