New York City Indian Intellectuals: 1900s Radical Anti-Colonialism
Note about language: In this exhibit, we often use the term South Asian as an acknowledgment that the migrants, seafarers, and activists included in this exhibit came from throughout the various regions of present-day India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. These were largely men of Sikh, Punjabi, and Bengali Muslim descent. Many were Punjabi (present day India or Pakistan), or Bengali (present day Bangladesh, or West Bengal in India). We use South Asian because at the time of their migration, they would have held many identities: as British Indian subjects in the eyes of the Empire, as beholden to their village or community in their own eyes, and as Hindus/Hindoos in the eyes of the American state. Many would have been internal migrants within the Indian subcontinent prior to their voyage to the United States. We use South Asian as a container for this complexity, while acknowledging its inherent contradictions and oversimplifications.
Historical Context
At the turn of the twentieth century, an influx of South Asians immigrated to the United States and Canada, seeking new opportunities and escaping political and social repression under the thumb of British colonial rule. Many of these immigrants were Sikh, Hindu, and Muslim men from the present-day Punjab region. Some had experience with farming and tending land, and were drawn to the West Coast’s vast expanse of land — and its need for labor. Others came to the United States as political refugees, fleeing persecution from the British Empire. Who were these men? What were their political beliefs? How did they experience race and class in an American context, and how did they think and write about it?
Amidst man-made famine, new land rent policies, and shifts from British slavery to systems of indenture, South Asians began to look for pathways out of British India, which included migration to the United States. South Asians migrated to the West Coast, finding opportunities from Washington to California in farming, mining, logging, and other fields. In California’s Central Valley, South Asian men worked alongside other communities of color: largely Black, Mexican, indigenous, and Japanese. Gendered immigration restrictions that made it difficult for South Asian women to accompany their family members or spouses, but many male South Asian immigrants found new romantic relationships stateside with Mexican women, creating a new, place-specific California Punjabi-Mexican culture.
As the South Asian migrant population grew, anti-Indian prejudice swelled. State officials in California petitioned for immigration restrictions to expand to discriminate against incoming South Asians, citing their “illiteracy,” the lack of employment opportunities, and their likelihood to become “public charges.” The charges of “illiteracy” ring especially hollow when considering that many South Asian men in this period migrated to America specifically to access American higher education.
Nevertheless, in the early 1900s, the United States did indeed shift the framework of their discriminatory immigration policies to address the new influx of South Asians. Over the decades of the late 1800s, in a familiar pattern — first with Chinese immigrant laborers, then Japanese immigrant laborers — waves of workers came to explore opportunities, then as they established themselves in the United States, found their communities barred or heavily restricted from legal immigration. In the early 1900s, the United States applied its framework of discriminatory immigration policies to address the new influx of South Asians. You can read more about discriminatory immigration laws, and violence against the South Asian community in fellow LHP Youth Researcher Arun’s exhibit, found here.
Organizing on the West Coast
In response to rising anti-South Asian prejudice that often veered from the rhetorical into physical violence, many newly-arrived South Asians established social groups or political organizations to address the living conditions and racial prejudices of their new homes. One group established in 1913, the Ghadar Party, would eventually become a critical force advocating for the rights of South Asians both in the US and India. Another student group, the Oriental Students’ Association of the University of California, founded in 1907, was the first known Asian-American student association at UC Berkeley, and included Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai students. The Students’ Association defined its primary goals as “sociability and mutual protection,” both a nod to students’ desire for community and the need to organize themselves against racist violence.
Thus, the West Coast was undeniably an important landing point for immigrants seeking employment opportunities and economic mobility, and of the South Asians who sought out American higher education, many found themselves in universities in California and the Pacific Northwest. But the East Coast was also a significant stage for South Asian intellectuals in their anti-colonial fight against the British Empire. Though New York City would not be the long-term home for many of the South Asian intellectuals who passed through — many would return to California, particularly as community enclaves became more established in the 20th century — their presence in New York represented an intensely productive period for political thought and publishing. Within the relatively cosmopolitan confines of New York City, where other immigrant groups’ political organizing and publications thrived in a wide variety of languages, South Asian intellectuals met and shared plans, ideas, and publications, all with the shared goal of liberating India from centuries of colonial occupation.
Why NYC?
To understand why such an influx of South Asian revolutionaries came to New York City, we must understand why they fled India in the first place. After the First War of Indian Independence in 1857, the British grew hypervigilant of the organizing efforts of Indian freedom fighters. In 1907, the passage of the Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act sought to crack down on public meetings and assemblies, particularly focusing on nationalist movement gatherings. The new law permitted the British to deport anyone stirring revolutionary sentiments — and, by design, created an atmosphere of fear.
Many members of South Asian nationalist movements had already been wary of British political surveillance and fled to Europe, specifically Paris and London. There, they established new institutions, like Shyamaji Krishnavarma’s London-based India House: a short-lived but highly influential hub for student revolutionaries from then-British India to live, create community, and exchange ideas in the heart of the British empire. Founded in 1905, India House had the appearance of a placid student residence hall. But its peaceful brick exterior was not reflective of the revolutionary activity within its walls. Under Krishnavarma’s direction, India House became the meeting space of the Indian Home Rule Society, as well as the publishing home of The Indian Sociologist. The space was explicitly tailored toward young South Asian students and activists, who debated, wrote, and organized for Indian self-rule and the end of British colonial rule. It was an intensely influential space for many who would emerge as key thinkers and political figures in the decades to follow.
However, political surveillance was inescapable. Even purely intellectual activities — reading groups, publishing journals, distributing pamphlets — were seen as an immediate threat that must be crushed. India House also had many members who believed in the potential of revolutionary violence, including bomb-making and armed resistance. In 1909, a member of the revolutionary movement and a frequent attendee of India House’s programs, Madan Lal Dhingra, assassinated the political aide-de-camp of the Secretary of State of India. This would ultimately prove to be the end of India House in London, as Lal Dhingra’s act spurred an intense police crackdown on the space. Many, like Krishnavarma himself, had already moved on from London to other cities, like Paris. Others took this moment as a chance to move even further afield: to New York City.
Establishing a Base
At the turn of the 20th century, New York City developed a reputation for anti-imperialist political activism, spread both through on-the-ground organizing and through print. Alongside the growing American Anti-Imperialist League, many immigrant and minority groups within the city had already established small enclaves and print outlets with common goals of progressing their decolonial causes. Once resettled in New York, Indians similarly needed hubs to collaborate and communicate their individual ideas for liberation. Recalling their experiences abroad, they decided to emulate the model that Krishnavarma’s India House had pioneered in London. Along with a center akin to India House, three organizations were established to further the broader movement’s objectives: the Pan-Aryan Association, Indo-American National Association in New York, and Society for the Advancement of India.
The Indian Freedom movement on the East Coast primarily tasked itself with garnering sympathy for the Indian cause from the American people. Many individuals within this movement determined that the most effective way they could do this was through writing and mass publication, some of which were born out of particular instances of cross-racial solidarity. These key figures and publications, discussed further in the next sections, are important examples of anti-colonial organizing and political thought in the 20th century.
Born in 1884 in Calcutta, India, Taraknath Das was a pioneering anti-colonial activist deeply immersed in the struggle against imperialist British rule. He was recruited into an anti-British activist group as a college student in Calcutta, then fled to Japan, fearing arrest. After continuing to organize students at the University of Tokyo against the British, British authorities demanded his extradition. Instead, Das sought political asylum in the United States. Shortly after arriving, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, and acquired a job as an interpreter at a federal immigration office. The INS (United States Immigration and Naturalization Service) assigned Das to a post in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Indian immigration was severely restricted at this time — not strictly through law, but through various bureaucratic and racialized mechanisms. The INS’ expectation was that Das would act as a gatekeeper, keeping potential South Asian immigrants from crossing the border from Canada into the United States. Instead, Das helped coach many prospective Indian-American citizens through the bureaucratic intricacies of their naturalization exams. At the same time, Das began his publication, the Free Hindusthan, which warned of continued injustices in India and the need to resist Indian exclusion in North American society. Threatened with the loss of his job if he continued publishing the Free Hindustan, Das chose political integrity and to keep his publication.
Das then moved to Seattle, then ventured across the country to attend Norwich University, a military institution in Vermont. There, he was closely surveilled by British, Canadian, and American intelligence officials, who warned the university of Hindu “agitators” and ultimately had Das expelled for his anti-British rhetoric. Finally, Das arrived in New York City, where he revived his Free Hindusthan and published alongside prominent Irish-American nationalist George Freeman’s Gaelic American. This alliance was particularly alarming for British intelligence officials, understanding the mass movement potential that an alliance between Irish and Indian communities could have.
The Free Hindusthan
First published by Taraknath Das in 1908, the Free Hindusthan shed light on the struggles of Indians under British colonialism. Issues often contained graphic images of malnourished Indian children and updated readers on key developments of the anti-colonial movement. In one of his earliest pieces, Das asserted the right to Indian independence, writing, “We have no room to live as human beings under the British flag either at home or abroad. Great Britain's present aspiration is to hold India under subjugation forever.” Much of Das’ work had broader anti-imperialist connections, and the Free Hindusthan shared printing press space with the New York-based Gaelic American, a similar publication working for freedom from British tyranny. Scholar of the Ghadar Party Maia Ramnath notes in her book Haj to Utopia that “the first two issues of Free Hindusthan had arrived enclosed inside a copy of the [Gaelic American], even before the partnership officially began.” Jointly, the two publications declared that “…resistance to tyranny is service to humanity and a necessity of civilization.”
Lajpat Rai, a prominent Indian nationalist, first came to the United States during World War I, fearing prosecution for his anti-British activism in India.
In the US, Rai was particularly alarmed by the prejudice that existed against Indian immigrants and wanted to empower the community to defend themselves and to educate others about their struggles. To do so, Rai began educating young Indians on the principles of home rule: the growing movement to bring awareness to India’s right to self-rule. From late 1914 to mid-1915, he embarked on a speaking tour across the nation on the plight of Indians, attributing his people’s struggles to the British's longstanding history of colonialism and unchecked exploitation. In October 1917, he founded the India Home Rule League in New York alongside a new monthly publication, Young India. His work garnered the support of four US senators, including Joseph McCormick of Illinois, who pledged his support to Rai for “rendering a valuable service in acquainting the people of America with the grave problems which confronted the people of India.”
As Rai spent more time in the United States while in political exile, he became better acquainted with its unique systems of race and power. Intrigued by the nascent Black Civil Rights Movement in the early 20th century, Rai became friends and intellectual comrades with W. E. B. Du Bois. Rai’s writings from this period often stress the similarities between Blackness in an American context and the Indian caste system, and draw transnational connections between the colonial economic foundations of both nations. In his 1916 travelogue, The United States of America: A Hindu’s Impressions and a Study, Rai details the colonial underpinnings of the United States and emphasizes the parallels between Black and Indian movements for full and equal rights.
Alongside Du Bois, Rai had famously declared at a New York City event, “the problem of the Hindu and of the Negro and cognate problems are not local, but world problems.” He continued on, skewering the United States for its supposedly democratic founding principles but its long list of historical wrongs: including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, and imperialism in South America and the Phillipines. By 1918, Rai had become thoroughly disillusioned with the hypocrisy of American liberalism and decided to return to India. In a final speech, he criticized the country’s contradicting notions of exceptionalism and racism, declaring to a white audience, “God has not given you a charter, because you are white people, to go and exploit the people of Asia and Africa.”
Young India
Young India was Lajpat Rai’s publication from around the same period as the Free Hindusthan. Rather than purely sharing information regarding the movement, Rai intended to actively garner sympathy from the American people for the Indian home-rule cause. The publication looked at very specific injustices suffered by Indians, from the problem of dangerously low salt consumption per individual to the high tariffs destroying industries. Rai often used an economic lens to better explain the struggles of Indians, and also did not shy away from addressing gender inequalities. Due to his close relationship with W. E. B. Du Bois, Rai often took excerpts from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s journal and published them in Young India.
Rai’s publication helped to reshape the dialogue surrounding British colonialism in the United States. Prior to Young India’s creation, the majority of information Americans received about India came from British propaganda. Due to his deep understanding of American doctrines, principles, and values, Rai was able to garner sympathy for the Indian cause. Rai also bridged the gap between Indian nationalism and American progressivism, equating their importance and forging important relations with figures from the Black Civil Rights Movement, labor organizers, and women's suffrage leaders.
Any anti-colonial efforts — and particularly those that crossed racial lines to emphasize solidarity, like Rai and Du Bois’s collective efforts — were met with political repression. Fearing the movement that could emerge from this cross-racial solidarity, imperialist powers, especially the British and their allies, took many actions to restrict the efforts of Indian activists within the United States borders. C.R. Cleveland, the British director of the Department of Criminal Intelligence, requested the American consulate in Calcutta intervene to suppress the Indian nationalists circumventing sedition laws by publishing their anti-colonial papers in the US. While this specific request was rejected by the US State Department, the consul general began questioning United States-bound South Asian immigrants “to determine whether they were in sympathy with sedition in India or not.” On U.S. soil, the British distinctly feared New York City, seeing it as a key ground of Irish-Indian collaboration. The Irish were described by British intelligence as “ready to take up any movement likely to embarrass the British Government,” and likely to forge political alliances with immigrating Indians.
Consequently, even though many dissident South Asians arrived in the United States with hopes of escaping or avoiding British political surveillance, they were systematically profiled, questioned, and punished by American officials at the recommendation of British intelligence. The British’s requests were particularly appealing to the US intelligence community, playing into their fear that Indian revolutionaries fighting for home rule could inspire similar sentiments in the United States’ colonized Philippines. Both British and American colonial regimes feared rebellion in their profitable colonies: suppression of anti-colonial thought and activism was, to them, necessary, to avoid the entire system toppling to the ground. By the end of World War I, the effects of the government’s repression were widespread. The Justice Department ordered Lajpat Rai to stop circulating anti-British materials, even those printed within the United States. And the New York Times, alongside other large publications, stopped covering the work of prominent activists, preventing the spread of information about the Indian independence movement.
The West Coast Shift
By the mid-1910s, as the East Coast movement began to fizzle out, a new political movement emerged across the country in San Francisco: the Ghadar Party. A coalition built from Punjabi Sikh agricultural workers and manual laborers, newly immigrated South Asians, and many of the Bengali and Punjabi thinkers that had first honed their ideas in the pages of Young India or Free Hindusthan, the Ghadar Party tied together decolonial freedom struggles across nations. As a result, the West Coast became a vibrant hub of South Asian political activity, as the base that intellectuals such as Das and Rai had long hoped to form with their publications gradually took root. Through their publication, Ghadar, Ghadar Party activists grew their base, vocally addressed the violent racism and labor exploitation that many immigrants experienced upon arrival in the United States, and wrote for a membership both local and global. They were also able to shift the center of Home Rule organizing by tying together their present conditions in America and former treatment in then-British India, continuing the fight against colonialism and progressing the interests of the South Asian diaspora. Though their journeys through New York might have been brief, anticolonial South Asian intellectuals like Rai, Das, and many others had a profound impact on the years of struggle that would continue.
Historical Context:
Karen Leonard, Making Ethnic Choices: California's Punjabi Mexican Americans (1992)
Seema Sohi, Echoes of Mutiny: Race, Surveillance, and Indian Anticolonialism in North America (2014)
Moon-Ho Jung, Menace to Empire: Anticolonial Solidarities and the Transpacific Origins of the US Security State (2023)
Joan Jensen, Passage from India: Asian Indian Immigrants in North America (1988)
South Asian Organizing in the US:
Manan Desai, The United States of India: Anticolonial Literature and Transnational Refraction (2020)
Avinash Hingorani, A Clash of Color: Dialogues on Race, Caste, and Solidarity in the United States and India (2024)
Ayushia Neogi, “How Does it Feel to be a Solution?: How South Asian Migration from 1885 to 1923 Created a Modern South Asian ‘Other’ Used to Promote Conservative Rhetoric” (2021)
The Shift to NYC:
Maia Ramnath, Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire (2011)
Taraknath Das:
Tapan Mukherjee, Taraknath Das: Life and Letters of a Revolutionary in Exile (1998)
Lajpat Rai:
Andrea Slater, "W.E.B. Du Bois' Transnationalism: Building a Collective Identity among the American Negro and the Asian Indian" (2011)
J.S. Grewal and Indu Banga, eds., Lala Lajpat Rai in Retrospect: Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Concerns (2000)
Bill Mullen and Cathryn Watson, W.E.B. Du Bois on Asia: Crossing the World Color Line (2005)
Collusions:
Harish Puri, Ghadar Movement: Ideology, Organisation, and Strategy (1993)
Seema Sohi, "Archives of Anticolonialism, Surveillance, and Solidarities: Tracing Early South Asian American Histories of Activism" (2024)
Seema Sohi, "The Ghadar Party" (2018)