Bhagat Singh Thind’s story unfolds like a courtroom drama, a spiritual journey, and a civil rights epic woven into one, yet it remains astonishingly absent from mainstream memory. Born in Punjab in 1892, he arrived in the United States in 1913 to pursue graduate studies at UC Berkeley and was deeply influenced by American transcendentalist writers. Drawn to both Sikh teachings and thinkers like Emerson and Thoreau, he began traveling the U.S., offering lectures on metaphysics and spirituality that attracted small but devoted audiences.
When World War I broke out, Thind enlisted in 1918, becoming the first turban‑wearing Sikh soldier in the U.S. Army. He served honorably and was discharged the same year. Fresh from service, he applied for U.S. citizenship in Oregon under the Naturalization Act, which at the time permitted only "free white persons" and persons of African descent. A federal court briefly granted his application, recognizing his "Caucasian" ancestry, only for immigration officials to reverse it a few days later on racial grounds.
Undeterred, Thind reapplied in 1919. In 1920, he secured citizenship from a federal judge in Oregon who took into account his military service, education, and demeanor, noting his alignment with prevailing ideas of whiteness tied to caste and ancestry. But the government appealed. The case reached the Supreme Court in 1923 as United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind. With Thind represented by fellow Indian American lawyer Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, the argument rested on prevailing racial science. As a “high‑caste Hindu” of Aryan lineage, he should qualify as Caucasian and thus “white” under U.S. law. The Court rejected that claim unanimously. Justice Sutherland wrote that, regardless of ancient ancestral ties, the "common man" would never consider an Indian to be white, making Thind ineligible for citizenship. He denaturalized Thind and implicitly reversed the citizenship of others similarly situated.
In the years that followed, the fallout was devastating. Between 1923 and 1927, around sixty‑five Indian Americans had their citizenship revoked, leaving many stateless and subject to discriminatory laws such as California’s Alien Land Law that barred non‑citizens from owning or leasing land. Some were forced to sell their property or transfer it through front men; one man even took his own life amid the turmoil.
Despite this blow, Thind endured. He completed a PhD at Berkeley and devoted decades to lecturing on spiritual science, weaving together Sikh traditions and insights from Western philosophers in more than a dozen published works such as Radiant Road to Reality and House of Happiness. In 1935, after Congress passed the Nye‑Lea Act allowing World War I veterans to naturalize regardless of race, Thind finally regained citizenship through New York state, a full seventeen years after his initial application.
Thind’s case etched a legal precedent that explicitly barred people of South Asian origin from being considered “white” under the law. Comparisons with contemporaneous rulings like Ozawa v. United States, where even a pale-skinned Japanese American was denied citizenship, revealed how elastic and artificially constructed “whiteness” was in the service of exclusion. The Court ignored its logic in Ozawa to exclude Indians, reshaping race to suit xenophobic policy.
His fight also helped pave the way for later reforms. The Luce‑Celler Act of 1946 finally extended naturalization rights to Indians (albeit in limited numbers), and the sweeping Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished race as a barrier in immigration law. Without Thind’s struggle and the outrage it eventually provoked, these milestones may have been delayed or diminished.
What makes Bhagat Singh Thind a forgotten civil rights pioneer is the scope of his challenge: he exposed the law’s arbitrary racial categories and revealed how intertwined race, citizenship, land ownership, and belonging were for immigrants. He fought not only for himself but for an entire community stripped of rights and recognition. And through his spiritual work, he shared a message of universal equality rooted in Sikh teachings and transcendent philosophy.
Remembering Thind today speaks to current debates over who qualifies as “us,” to institutional decisions that split communities through exclusionary definitions, and to citizenship’s promise tied inseparably to identity and dignity. His life reminds us that race is a legal fiction we still live by, and that resistance, even from those denied citizenship, can slowly change the terms of membership.
Bhagat Singh Thind deserves to be remembered not merely as a footnote in immigration law, but as a civil rights forerunner whose persistence, intellect, and faith transformed how America defines who belongs. His journey is a lesson in endurance, a testament to spiritual courage, and a powerful reminder that citizenship and justice must extend beyond color lines.
Add comment
Comments