Another day, another act of national self-abasement from the Canadian government.

On 23 May, it was all about the Komagata Maru incident, ‘a moment where Canada failed to uphold our values, with horrific consequences’, according to Canadian prime minister Mark Carney. Pierre Poilievre chimed in, calling it ‘a dark and shameful chapter in our history and a painful injustice’.

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The official version is as follows: on 23 May 1914, 376 passengers of the SS Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver, hoping for a better life. But because of racist Canadian immigration policy, most were denied entry. They waited for two months in the harbour with limited access to food, water and medical care, but were eventually forced to leave. On returning to India, many – to Canada’s eternal shame – were imprisoned or killed.

That’s the official version. What really happened is far more complex.

The story begins long before, in 1857 with the Indian Mutiny, when native troops in the British army in India mutinied and a bloody, though unsuccessful, war of rebellion ensued.

In the early 1900s, Punjabis living in California and British Columbia took inspiration from this event to form the revolutionary Ghadar (meaning ‘mutiny’) Movement, which explicitly sought the violent overthrow of British rule in India. Their........

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