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 to suppress Indians nationalist circumventing sedition laws by publishing papers in the US. While this specific request was rejected by the US State Department, the consul general began questioning US bound Indian immigrants “to determine whether they were in sympathy with sedition in India or not.” On US soil, the British 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, many dissident Indians were systematically targeted, located, and questioned by US officials at the recommendation of British Intelligence. The British’s requests were particularly appealing to the US intelligence community as Indian revolutionaries could inspire similar sentiments in the US colonized Philippines. By the end of WW1, The effects of the government’s repression were widespread, as the Justice Department advised Lajpat Rai to stop circulating anti-British materials and the New York Times alongside other large publications stopped covering the work of prominent activists, preventing the Indian independence movement from garnering sufficient awareness.
