Guru Nanak Jahaz

On paper she was the Komagata Maru, a Japanese steamship. Her passengers called her Guru Nanak Jahaz, Guru Nanak's ship, after the founder of Sikhism. 'Guru Nanak Jahaz' borrows that name for a historical drama based on real events, one of the bitterest chapters in the story of Punjabi emigration to Canada. Sharan Art directs, and he's brought back Tarsem Jassar and Gurpreet Ghuggi, both of whom were in his 'Mastaney'.

It's 1914, and Canada has shut Indians out with the continuous journey rule: you can only come in if you sail straight from your own country, and no ship makes that run from India. Gurdit Singh (Ghuggi), a wealthy Sikh businessman, sets out to challenge it. He charters the ship in Hong Kong and takes on 376 passengers, most of them Sikhs from Punjab and all of them British subjects, just like the Canadians. They reach Vancouver on 23 May, and the authorities won't let them ashore.

With the ship anchored in the harbour, the wait stretches into weeks. In town, Mewa Singh Lopoke (Jassar), angrier by the day at the way his people are treated, and Bhag Singh, played by Harsharan Singh, work with the local Sikh community to help the passengers. Against them stands immigration inspector William Hopkinson, who runs a network of informers, some of them Sikhs, to keep everyone on board, and the fight ends up in court.

Edward Sonnenblick plays Hopkinson and Mark Bennington is Malcolm Reid, the government's immigration agent at the port, two Hollywood actors in a Punjabi production, which doesn't happen often. Sharan Art wrote the script with Harnav Bir Singh, and Jaype Singh's camera goes for sepia tints and muted colours taken from photographs of the time. Indian critics praised the period detail and Ghuggi's serious turn, though several found it slow.

It opened on 1 May 2025 in India and, the same day, in UK and Canadian cinemas. One cinema in Surrey, near Vancouver, sold out every first day screening, and it ended up among the biggest Punjabi hits of the year. It drew a different kind of criticism in Canada, where a National Post columnist accused it of twisting the Komagata Maru story and objected to Canadian public money going into it. It has been streaming on Chaupal since October 2025.

• History
• Drama