Community forgets first Indo-Canadian martyr
Wed, September 10 2008
Last Friday was the martyrdom day of Bhai Bhaag Singh, the former head of the Khalsa Deewan Society, the oldest Sikh religious body in Canada. He was murdered on Sept. 5, 1914, becoming the first Sikh to be martyred on Canadian soil.
Yet his death anniversary was virtually ignored by the community, with no major event organized to remember his selfless contributions.
Bhai Bhaag Singh was at the forefront of the struggle to allow Indian immigrants to bring their families to Canada. He was also an active supporter of the participants of the freedom struggle in India.
Bhai Bhaag Singh was also instrumental in the launching of Swadesh Sewak, the first Punjabi newspaper published outside India to encourage patriotism among Indian expatriates.
He motivated former Sikh soldiers, who had fought for the British army, to burn their medals and break ties with their foreign rulers, and helped the passengers of the Komagata Maru ship that was turned away by the Canadian government under the discriminatory continuous journey law.
Bhai Bhaag Singh was shot by Bela Singh, a British agent who was spying on the freedom fighters inside the Sikh temple.
The shooting enraged Bhai Mewa Singh, who killed William Hopkinson, a British immigration officer, to avenge the murder of Bhai Bhaag Singh. Bela Singh was ultimately murdered in India by revolutionaries, and Bhai Mewa Singh was hanged in New Westminster in 1915.
Although demands to rewrite Canadian history to portray these men in a more “positive light” continue to be raised, community leaders have done little to educate the younger generation about their role in the history of the Indo-Canadian struggle.
The Abbotsford Sikh temple, Gurdwara Kalgidhar Durbar, organized a small memorial service for Bhai Bhaag Singh last Friday. The Khalsa Deewan Society sponsored a special prayer and a lecture on Sunday.
Beside these minor events, no significant functions were organized anywhere else in B.C., where Indo-Canadians continue to influence provincial and federal politics.
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