Bhagat Singh Thind
American writer
Died when: 74 years 347 days (899 months)Star Sign: Libra
Bhagat Singh Thind (October 3, 1892 – September 15, 1967) was an Indian American writer and lecturer on spirituality who served in the United States Army during World War I and was involved in a Supreme Court case over the right of Indian people to obtain United States citizenship.
Thind enlisted in the United States Army a few months before the end of World War I.After the war he sought to become a naturalized citizen, following a legal ruling that Caucasians had access to such rights.
Identifying himself as an Aryan, in 1923, the Supreme Court ruled against him in the case United States v.Bhagat Singh Thind, which retroactively denied all Indian Americans the right to obtain United States citizenship for failing to meet the definition of a "white person", "person of African descent", or "alien of African nativity".
Thind remained in the United States, earned his PhD in theology and English literature at UC Berkeley, and delivered lectures on metaphysics.
His lectures were based on Sikh religious philosophy, but included references to the scriptures of other world religions and the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau.
Thind also campaigned for Indian independence from colonial rule.In 1936, Thind applied successfully for U.S. citizenship through the State of New York which had made World War I veterans eligible for naturalization regardless of race.
