What was ‘Kamagatamaru’

The correct answer is C) A ship. Kamagatamaru (more commonly spelt Komagata Maru) was a Japanese steamship chartered in 1914 by Gurdit Singh, a Sikh businessman from Punjab, to carry about 376 mostly Punjabi passengers to Vancouver, Canada.

Canada refused them entry under the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908, which required immigrants to arrive by a continuous journey from their country of origin. With no direct sailing from India, the ship was kept waiting in Vancouver harbour for about two months and then ordered to leave. On its return it reached Budge Budge near Calcutta in September 1914, where police fired on protesting passengers, killing about 20 people.

Why the others are wrong:

• A) Industrial centre and B) Harbor: these are places or facilities. The episode was about a vessel and its passengers, not a location.
• D) Army unit: there was no military connection. The passengers were migrants, and the dispute was about immigration policy.

Core concept: the Komagata Maru incident is a case study in colonial immigration policy, racial exclusion within the British Empire, and the growth of the Ghadar movement. For Mains GS-1 (modern Indian history), it links to diaspora politics and the run-up to the Ghadar and nationalist agitations of 1914 to 1919.

Trap: candidates sometimes read 'Maru' as a place name or assume it refers to a port because of the spelling. 'Maru' is the suffix used for Japanese ships.