The roots of emigration from this area also lie in the colonial period, and most especially in the aftermath of the Great Mutiny (known in India as the First War of Independence) of 1857.

Prior to that date, the East India Company had relied on troops recruited in Bihar and Bengal to keep control of its territories, and also to bring new regions under control, as happened in the Punjab following the death of Maharajah Ranjit Singh in 1840. So, when the Bengal Army refused to obey its British Officers' order in 1857, thereby threatening the stability of the entire Raj, the Punjabis were loath to support them. After all, this was an army which had crushed their own independence less than a decade before.

But although the Raj survived, many changes followed the revolt. Not only was the East India Company disbanded, so too was the Bengal Army, to be replaced by a new force primarily recruited in the Punjab. The British appear to have had a soft spot for the Sikhs, so it was they who formed the elite regiments in the new force, many of whose members were recruited from families of small peasant farmers in the densely populated Jullundur Doab.

Their service, however, was not restricted to India. Britain was also busy extending its Empire in the far East, with the result that Sikh regiments soon found themselves serving in Burma, Singapore and Hong-Kong.

Thousands of Indian soldiers fought and died for the Empire in both world wars, read the story of the ceremonial 'Chattri' in Sussex. The Chattri was dedicated to those Indian soldiers who died in local military hospitals after being evacuated from France in the First World War.

Those were adventurous times and all sorts of colonists were making fortunes for themselves. The Sikhs saw no reason why they should be left out. Hence after a brief leave of absence back home following their army service, many returned to their old haunts, often taking jobs as policemen in the first instance.

Others moved into various kinds of business enterprise, before trying their luck alongside European settlers who were then moving off to places like Australia, New Zealand, and British Columbia, hopeful of making a fortune as pioneer farmers.

As long as the Sikh numbers remained small, there were few complaints. However by the turn of the century, white settlers all around the Indian Ocean were becoming alarmed that unless such 'unfair competition' was checked, they might find themselves swamped. They lobbied to have the law changed to ensure that only white people could act as colonists.

The most notorious events, hastened by these changes, followed the arrival in Vancouver of a Japanese steamer named the Komagata Maru in 1914. By then a small group of Sikh settlers were already at work as lumberjacks in the forests of British Columbia, and the Komagata Maru was chartered in Japan, by a group of Sikhs who had arrived from Hong-Kong, to take them to Vancouver where they hoped to settle.

All were subjects of the King-Emperor, and had British Passports to prove it. However this did not impress the Authorities in British Columbia. Exploiting recently passed legislation, which stipulated that prospective settlers could only enter Canada through ports on its East coast, they eventually forced the Komagata Maru and its passengers to return from whence they came. By employing similar means, the United States, New Zealand and Australia were also closed to Indian settlers.

East Africa did, however, remain an option, most especially for those with craft skills, which the East African railways were extremely keen to recruit. Many Sikhs of the Ramgarhia (craftsman) caste settled in East Africa from the turn of the century onwards, and they and their descendants subsequently moved to Britain with their Gujarati peers many decades later.

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