Bigger India
Sikh soldier who fought racial US laws
The diaspora can’t afford to forget his inspiring example, especially in these times where white supremacism is rearing its head again.
He was arguably the first turbaned Sikh to serve in the US Army – as a drill sergeant during World War I. When asked how he got inducted despite a beard, Bhagat Singh Thind (1892-1967) had quipped: “I suppose they figured I could kill just as many Germans with it as I could without it.”
He was “honourably discharged” after the war ended in late 1918. But it was another battle that defined his life, one that he fought for over a decade. On February 19, 1923, he was denied American citizenship by the US Supreme Court. The ruling, which determined that Thind, “a high-caste Hindu of full Indian blood,” was not a “white person”, led to the revocation of his naturalisation as an American citizen and shut the immigration door on other South Asians too. His “Aryan origin” contention cut no ice with the judiciary, which accorded precedence to Caucasian lineage.