KOMAGATA MARUREMEMBERING THE

HISTORICIZINGINDIAN MIGRATION

TO CANADA

20 - 21 APRIL, 2014

Department of Humanities and Social SciencesIndian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Shastri Indo-Canadian InstituteIndian Council of Historical Research

“Remembering the Komagata Maru: Historicizing Indian Migration to Canada”

An Interdisciplinary Workshop sponsored by Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute & Indian Council of Historical Research

April 20-21 2014

Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India

2014 is the centenary year of the journey of the Komagata Maru, a Japanese steam ship chartered by Singapore based Sikh entrepreneur, Gurdit Singh, which carried 376 Sikh, Hindu and Muslim passengers to Vancouver. On arrival in Vancouver, the passengers, other than 22 returnees, were not permitted to disembark through the implementation of the Continuous Journey regulation and the ship was forced to sail to Calcutta after being detained for two months. Upon their arrival in Budge Budge, India, the British India government detained the passengers on grounds that they were seditionists who threatened the security of the Empire. They were forced to board a special train to their respective villages in Punjab and the refusal of all but a few to do so led to the alleged riots and killing of 26 passengers in the shooting in what has come to be known as the Budge Budge massacre, while others were imprisoned or put under house arrest. While this incident became the point of convergence for anti-colonial movements within and outside India, it has been largely erased from public memory.

This interdisciplinary workshop aims to explore the significance of the Komagata Maru journey for understanding larger colonial and post-colonial narratives of mobility from multiple perspectives by redirecting the debate on the Komagata Maru from its conventional representations in imperial and national histories. The objective is to examine literary, popular, cultural, historical and filmic narratives and representations that enable ways of understanding the regulation of migration, travel and movement under the Empire. Discussions will include several themes. The first theme encompasses an examination of colonial and post-colonial narratives that engage with mobility enforced by military service, indenture and free labour. The Land Reforms Acts, movement of free workers from Punjab at the beginning of the twentieth century, labour and military histories have a direct bearing on this incident. Revisiting the incident through a focus on regulatory structures that impeded the free movement of people under the empire can prove to be extremely rewarding for contextualizing contemporary forms of migration. The second theme hopes to expand theoretical formulations of cosmopolitanism and localism and the discourse on relations between hosts and migrants, citizens and guest workers to a broader understanding of the difference between cosmopolitan and local sensibilities. Finally, we hope to examine policies by focusing on the Continuous Journey clause and the Ingress Act that throw light on notions of legitimacy attached to border-crossings. Exploring the rights of passengers to travel within the Empire foreground new ways of thinking about regulatory mechanisms through which migrants are prevented from entering nation states in the contemporary world of transnational migration are questions the workshop aims to investigate.

The workshop will begin with a visit and a public event hosted by the Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj Komagata Maru, Budge Budge Committee at the Komagata Maru Memorial, Budge

Budge at 11 a.m. on Sunday, 20th April 2014. It will be followed by paper presentations at the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT Kharagpur on 21st April 2014. For more information, please contact:

Workshop Convener: Dr Anjali Gera Roy Professor Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 721 302 Phone: 91 3222 283616/283617 Fax; 91 3222 282270

Interdisciplinary International Workshop on

Remembering the Komagata Maru: Historicizing Indian Migration to Canada

21 April 2014 Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur 721 302 West Bengal India Inaugural: 9.30 a.m.-10.00 a.m.

Chief Guest, Prof. Ranjan Chakrabarti, Vice Chancellor, Vidyasagar University Welcome by HOD, HSS Opening Remarks by Prof. Siddhartha Mukhopadhyay, Dean AA & IR, IIT KGP Introduction to the Workshop by Prof. Anjali Gera Roy Felicitation of Budge Budge Historian Mr Ganesh Ghosh Panel Discussion I : Historical Perspectives 10 a.m.-11.30 a.m.

Prof. Ranjan Chakrabarti (Moderator) Prof. Himadri Banerjee , Kolkata’s Punjabi-Sikhs Remember Komagata Maru Prof.Subhas Chakrabarty, Komagata Maru: Symbolizing a Journey Prof. Arun Bandopadhyay, The Ghadar Movement in Burma and the Bengali Revolutionaries: Reflections on Saratbabu’s Pather Dabi Sardar Bachan Singh Saral, The Komagata Maru Passengers Tea Break :11.30 a.m.-11.45 a.m.

Panel Discussion II : Literary Perspectives 11.45 a.m. -1.15 p.m. Prof. Nandi Bhatia, (Moderator) Dr. Prabhjot Parmar, Chanting Denied Shores: The Komagata Maru Narrative by Tariq Malik Prof. Harish C. Sharma, Komagata Maru: A Novel by Kesar Singh Prof. Chaman Lal, Literary Representations of Komagata Maru in two Punjabi Plays: Komagata Maru and Shera Naal Takkar Prof. Somdatta Mandal, British Imperialism, Nationalism and Protest: A Case Study of Rabindranath Tagore and the Komagata Maru Incident Lunch Break: 1.15 p.m.-2.30 p.m.

Students’ Panel : 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m.

Prof. Anjali Gera Roy (Moderator) Sujata Banerjee and Sunayana Maiti, The Story of Ghadar Movement: The Larger Background and

Inspiration of Komagata Maru Madhumita Roy and Debarati Dutta, The Politics of Memorializing in Commemorating Komagata Maru

in Budge Budge Ashay Gangwar, Audio-Visual Presentation on Komagata Maru Tea Break: 4.30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.

Concluding Session:4:45 p.m-5.15 p.m. The Workshop will be held in the Seminar Room of HSS Department

List of Participants Prof. Ranjan Chakrabarti Professor Ranjan Chakrabarti (MA, Ph.D. JU, Cal.) is at present the Vice-Chancellor of Vidyasagar University and formerly Professor and Head of the Department of history, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Professor Chakrabarti, formerly a Senior Fulbright Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University, USA (1994-95), is one of the earliest scholars in India to undertake researches in the history of crime, criminality, protest and environmental history of colonial India. In 1997, Professor Chakrabarti was awarded the prestigious Charles Wallace Fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) to explore the social and cultural implications of power and the exercise of colonial power in such social or cultural spaces or sites such as the forest and its animals. He is a member of the editorial board of Global Environment (Florence, Italy www.globalenvironment.it). At different points of time in his career he either taught or lectured at Brown University, London University, Roskilde University (Denmark), Centre of South Asian Studies (SOAS, London), Australian National University in Canberra, Sydney University of Technology, West Virginia University, Morgantown (USA), Rachael Carson Center (Munich), the German Historical Institute (Paris and Washington D. C.), Academia Sinica (Taiwan) and other institutions in India and abroad. Professor Chakrabarti is an internationally acclaimed historian with interest in environmental history and related areas like history of science and technology. Besides a large number of research articles in learned national and international journals and edited volumes, he has authored Authority and Violence in Colonial Bengal (1998). Professor Chakrabarti’s other major publications include Terror, Crime and Punishment (Kolkata: Readers Service, 2010), Situating Environmental History (Delhi: Manohar, 2007), Does Environmental History Matter? (Calcutta: Readers Service, 2006), Random Notes on Modern Indian History (Calcutta: Readers Service, 2006 and 2008), Space and Power in History (Calcutta: Penman, 2001), Political Economy and Protest (Calcutta: Firma, 1997) and Jadavpur University Journal of History (2002, 2003). Professor Chakrabarti was awarded Alexander O.Vietor Memorial Fellowship at Brown University for two months in 2004. He was a member of the International Preparatory and Programme Committees of the World Congress of Environmental History held in Copenhagen, Denmark in August 2009. (www.wceh2009.org). He has been twice awarded the Alfred Bell Fellowship (2007 and 2009) at the Forest History Society (USA) to work on Deforestation and Wildlife in Colonial and Post-colonial India. He was a member of the State (Govt. of West Bengal, India) Level Committee for the celebration of the 150th year of the Revolt of 1857. Professor Chakrabarti is a member of several UGC committees and a nominee of the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Govt of India to Central Universities/Institutes. He is also the Visitor’s (President of India’s) nominee to Mizoram University (A Central University). Mr. Ganesh Ghosh Shri Ganesh Ghosh,Ex-Chairman of Budge Budge Municipality, is a micro-historian of Budge Budge. After hearing about the Komagata Maru from his grandmother as a child, he took upon himself to put together the story of the Komagata Maru episode focusing on its return to Budge Budge and the events that followed after as a labour of love. Mr Ghosh has compiled a invaluable archive of the event and written a book in Bengali on the Komagata Maru commissioned by the Gurdwara Shaheed Ganj. Prof. Himadri Banerjee Professor Himadri Banerjee is the former Chairperson of the Guru Nanak Chair in Indian History at Jadavpur University's Department of History. Dr. Banerjee has been working on Sikhs and Sikhism in eastern India for nearly four decades now. In recent years, Dr. Banerjee has been travelling in search of

Sikh mosaics of eastern and north-eastern India as far as Moreh along the Indo-Myanmar border about which neither the Sikhs of Punjab nor those of the West have any idea. His book, The Other Sikhs: A View from Eastern India, is widely regarded as a path-breaking work on the Sikhs and their history and heritage in Assamese, Oriya and Bengali traditions. He has studied the information and records, published over a century between the First Sikh War (1845) and the Partition of India (1947), available in local languages, and has shown how the regional flavour lends its own colour to the traditions of the Sikhs. His work rediscovering the Second Diaspora beyond Punjab in India is particularly significant and relevant. Prof. Subhas Ranjan Chakraborty Professor Subhas Ranjan Chakraborty retired from Presidency College, Kokata in 2005, but continued to teach as guest teacher till 2013. He is a guest faculty, Department of History, Calcutta University. He has written on the history and politics of Darjeeling, on aspects of forced migration during the colonial period and on the French Revolution and the Balkans. Prof. Arun Bandopadhyay Professor Arun Bandopadhyay is currently Nurul Hasan Professor of History and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Calcutta. He taught earlier at the Departments of History, Benaras Hindu University, Varanasi and Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Uppsala University, Sweden. His research interests include economic history, business history, and history of science and environment. Sardar Bachan Singh Saral Described by Barry O'Brien as "the city’s most well-informed Sikh historian and journalist", Sardar Bachan Singh Saral did his BA in the year 1957 from Banga Basi College, Calcutta University. He also completed a three year diploma course in Mechanical and joined the Indian Railways. Writing was his passion and that brought the then Home Minister, Giani Jail Singh to his door-steps. Gianiji motivated and influenced him to leave his railway job and to join journalism as a full time occupation. And then for him there was no looking back. Bachan Singh Saral is a frequent writer in many journals published from Punjab . Jag Bani, Ajit, Punjabi Tribune to name a few. He has also authored books as Brief History of Hisorical Gurdwara’s of Bangladesh and the Historical Kamagata Maru of Budge Budge Ghat, Calcutta, etc. Bachan Singh Saral has the unique distinction of being an elected Vice-president of Calcutta Press Club for a long 11 years. He was also Editor of Daily Desh Darpan, Daily Navi Prabhat and Calcutta representative of Daily Vishwamitra (Hindi-Calcutta) & Daily Ajit (Punjabi-Jalandhar). Prof. Nandi Bhatia Professor Nandi Bhatia is currently the Associate Dean – Faculty of Research and Graduate Studies (Arts and Humanities) at the University of Western Ontario, where she is also a Professor of English. Her research interests include British imperial and South Asian Colonial and Post-colonial literatures. She is currently working on a SSHRC funded project on the relationship between colonial censorship and literary movements in Indian from 1858- 1947. She has recently published Performing Women/Performing Womanhood: Theatre, Politics and Dissent (2010, Oxford University Press) as well as an article on South Asian voices in Canadian Drama in Studies in Social Justice. Dr. Prabhjot Parmar Dr. Prabhjot Parmar teaches South Asian and South Asian Diaspora Literatures, Indian Cinema and Culture, and Global Studies at the University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, Canada. She is the co-editor of When Your Voice Tastes Like Home: Immigrant Women Write, and has published articles on Partition of India, South Asian diaspora in Canada, Hindi and Punjabi Cinema. She is also a conference co-chair for the SALA 2015 annual conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Prof. Harish C. Sharma Professor Harish C. Sharma has recently retired from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. He was Head of the Deptt. of History from 2001 to 2004 . He has worked extensively on the social history of the lower castes with focus on the Artisans. His doctoral thesis ‘Artisans of the Punjab: A Study of Social Change in Historical Perspective [1849-1947] was published by Manohar, Delhi. He has published articles also on urbanization, social and religious reform movements, Lala Lajpat Rai, Shaheed Bhagat Singh and HSRA. At present he is a Senior Academic Fellow of Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi. Prof. Chaman Lal Professor Chaman Lal is Professor (Retired) and former Chairperson of Centre of Indian Languages in Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi (India), presently on assignment at Central University of Punjab, Bathinda as Professor-Coordinator of Centre for Comparative Literature .He served as a Visiting Professor on Hindi Chair in The University of the West Indies in St. Augustine (2010-11). He has fifty plus authored/edited/translated books to his credit in Hindi, Punjabi and English languages, including ‘Understanding Bhagat Singh’(2013) and ‘Ghadar Party Hero:Kartar Singh Sarabha’(2010) Prof. Somdatta Mandal Professor Somdatta Mandal is Professor of English at the Department of English and Other Modern European Languages, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. Her areas of interest are contemporary fiction, film and culture studies, Diaspora studies and translation. A recipient of several prestigious awards and fellowships, she has been published widely both nationally and internationally. She is presently translating a series of travel narratives by Bengali women beginning from colonial times to the present and also travel essays by Rabindranath Tagore.

Prof. Anjali Gera Roy

Anjali Gera Roy is a Professor in the Department of Humanities of Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. She has published a number of essays in literary, film and cultural studies, authored a book on African fiction, edited an anthology on the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka and co-edited another on the Indo-Canadian novelist Rohinton Mistry. Her publications include a co-edited volume(with Nandi Bhatia) Partitioned Lives: Narratives of Home, Displacement and Resettlement (Delhi: Pearson Longman 2008) on the Indian Partition of 1947 and a monograph Bhangra Moves: From Ludhiana to London and Beyond(Aldersgate: Ashgate 2010). She has recently co-edited( with Chua Beng Huat) The Travels of Indian Cinema: From Bombay to LA(Delhi: OUP 2012), edited The Magic of Bollywood: At Home and Abroad(Delhi: Sage 2012) and guest edited a special issue of the South Asian Diaspora (Vol. 6, No. 2 2014) on “Imagining Punjab and the Punjabi Diaspora Sujata Banerjee & Sunayana Maiti Research Scholars, Department of History, University of Calcutta Madhumita Roy and Debarati Dutta Research Scholars, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kharagpur Ashay Gangwar Undergraduate student in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, photographer and short filmmaker