Independence Special
– that’s all you need to know
I-Day
Special
The American
Connection
South Asians in the U.S. and American allies played an important
role in India’s freedom movement. Perhaps best known is the
Ghadar Party, an organization founded in 1913 to fight for India’s
independence through armed revolution. However, many other
organizations and individuals across the United States were also
deeply invested in fighting for India’s freedom in their own ways.
In this short article, we highlight four such histories from the
East Coast through materials from the South Asian American
Digital Archive, which contains hundreds more historical and
contemporary stories about South Asians in the United States.
Young India (January 1918)
During his extended exile in the
U.S. between 1914 and 1919, Lajpat
Rai founded the India Home Rule
League of America in NewYork City
with branches in Philadelphia,
Cleveland, Indianapolis, and other
small cities across the country,. The
League advocated for “home rule,”
which would make India a self-gov-
erning colony within the British
Empire. The League also published
Young India, a monthly journal
which aimed to educate its readers
about the conditions of British rule
and the unfolding independence
movement.
Friends of Freedomfor India
Dinner onDecember 10, 1924
Another critical organization was
Friends of Freedom for India, an
organization that was closely asso-
ciated with theWest Coast-based
Ghadar Party and led by itinerant
radical Agnes Smedley and
Sailendranath Ghose. Their mis-
sion, according to its own member-
ship ads, was “to maintain the right
of asylum for political refugees
from India” and “to present the
case for the independence of
India.” Many of their publications
also drew comparisons to the cause
for Irish freedom, and saw support
from Irish nationalists.
What B.R. AmbedkarWrote to
W.E.B. DuBois
In 1913, B.R. Ambedkar arrived in
NewYork City from Bombay on a
scholarship to attend Columbia
University and pursue an M.A. in
Economics. After returning to India
(not before completing a Ph.D. in
London), Ambedkar would go on to
become the most influential Dalit
leader in India in the 20th century,
the chairman of the constituent
assembly that drafted the Indian
constitution, and one of the most
incisive theorists of caste and great-
est intellectuals of modern India.
In 1949, his correspondence with
the African American leader, W.E.B.
Du Bois, drew connections between
the plight of “untouchability” in
postcolonial India and racism in the
U.S.
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
A member of Congress Socialist
Party, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
spent eighteen months in North
America between 1939 and 1941.
During this time, she advocated for
Indian independence, and spoke
out against British anti-Indian
propaganda in the U.S. On the tour,
met with American dignitaries, but
also people often excluded in a
dignitary’s tour: in the South,
she stayed exclusively with
African Americans; in the Great
Plans, she “met with the
‘Okies’”, in the SouthWest, she
visited a Pueblo reservation,
and in the East Coast, she visit-
ed prisoners in Sing Sing, intro-
ducing herself to women pris-
oners as an “old-timer,” having
been imprisoned years before
for civil disobedience in India.
Gadar Party
The Hindustan Gadar Party was
a San Francisco-based anti-
colonial political organization,
which advocated the complete
overthrow of British rule in
India through revolutionary
means. In 1913, a group of
News India Times
August 21, 2015
18
