Komagata Maru arrived at Vancouver, Canada, in May 1914 carrying 376 passengers, mostly Sikhs from British India. Canadian authorities prevented nearly all of them from landing under exclusionary immigration rules. After the ship returned to Bengal, British Indian police fired on passengers at Budge Budge, killing several.

Punjabi and Canadian poets have made Komagata Maru an enduring symbol of racism, migration and resistance within the British Empire. Writers including Ajmer Rode have used poetry and drama to restore individual voices excluded from official accounts of the confrontation.