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Ujjal Dosanjh Rasik Shah Rasik Shah is a writer and lives in Vancouver. He practised law in Vancouver for many years and knew Ujjal Dosanjh both socially and professionally. His hobby is taking out trekking groups to the Indian Himalayas. His e-mail address is rshah132@home.com

Ujjal Dosanjh, an Indo-Canadian, became the premier of British Columbia on 21st February, 2000.

British Columbia is the western-most province of Canada, bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west and the United States on the south; one of ten Provinces that constitute the Federation of Canada. It is the third largest Province, after Ontario and Quebec. Its population is about three and a half million, sparse compared to its size. A majority of people are white, mainly of British origin. There are significant non-white minorities, in particular the growing number of people of Chinese and Indian origin. Ethnic statistics are difficult to get these days, but it is estimated that there are more than 150,000 "East Indians" in this province, concentrated in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland area. The Asian minorities have done well for themselves. The hard working Chinese people from the free enterprise, capitalist regions like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other parts have prospered and own some of the best housing in Vancouver. Their children dominate and are high achievers in schools and universities. Signs in parts of Vancouver are in Mandarin and in Little India, or the Punjab Market, they are in Punjabi.

The Sikh community in the Province has had a chequered history, with large numbers coming in the early decades of the last century to work in saw mills and as agricultural workers. A lot of people in the last category came to work in farms often owned by other Indians. There were middlemen who organized contract work for those richer, well-off farm owners, usually white but some also Punjabis, supplying cheap immigrant labour at exploitative wages and poor working conditions.

I had myself migrated to British Columbia in 1974, and after qualifying to practice law again, started my own practise in 1978. It was soon after this that I ran into Ujjal Dosanjh, a young lawyer who attended some of the meetings in support of farm workers that I also used to attend. He was articulate and had a sense of humour. The big issues then were things like the use of pesticides in farming without providing the labourers with appropriate protective gloves and employing other measures that would prevent injury. In fact there had been one death that resulted from pesticide poisoning. Ujjal had himself been an immigrant worker once, working in a sawmill before he went to law school. Attending those meetings, I picked up a bit of the history of Punjabi immigration to the Pacific west both in the United States and Canada. There was a considerable amount of racism that immigrants from India and China faced in those early years. There was a head tax on all Chinese residents, abolished only in later years.

One milestone in the history of hostility faced by immigrants from India was the Kamagatu Maru incident in 1914. In the year 1900 there were only about 2050 people from India on the north American continent, mainly Punjabis who had settled in Canada. Indian immigrants faced numerous hardships and discrimination on arrival in Canada. Stringent laws were passed to discourage immigration of Indians. Indians had to have $200 on their person to enter British Columbia and had to have arrived by direct passage from India. In 1907 a bill was passed denying all Indians the right to vote. They were prohibited to run for public office, serve on juries and were not permitted to become accountants, lawyers or pharmacists. All this was aimed at the "brown invasion". The Japanese and Chinese faced fewer hurdles.

Then an enterprising Sikh gentleman called Gurdit Singh chartered the 'Kamagata Maru', a Japanese steamship, to bring Indian immigrants to Canada, directly from ports of call in the Far East. The ship picked up 376 Indians, all Punjabis, and headed for Canada. The authorities in British Columbia reacted with horror at the news of the ship's arrival in Vancouver and permission to land was refused. After legal battles involving the authorities and lawyers hired by local Indians, most of the passengers were turned back on the ship, which headed for Calcutta. In Calcutta, the British authorities tried to force the passengers to board a train for the Punjab and, in one confrontation, twenty of the passengers were killed by gun fire from British officials at Budge Budge Harbor. The passengers on board the ship got radicalized by all that had happened and there had been rioting on board in Vancouver. The Gaddar movement on the Pacific coast had already begun, representing an extreme, revolutionary faction among the Punjabi immigrants.

Ujjal Dosanjh was born in 1947 in Dosanjh Kalan village of Jalandhar District in Punjab and grew up hearing stories from his grandfather about Kamagatu Maru, the gurdwara reform movement and about Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru. At 17, he left India for Britain and in 1968 he arrived in Vancouver, having worked at different jobs in England. He took courses that led to a BA in political science, working in a mill during the day. He met his wife, Raminder, about this time. He applied to law school. Even before being called to the bar he had an opportunity to witness the verbal abuse and horrendous working conditions that immigrant farm workers suffered. He formed a Labour Advocacy Research Association and the Farm workers Legal Information Service, eventually leading to the formation of the Canadian Farm workers' Union.

His concern for social justice led to involvement with a number of community organizations and attempts to contest a seat in the Provincial Legislature, as a member of the NDP, the provincial socialist party. Twice he failed to win a seat. He won the election finally in 1991, when his party formed the new Government of the Province. Soon he was appointed the Attorney General.

Some years before that victory Ujjal took a strong stand against violence being used in the Sikh movement for a separate homeland in India. There were threats against him from the extreme Sikh factions, resulting in a serious injury to his head when he was attacked with a crow bar outside his office. I knew him then and had the incident described to me by his then law partner. Ujjal received 80 stitches for that injury. We were all worried about his safety in those days and I remember talking to Mehb Pirani, his law partner at the time. Mehb made me understand that Ujjal was prepared to die for the things he believed in and would not be deterred by threats of any kind. The stock that he comes from include ancestors and relatives who have suffered long jail sentences and even death under the British authorities in India for anti-British nationalist activities. Since then I have always known that Ujjal is a man of steel under the mild veneer. Personally I have always sympathized with his principles politically and once even made a modest contribution to his election campaign.

The process by which Ujjal Dosanjh became Premier of British Columbia was a bit unusual. The NDP Government of the day in which he was the Attorney-General was led by Glen Clark, who was the Premier of the Province. Glen Clark was compelled to resign his office as a result of a conflict of interest controversy. The ruling party, the NDP, still had more than a year left for its term of office. At a party leadership convention to choose the new leader Ujjal Dosanjh won hands down and was then appointed Premier by virtue of being the party leader. He will face a Provincial general election by June, 2001. The NDP is currently running low in the polls. The rival party, the Provincial Liberals, is working hard to maintain its lead. Ujjal Disanjh has more than a year to turn things around. Given his cool head and rational approach to things in the past, there is a good chance he will. In his campaign speeches and his first speech as Premier, Ujjal has proudly spoken about his Punjabi background and the role of Ghaddarite freedom fighters in the past.

For all of us in the visible minorities, Ujjal's rise to this position has been a wonderfully encouraging event. One of the visible minorities we often forget is women. Raminder is the person who had stood behind Ujjal all these years and is not to be underestimated in her own right. She has been active in social causes, including feminist causes. She is an active member of the India Mahila Association here in Vancouver and has advocated stronger legal measures against stalkers of women. She married Ujjal shortly after he came to Canada 32 years ago and they now have three grownup sons. She is aware of the heavy responsibility that Ujjal's new role involves and supports him all the way.

Another recent event in Canada has been the appointment of Adrienne Clarkson, a person of Chinese origin as the Governor General of Canada. In her opening speech she also talked about the handicaps and prejudices of the past. It is a long way from the days of Kamagatu Maru.

Lest anyone gets complacent about racism, prejudice and bigotry in this part of the world as anywhere else, I would like to end with quoting a passage from a speech a friend made recently. His name is Chris Friesen, an officer with the Immigrant Services Society of BC. He has just been given an advocacy award as being an individual who has "advanced multiculturalism, education and community development in extraordinary ways" at the Open Plenary session of the International Conference of Teachers of English as a second language. Chris is a seasoned world traveler and has considerable experience, working with refugees in East Africa, where he was stationed for a few years. Here is some of what he had to say to the eight thousand participants at the Conference:

"Last summer was an extraordinary time. As a result of President Milosovic's actions in Kosovo, the Canadian Government for the first time in our history provided over 8,000 Kosovar refugees with temporary protection and asylum in Canada. Close to 900 Kosovar refugees settled in BC---- Not since the arrival of the Vietnamese boat people in the late 1970's have I seen such public support for a refugee movement to Canada as I did with the Kosovar crisis. However, public opinion quickly turned negative when several weeks later we had four boats from China arrive off the coast of BC carrying 608 Chinese refugee claimants. Their arrival was dramatic, television footage captured men, women and children jumping into the ocean swimming to safety as their human smugglers attempted to retreat from Canadian waters. Public opinion towards these asylum seekers has been exceedingly negative. They were quickly labeled queue jumpers. A local Immigration Official told me about an irate citizen's call who "had offered to wade into the waters himself and turn the boats around if the government didn't have the guts to do it". These migrants from Fujian province in China who risked their lives after paying $30,000 each to human traffickers for the hope of working underground in servitude now find themselves in BC prisons. Some detained women have been separated from their children.

People in desperate situations will take drastic actions for the sake of their families. The fact remains that the vast majority will not be deemed conventional refugees. However, they are forced to wait several months in prison for a refugee hearing. Detaining large numbers of asylum seekers in prison may be a common practice in other countries but it is unheard of in Canada. I would argue that Human Rights violations are taking place."

I have witnessed the change in attitudes reported by Chris Friesen above when it came to dealing with Chinese refugees as opposed to the Europeans from Kosovo. Race is a factor. It can easily be whipped up by the media in any issue. We saw signs of it even in the reporting of the campaign that led to Ujjal Dosanjh becoming Premier. The voice of Chris Friesen is balanced and compassionate. When even that voice makes accusations of violation of human rights, one should never be complacent.

Credits

• Picture from The National Post, Canada.