Baba Gurdit Singh: My great-grandfather who brought Komagata Maru to Canada

The Brampton great-grandson recalls the life of Baba Gurdit Singh

By Tejpal Sandhu

Komagata hero Baba Gurdit Singh was my great grandfather.

Born to Sardar Hukam Singh and Gulab Kaur at Sarhali village in Amritsar district in 1859, he received only a little education at the gurdwara as there was no school in the village.

He was a little boy when his father went to Malaysia. At the age 13, Baba Gurdit Singh joined his father in Malaysia.

His first job was with a Chinese meat businessman which required him to learnt Malay and Mandarin.

While working with the Chinese businessman, he also learnt dairy farming and soon started his own dairy farm. He would import cows and buffalos from India as his dairy business flourished.

He also started working as a contractor for building railway lines and mines and soon became very rich.

He married and had a son named Balwant Singh (my grandfather). But his wife died when he was 45 years old and he never remarried.

Baba Gurdit Singh was considered the richest Sikh of his time and very influential. He had business interests in Hong Kong. He went there often and visited the local gurdwara. At that gurdwara he would see many Indians stuck in Hong Kong because the ships going to Vancouver won’t pick up them up.

These Indians sought Baba Gurdit Singh’s help to reach Vancouver. Bhai Balwant Singh, granthi of the Khalsa Diwan Society gurdwara in Vancouver, had also visited Babaji in Malaysia in 1912 to seek his help on the entry into Canada.

That’s why Baba Gurdit Singh hired the Komagata Maru ship from a Japanese company for six months to challenge Canada’s discriminatory laws.

Before he hired the Komagata Maru, he wanted to hire a ship from India so that he could bring Indians to Canada directly, but it didn’t work out.

He paid 11,000 Hong Kong dollars per month to hire the Komagata Maru and brought fellow 376 passengers to Vancouver on May 23, 1914. But they were not allowed to disembark.

The ship was forcibly returned after two months. When Baba Gurdit Singh and other passengers reached Budge Budge Ghat in Calcutta, the ship was seized by the police. They were forced to leave the ship empty-handed. Baba Gurdit Singh only managed to take the holy Guru Granth Sahib from the ship.

He wanted to go to a gurdwara in Calcutta to place the holy Granth there and also talk to lawyers about their treatment by the government. He also wanted to talk to the owners of the Komagata Maru to finalize a deal to purchase the ship, but they were not allowed.

Instead, they were forced to board the train that was in the Budge Budge Railway Station. But they refused to board the train, saying that they are now in their own country and free to go where they want.

When they all sat in an open place to say their evening prayers, policemen swooped on them and asked them who Baba Gurdit Singh was. When they all refused to speak, the policemen tried to forcibly take away his six-year-old son who was also one of the passengers. This enraged the passengers and a fight broke out.

The policemen fired on the passengers, killing 19 and injuring nearly 40.

Baba Gurdit Singh and four of his men escaped from there. Baba Gurdit Singh’s son was sent to our village Sarhali to live with his grandfather (Hukam Singh).

Baba Gurdit Singh lived underground for six to seven years and his businesses in Malaysia and Hong Kong got ruined. But on Guru Nanak Dev ji’s birthday, he decided to turn himself in at Nankana Sahib. He was put in jail. When he got very old, he was kept under house arrest at our village Sarhali.

After the independence of India, Baba Gurdit Singh went to Calcutta and stayed there till 1952. He returned to Amritsar in 1952 where he passed away on July 24, 1954. He was cremated at Sarhali as per his wishes.

We salute my great grandfather’s bravery and courage.

(Tejpal Singh Sandhu came to Canada in 2003 and lives in Brampton. He is the grandson of Baba Gurdit Singh’s son Balwant Singh who can be seen as a little boy standing next to Baba Gurdit Singh in these pictures)