The images of detained South Asian migrants in cages, and protests against Canada's immigration rules, are jarringly familiar.
Such photographs of struggle and oppression form the stirring backbone for award-winning filmmaker Ali Kazimi's book, Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru, An Illustrated History. (The official book launch will take place on Tuesday, May 22 at 7:30 p.m. at W2 on 111 West Hastings St.).
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As the 98th anniversary of the 1914 Komagata Maru incident approaches on Wednesday, the images of Canada's deportation of 376 asylum-seekers nearly a century ago evoke recent controversies over Tamil and Chinese boat arrivals on the West Coast, Kazimi writes in his introduction, as well as government legislation restricting migration today.
Today, the New Democratic Party (NDP) renewed its demand for an in-Parliament apology over the incident.
Photo of Sikhs on Komagata Maru from Undesirables
“The tragedy of the Komagata Maru marks a dark chapter in Canadian history,” said MP Jasbir Sandhu in a statement. “The Conservatives must provide closure on the trauma this has caused in the South Asian community.
“That is the only way that healing and reconciliation can begin. . . A dignified, official apology for the Komagata Maru tragedy is long overdue.”
In 2008, Harper apologized, informally, at a community event. But members of the Lower Mainland's Sikh community rejected that attempt, saying that an official apology – like those for the Chinese head tax and Indian Residential Schools – needs to happen in the House of Commons.
"The apology has been given," said Jason Kenney, at the time Secretary of State, "and it won't be repeated."
Kazimi's beautifully illustrated book is quite simply a pleasure to read. He is particularly attentive both to the South Asian community's solidarity with the migrants, as well as the lines of power intrinsic to Canada's border laws. By clearly naming and documenting "White Canada," as it saw itself, Kazimi sharpens the Komagata Maru incident into an image of racism and resistance.
He opens his account with full-page photographs of Sikh military figures serving the British Empire, and postage stamps showing the Empire's breadth.
It is obvious that Indians were legally British subjects, and that Canada's “Continuous Journey” laws keeping the Komagata Maru passengers out – on grounds that they had made stop-overs on their way here – were simply a thinly veiled racist excuse for exclusion.
But with Undesirables, Kazimi – whose 2004 documentary, Continuous Journey, won more than 10 awards at festivals from DOXA Festival in Vancouver to the Mumbai International Film Festival – is driving at a much deeper goal than simply documenting a historic injustice.
Citing Canada's detention of 492 Tamil asylum-seekers fleeing civil war in Sri Lanka two years ago, the author argues the hostile reaction to the migrants – not to mention the resulting Conservative refugee detention bill currently before Parliament – show that the Komagata Maru elicited “motifs that are all too familiar today.”
“Concerns about terrorist links and national security were added to the existing stereotypes of 'queue-jumpers,' 'bogus claimants' and 'economic migrants,'” Kazimi writes. “The precedents set by the events surrounding the Komagata Maru continue to haunt Canada's immigration and refugee framework.
“Is it possible that a century from now Canada will be offering apologies for the events of today?”
One thing that is most striking to this reviewer is Kazimi's respect for the participants' voice and agency. He never portrays them as helpless victims, but rather agents of their own destiny.
In fact, the Komagata Maru passengers knew the risks of deportation when they signed up. With British colonial rule entrenched in India, it was a risk the ship's riders were willing to take. Kazimi hails the voyage's organizer, Gurdit Singh, who explicitly hoped to challenge Canada's continuous journey law – he was, Kazimi writes, “haunted by a feeling that he wanted to contribute to the welfare of his compatriots.”
“I could not bear the grief and hardship of the Vancouver emigrants, who had been waiting in the Sikh temple,” Singh wrote at the time. “It was a matter of injustice and darkness.”
“If we are admitted we will know the Canadian government is just. If we are deported we will sue the government and if we cannot obtain redress we will go back and take up the matter with the Indian government.”
Singh and his comrades' efforts show that migration – and governments' attempt to restrict it – was as political and controversial a century ago as it is now. In fact, some of the deported passengers went on to become anti-British activists and political prisoners in India, through the socialist, and militant, Ghadar movement.
Other figures in this confrontation with Canada's racist immigration system come into sharp relief. One of those figures was J. Edward Bird, a white lawyer hired by Ismaili Muslim community leader Husain Rahim.
Bird fought vigorously against his clients' deportation, and “sought to establish contradictions and errors” in the law, even questioning the Immigration Act's use of the term “citizen.”
One of the most fascinating photographs is of members of the Vancouver Sikh community standing in protest in front of the detention centre. Behind them, through a set of black iron bars, is a mesh cage holding dozens of turbaned men. There's an intense look to these activists' eyes – a determination that “encapsulates the struggles against exclusion faced by the South Asian community,” Kazimi writes.
Noise-making demonstrations from 2010-2011 outside Lower Mainland detention centres where the Tamil boat arrivals were held evoked this powerful image of a community rallying support.
By drawing a direct line from the Continuous Journey law and racist riots of 100 years ago, and today's Safe Third Country Agreement, Kazimi is implicitly expressing his support for the activists and migrant justice organizers of our age – whether they be No One Is Illegal or the Canadian Council for Refugees, communities fought back then, as they continue to do today.
Kazimi, himself a Muslim, frequently emphasizes that most, though not all, the passengers were Sikh – there were also Muslims and Hindus aboard. (In fact, the mass media at the time ran headlines warning of “Hindoos” set to swamp “white Canada,” and many of these front pages are included in Undesirables).
But one newspaper headline shows a minority among the press of the time were vocal against the detentions.
“PLEAD FOR JUSTICE,” reads a South Asian newspaper headline. “Thirty-nine Sikhs in custody at Victoria, B.C.”
With hundreds of rare images and text showing Sikh community wrestling matches, religious processions, and protests, Undesirables is not only a definitive historic glimpse of Canada's racist past, but a more hopeful version of history.
Each person encountered in Kazimi's work is an agent of their community's destiny – and an author of its freedom. We would be wise to remember such people today.
Undesirables: White Canada and the Komagata Maru, An Illustrated History, by Ali Kazimi, is published by Douglas & McIntyre (2011).