A little over a hundred years ago on May 23, 1914, residents of the north Pacific British colonial city of Vancouver woke up to a Japanese freighter carrying British Indian immigrants weighing anchor in its harbour. The Komagata Maru had been chartered by a wealthy Sikh merchant from Hong Kong, Gurdit Singh, to ferry his community members from then British Punjab to a better life in British Columbia. The unexpected arrival of the rundown freighter anchored in Burrard Inlet was first viewed with horror by the predominantly white Canadian population of Vancouver, and then indignation by the provincial press. Worse than the strident outcry was the two-month incarceration of Komagata Maru’s passengers on board.