Baba Gurdit Singh
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Baba Gurdit Singh | |
---|---|
British India | |
Died | 24 July 1954 | (aged 93)
Baba Gurdit Singh (25 August 1860 – 24 July 1954) was the central figure in the Komagata Maru incident of 1914,[1] 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
Early years
His grandfather, Sardar Rattan Singh was a high-ranking military officer in the
Education
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.
British 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
Legacy
Though he himself was a well-to-do fisherman in Singapore, Gurdit Singh chartered a Japanese ship, the
The ship had a total of 376 passengers out of whom 351 were
An agreement was reached and the ship sailed back to India. It reached
Gurdit Singh was aware of the problems that Punjabis were facing in getting to Canada due to exclusion laws. He was apparently also aware of the January 1914 regulations when he chartered the Komagata Maru, with the purported goal of challenging the continuous journey regulation and opening the door for immigration from India to Canada.[5] He believed he could circumvent this law by hiring a boat to sail from Calcutta to Vancouver.
At the same time, in January 1914, he publicly espoused the
The Ghadar Party was an organisation founded by Indians of the United States and Canada in June 1913 with the aim of liberating India from British rule. It was also known as the Hindi Association of the Pacific Coast.Later years
Baba Gurdit Singh escaped and remained underground for many years until 1920 when, on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, he made a voluntary surrender at Nankana Sahib[2] and was imprisoned for five years. Later, he settled in Calcutta. He died on 24 July, 1954, in Amritsar and was cremated at his native village Sarhali Kalan, Tarn taran.
In 1937,
Baba Gurdit Singh had one son, Baba Balwant Singh. Baba Balwant Singh had two sons, Ajit Singh & Jaswant Singh, and five daughters: Harbhajan Kaur, Sawant Kaur, Amarjit Kaur, Balbir Kaur & Dalbir Kaur. His sons both died in late seventies and early eighties. He has two paternal grandsons, one of them lives in Zira and the other (Tejpal Singh Sandhu) lives in Canada while their mother (his daughter-in-law) is settled in the US. His grandson, living in Zira, died in 2014 in a car accident near Sarhali.
References
- ^ a b Johnston, Hugh (7 February 2006). "Komagata Maru; The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Archived from the original on 5 April 2021. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
- ^ ISBN 0-89389-109-6.
- ^ "Baba Gurdit Singh Kamagata Maru". www.sikh-history.com. Archived from the original on 14 September 2010. Retrieved 28 November 2009.
- ^ ISBN 978-93-5113-412-1.
- ^ Johnston, H., op. cit., p. 26.
- ^ Johnston, H., op. cit., pp. 24 and 25.