Bhagat Singh Thind: military service and US citizenship case

A Punjabi immigrant and soldier

Bhagat Singh Thind was a Punjabi immigrant, soldier and writer whose efforts to obtain US citizenship became the subject of a major Supreme Court case. The US National Archives records his Army service from July to December 1918 and his promotion to acting sergeant that November. The same account says he received a citizenship certificate shortly before leaving the Army, only for it to be revoked. He should not be confused with the Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh: the shared name does not identify the same person.[1]

The 1923 Supreme Court decision

A federal court in Oregon granted Thind citizenship in 1920, and federal authorities challenged the grant. In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, decided on 19 February 1923, the Supreme Court ruled that he was ineligible under the racial restrictions on naturalisation then in force.[2][4]

The published opinion rejected an argument that inclusion in a supposed “Caucasian” category established eligibility, and instead relied on its own account of popular understanding of whiteness. Both approaches used racial classifications that lack scientific validity. The court’s language is evidence of exclusionary law, not a neutral description of Thind’s identity.[4]

After the decision

Thind did eventually become a US citizen. The National Park Service states that he obtained citizenship again in 1935, after Congress provided a route for First World War veterans.[2]

In a National Archives essay, historian Marian L. Smith explains that the decision affected other applicants, too. It describes subsequent cases seeking to cancel citizenship previously granted to people from India, and a 1928 decision denying an Afghan applicant naturalisation by reference to Thind. These examples show consequences beyond one case, without establishing the experience of every South Asian family. A grant, a court decision and later cancellation proceedings are separate events; the archival essay’s cited case files and judgments can be followed for further research. Smith also describes a later administrative decision concerning Noshad Khan: in 1945 the attorney general approved a finding that Afghans were eligible to naturalise. This was an administrative change, not a reversal by the Supreme Court.[3]