Abstract
Sikh migrants joined post-war strike-waves, formed unions and turned left in the 1920s and early 1930s in and around Calcutta, in the South Bengal region under British rule. To them, an unofficial commemoration of Komagata Maru’s voyage and the militancy associated with the Ghadar movement during First World War, became inseparable from contemporary resistance to the domination of colonial capital and British colonial state in India. They engaged with, worked upon and simultaneously moved beyond the boundaries of ethno-linguistic and religious identities as well as the social content of anti-colonial nationalism by focusing on a self-aware identity based on organised class action. This understanding was linked with the lived experiences of migration and imperial exploitation, the components of identity that had come to the forefront during the war. The diasporic identity of the Sikh migrant workers converged with the wider labour movement and was politically reshaped in the post-war context as livelihood issues took on the form of systematic protests in the city and beyond.
Highlights
The Komagata Maru’s arrival in 1914, the confrontation with colonial state power and the massacre of 21 Sikh passengers at Budge Budge, the repressive measures adopted by the colonial authorities on Punjabi migrants and the local Punjabi Sikh inhabitants, and the influence of Ghadar, prompted a handful of Sikh workers to participate in short-lived revolutionary actions in and around Calcutta during First World War
The diasporic identity of the Sikh migrant workers converged with the wider labour movement and was politically reshaped in the post-war context as livelihood issues took on the form of systematic protests in the city and beyond
In the inter-war period, the expatriate militancy of the war-time Ghadar Movement and the symbolically defiant references to Komagata Maru surfaced in labour rallies and speeches of left and militant labour activists
Summary
The Komagata Maru’s arrival in 1914, the confrontation with colonial state power and the massacre of 21 Sikh passengers at Budge Budge, the repressive measures adopted by the colonial authorities on Punjabi migrants and the local Punjabi Sikh inhabitants, and the influence of Ghadar, prompted a handful of Sikh workers to participate in short-lived revolutionary actions in and around Calcutta during First World War. To the Sikh migrants who joined post-war strike-waves, formed unions and turned left in the 1920s and early 1930s, an unofficial commemoration of the Komagata Maru’s voyage, and the militancy associated with the Ghadar movement, became inseparable from contemporary resistance to the domination of colonial capital. They engaged with, worked upon and simultaneously moved beyond the boundaries of ethno-linguistic and religious identities and the social content of nationalism by focusing on a self-aware identity based on organised class action. Report of the Committee on Industrial Unrest in Bengal 1921. 7 Annual Reports on the Police Administration of the Town of Calcutta and its Suburbs for the year 1918-1928
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