Based on the Canadian tragedy of Kamagata Maru.
Deepa Mehta wanted to make a film on the subject with Amitabh Bachchan and John Abraham.
The film used the Komagata Maru incident as its backdrop. The incident involved the failed attempt of hundreds of Indians, predominantly Sikhs, to migrate to Canada aboard the Japanese steamship Komagata Maru in 1914. Most of them were denied entry in Canada and the ship was forced to return to Calcutta. On their return to Calcutta, the Indian Imperial Police shot 22 people to death following a riot that broke out when the police tried to arrest the leaders of the group. The film was dedicated to "Baba Gurdit Singh whose courage and vision steered S.S. Komagata Maru back to the Indian shores", "Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna, undisputed leader of the early revolutionaries, founder-president of the Ghadar Party in California, USA", "Kartar Singh Sarabha, stormy petrel of the Indian revolution, fearless firebrand who was sentenced to death at the tender age of 19", and "those thousands of others, who like the hero of our film, gave up their utmost to their motherland, but whom history has cruelly ignored".