May

Mother’s Day Ascension Day - Christian 27 28 29 30 31 that if the young man whose passage to British Columbia Ascension of Baha’u’llah - laws which have been passed recently. There is no direct After the outbreak of World War I, many Sikhs returned to India to assist her fight against British rule through political movements such as the Ghadar Party, which was founded by Punjabi Indians (primarily Sikhs) in Canada and USA. Meanwhile, Canadian Sikhs faced growing prejudice from the white community who felt Asians in general threatened their jobs. With increasing resentment came new laws denying Indians the right to vote, hold public office or take up certain professions and preventing their immigration. As a direct challenge to Canada’s exclusionist immigration laws, Gurdit Singh, a Sikh businessman from Hong Kong, chartered a Japanese freighter (the Komagata Maru) in 1914 to carry Indians to Vancouver. Canadian officials refused entry to all but a handful of passengers and after two months of legal wrangling the ship was sent back to India where, it was stopped by a British gunboat that placed the passengers under guard. Tensions rose when police tried to arrest Gurdit Singh and others, whom they regarded as dangerous political agitators. Several passengers were killed in the resulting gun fired. The event, known as the Komagata Maru incident, was widely used by Indian campaigners of the time to highlight the racist nature of Canadian immigration laws. It was also recognized as a landmark event in India’s long history of struggle against British oppression.