The Play

As a part of the commemoration year of the Komagata Maru, the South Asian Studies Institute commissioned the writing and performance of the play That Land Beyond Waves. Written by SASI faculty Associate, Dr. Rajnish Dhawan and Directed by Associate Professor of English at UFV, John Carroll, That Land Beyond the Waves is the story of those who were waiting to meet their loved ones stranded on board the Komagata Maru.

The play projects the pain of having someone close to your heart suffer in front of you and the tragic irony of being able to alleviate that suffering despite having all the means to do so. It tells the story of 376 separated by heavily guarded waves, denied permission to be together owning to the racist polices of the time. It forces us to ask how far we have come, how successful or unsuccessful we have been in the last hundred years in making our society an inclusive one.