The Voyage of the Komagatu Maru;   (part 2)
The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Color Bar: Hugh Johnston (1979)[162P] ISBN:0-7748-0340-1
BOOK REVIEW: KAVNEET SINGH
Gurdit Singh exemplifies the character and some qualities of a Sikh; namely, hardworking, enterprising, resourceful, forthright, able to lead and to be peaceful with such odds stacked against them. Gurdit Singh chose to take a stand on a basic right of a resident of the commonwealth all within the realm of the law. With the monetary and human resources at his disposal he could have easily found many other ways to land and enter the Canada but chose to do it in an honorable way. The sad, yet amazing journey of the Sikhs and their indomitable spirit is awe-inspiring. The vile and guile of the White Canadians on the other hand is sickening. In Chapter 11;
_Sikhs purists were demanding control of the shrines_ _which for generations were kept by_ _priests_ _of the Sehajdhari or slow adopters_ _tradition: unbearded priests, indistinguishable_ _from Hindu, priests who had not been baptized into the militant order of the last Guru,_
_Guru Gobind Singh, who served as a bridge between Hindu and Sikh, who_ _tolerated_ _Hindu idols in Sikh shrines, and who enjoyed almost proprietary rights over those shrines._ _The cause against these priests had been maturing ever since the Singh Sabha movement_
_–_ _encouraged by the British_ _–_ _had begun the work of de-Hinduizing Sikhism in the later_ _part of the nineteenth century._
HJ has made a loaded and patently erroneous statement here. The British rulers by design had not only enacted special laws for the Sikhs exclusively so that all their primary places of worship were under their direct control and supervision but the Hindu ‘mahants’
priests were purposely allowed to operate in a manner inimical to the basic postulates of the Sikh Faith with impunity. The British actually are the ones who wanted to discourage the full propagation of the Sikh Faith as it could possibly cause problems from a former enemy they had defeated not too long ago, also keenly aware that the Sikh strength lay in their Faith. The word ‘baptized’ is completely wrong as Sikhs are “formally initiated” into the Faith. Furthermore HJ uses the word ‘militant’ in a wrong and a condescending manner.
HJ forgets that the process of the Sikh Gurus who spent 239 years to mould a people into a living Faith versus Christianity where Jesus preached barely for 2.5 years. Additionally the word ‘Sehajdhari’ is redundant as far as a Sikh is concerned. From 1850-1920 the direct control and indirect chicanery to dilute and erode the spiritual strength of the Sikhs was a diabolical design of the British government. Since soldiers were employed by the British for their own gain, Sikhs were allowed to be “formally initiated” when joining but they were not allowed the ‘kirpan’, an article of faith, and it was prohibited for any Sikh civilian to be “formally initiated”.
The degradation of the Sikh Faith had multiple causes but one of the primary reasons, the British themselves. Instead, the common myth being propagated by various western scholars has always been that the British were pro-Sikh in reference to their Faith and it is they who saved the Sikhs and their Faith. Nothing could be further from the truth!
      The book has some patently inaccurate information on the Sikh Faith and History, but is a historical record of a real life event of a determined group of Sikhs challenging the flagrant racism by the government of Canada and that record, has been summarized in a pretty cogent manner for posterity.
POSTED BY
PARMJIT SINGH SEKHON