Union Zindabad! — South Asian Canadian Labour History in British Columbia

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Revolutionaries
any South Asians who arrived in
British Columbia in the early 20th
century had already been exposed to radical
thought in India. Reform movements in Punjab
had been gathering momentum for decades;
early Sikhs brought with them the influence of
reform propaganda they had
encountered as soldiers. 1
Men who emigrated for
economic reasons became politicized
in Canada and found
they could express them “in a
more vital way than they would
have at home”. 2
Others were motivated to
relocate due to persecution
for their anti-colonial or
other revolutionary activities
which had garnered unwanted
attention. One such individual,
Husain Rahim, changed his name upon arrival in
B.C. as a means of avoiding persecution.
The Ghadar Movement
In 1913, on the eve of the First World War, the
Ghadar movement was organized on the west
Second Avenue Gurdwara, Vancouver, 1910
Kohaly Collection, Simon Fraser University Library.
1 Hugh Johnston, “Group Identity in an Emigrant Worker Community: The Example of Sikhs in early Twentieth-Century
British Columbia.” BC Studies 148 (Winter 2005/06): 9.
2 Johnston, “Group Identity,” 3.
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