Shilpa Rathi
Amit Singh
Asian Canadian Literature
20th April 2015
Journey from Komagata Maru to Kanishka Bombing: Changing Face and the Changing Role of Diaspora in a Globalized World and its Foreign Policy Implications
“If my story paves way for repetition of any such single inequality being impossible, on any one in the future, I shall die in happiness to know that I have done my duty”.
---Gurdit Singh Sarhali Prime Minister Stephen Harper maneuvered to become the champion of minority rights and global peace by apologizing for the Komagata Maru incident and Kanishka Bombing at different occasions in Surrey (2010) and Toronto (2008) respectively. Both these apologies came while he was addressing a crowd which had a majority of Sikh…show more content… They were successful in finding work in Canada during this phase because the imposition of head tax on Chinese immigrants had significantly stopped the immigration of Chinese workers to Canada. The work related to the construction of Central Pacific Railway Line was affected. Indians, therefore, found work in Canada as soon as they landed there. However due to growing anti Asian sentiment in the country, the Indians were discouraged from entering the country and many discriminatory laws such as continuous passage law was passed. The decision of Canadian authorities to disallow Indian passengers from disembarking the Komagata Maru ship can be studied in the light of little privilege and influence that the sugar diaspora had over the host country. Their challenges during those times were different from the kind of challenges that the new masala diaspora faces in these countries. These changes have become much more complex and hideous in the recent times where it takes time for a member of the Indian Diaspora, belonging to the third or fourth generation to understand the kind of intellectual subjugation they are being subjected to. In an interview to Westender, a notable newspaper from the state of British Columbia; Naveen Girn, a fourth generation Indian Canadian and the project manager of Komagata Maru 1914-2014: Generations Geoagraphies and Echos. Talking about the incident on the occasion of its centennial anniversary he said that he was unaware on the incident till much late as only one day of the curriculum at his high school was dedicated to the minority histories.The themes such as loss of identity, nostalgia and holding close the “gunny sack” (M S Vassanji) which contained the memories of the homeland stand partially true as the nature of travel has changed in the post globalized world. It is now easy to go to the parent country as