The Sikhs In Canada

A riveting, incisive account of some of the most complex politics in modern Canada, from the founder of the World Sikh Organization of Canada. An Uncommon Road is the celebration of an extraordinarily resilient people and a moving roadmap for how individuals, and a community, can fight for their own social justice and gain justice for all.

This book studies the migration and settlement of Sikhs from India to Canada, and looks at the socio-economic and cultural lives of that diaspora. It deals with gender, community, family, identity, religious beliefs, and language.

This edited volume discusses how the Punjabi transnational experience has impacted Indian transnationalism and led to a diverse diaspora.

A superbly illustrated book that succinctly describes the social history of the Sikh population in Canada, focusing on their struggles, hardships, and perseverance to live in British Columbia. -BC Historical News

In May 1914, 400 Sikhs left for British Columbia by chartered ship, resolved to claim their right to equal treatment with white citizens of the British Empire and force entry into Canada. They were anchored off Vancouver for over two months, enduring extreme physical privation and harrassment by immigration officials, but defying federal deportation orders even when the Canadian government attempted to enforce them with a gunboat. The leaders of the group, who were thought to be closely associated with the nationalist, terrorist movement in India, were finally persuaded to return to India. They were by then full of revolutionary fervour against the Raj. On their disembarkation at Calcutta, troops opened fire while attempting to control the passengers, and a number of them were killed. The event, which had already raised a great deal of interest and concern among the governments of India and Canada, was now invested for Indian nationalists with a tragic significance which can be compared to that of Jallianwallah Bagh, while Gurdit Singh, the leader, was acclaimed as a heroic revolutionary figure by eminent Congressmen.