GURDIT SINGH (KOMAGATA MARU)
Baba Gurdit Singh Komagata Maru (1861 – 24.7.1954), son of Bhai Hukam Singh, was born at village Sarhali (district Amritsar). In 1870, Bhai Hukam Singh moved to Malaya (Malaysia). When Gurdit Singh grew up, he started a dairy farm in Malaysia. In 1914, the Canadian government passed a law that only those persons, who enter Canada after a non-stop journey, would be allowed to migrate to Canada. Baba Gurdit Singh came into prominence when he chartered a ship, named Komagata Maru, to take the Punjabis to Canada. The ship reached Vancouver on May 23, 1914, but the passengers were not allowed to enter Canada. The ship sailed back to Calcutta and reached Budge Budge shore on September 29, 1914. The British government ordered internment of all the passengers, but they refused to be arrested; and started, in a procession, toward the Gurdwara at Calcutta. The police opened fire at them. Some passengers died at the spot and most of the passengers were arrested. Baba Gurdit Singh, however, escaped. He offered himself for arrest, on November 15, 1921, at Nanakana Sahib. He was released on February 28, 1922 because the laws under which he was to be arrested had been annulled by that time. After his release he worked for the Akali Dal. He was arrested again on March 7, 1922, in connection with a speech at Darbar Sahib. He spent about four years in jail. He became the president of the Akali Dal, in May 1926. In 1929, he joined Congress party. On November 2, 1929, he formed a Nationalist Party and became its president. All the Congressite Sikhs joined him but he could not continue long with the leadership. In 1937, he contested election to the Punjab Assembly as a nominee of the Congress party but lost to Partap Singh Kairon, the Akali nominee. On May 19, 1940, he presided over a meeting of his associates and demanded the British to return the Sikh territory (annexed by the British in 1849) to the Sikh nation. He was selected the president of Guru Khalsa Raj, an organization, formed in that meeting, to launch a struggle for the freedom of the Sikh homeland. Baba Gurdit Singh, however, could not create a movement.
He spent his last days with the family of a friend, at Amritsar, in isolation. He died in 1954.
(Dr. Harjinder Singh Dilgeer)