Bhagat Singh Thind was born in 1892 in Amritsar, Punjab, India. He was raised in a devout Sikh family. Before shifting to the USA in 1913, Thind pursued his education at Khalsa College. When he was 20 years old, he moved to Seattle, Washington. Later, he moved to Oregon and worked at a lumber mill in Astoria. Oregon was famous for being a hub of Indian immigrants and a lot of them were associated with the Ghadar Party, a revolutionary group aiming to kick out Britishers from India. [PDF]
#TIL Bhagat Singh Thind, a Sikh immigrant, tried to claim citizenship to the USA arguing that he was Aryan and therefore, of the White Race.
— Sensei Kraken Zero (@YearOfTheKraken) July 21, 2024
😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/6iiGPO1Rew
Thind’s involvement in the Ghadar Party and World War I
During his time in Oregon, it is believed that he was associated with Ghadar Party activists and supported the cause of kicking out Britishers from India. However, during World War I, while the Ghadar Party made a call to all Indians to join forces against the Britishers, Thind decided to choose a different path. He got himself enlisted in the US Army. He was among the first turbaned Sikhs to serve in the American military. Due to his loyalty to the US, he was granted honorary citizenship, a promise made by the US Government to the immigrant soldiers. However, later his citizenship was revoked. Thind decided to legally fight for citizenship.
The landmark Supreme Court Case
In 1920, his case reached the US Supreme Court. Thind claimed to be “White” to gain citizenship contending he was a Caucasian belonging to the Aryan race. The crux of the case was whether Thind, who belonged to a high caste in India, could be considered “White” under the naturalization laws of the US. In 1923, the Supreme Court ruled against him. The court classified him as Caucasian but not considered him “White” by the common man’s understanding of the term. The decision led to other Asian immigrants losing their citizenship.
In the case of United States vs Bhagat Singh Thind, the Supreme Court faced a complex issue. The court had to decide if a High-caste Hindu of full Indian blood, could be considered a “White person” under the Naturalization Act of 1790 or not. Notably, the court’s ruling in Thind’s case contradicted the earlier decision in Ozawa vs United States where a Japanese man was denied citizenship on racial grounds. The court accepted Thind was Caucasian but refused to classify him as a “White person” based on the common understanding of the time and not on “scientific” classification. The court also noted that the Aryan Theory was anyway dismissed by several scholars if not all.
Justice Sutherland, who delivered the judgment, emphasised that the words “free white persons” were meant to include only those whom the original framers of the law knew as white, basically immigrants from the British Isles and Northwestern Europe. The racial diversity of more recent immigrants, including those from Eastern, Southern, and Middle Europe, was acknowledged, but people of primarily Asiatic stock, including Hindus, were not considered part of this group.
Thind continued his fight for citizenship and later achieved it in 1936 under the Nye-Lea Act which granted citizenship to WWI veterans. Later, the doors to the US were opened for other immigrants as well.
