By Ela Dutt
rofessor Manan
Desai of University
of Michigan's
American Culture
faculty in
Asian/Pacific
Islander American
studies, specializes in research
on how transnational exchanges
between Indian and American
intellectuals influenced political
discourses of nationhood, race,
and caste in South Asia and how
these exchanges also provided a
new vocabulary for race and
class politics in the United States.
More recently, he has begun
work on another project, which
examines how 20th century pop-
ular cultural and middlebrow
representations of South Asian
Americans shaped understand-
ings of empire and race in the
U.S. Since 2010, Prof. Desai has
been a member of the Board of
Directors of the South Asian
American Digital Archive
(SAADA), where he contributes
original archival research, and
assists in building digital collec-
tions, and serves as an editor and
contributor to Tides, the online
publication of SAADA. He
responded to questions posed by
News India Times, on the contri-
butions of Indian-Americans and
others to India's struggle for
independence from the British.
How far did America's war of
independence on the one hand
and people like Thoreau and
Emerson on the other – influ-
ence the Indian freedom strug-
gle?
In the early 20th century, sev-
eral Indian figures often invoked
the American Revolution in an
effort to connect Americans
more viscerally to the cause for
Indian Independence. So, for
instance, the Gadar Party leader
Ram Chandra made this com-
parison, writing to President
WoodrowWilson that “your own
dear country… became a free
nation by an act of rebellion
against the British.” Similarly,
Lala Lajpat Rai (who resided in
the U.S. for five years between
1914-1919) drew comparisons
between Indian independence
and the American Revolution,
invoking the shared enemy of
the British and the desire for an
independent republic. But these
comparisons often required will-
ful ignorance — for instance,
when Lajpat Rai first traveled to
the US in 1907, he would
describe the displacement and
genocide of Native Americans as
tragic, but did not explicitly dis-
cuss how America’s status as a
settler colony disrupted any sus-
tained comparison to India. I
think, for Rai and many others
operating at that time, the
attempt to frame the independ-
ence struggle as analogous to the
American Revolution was more
of a rhetorical strategy to con-
nect with his audience, who oth-
erwise could not see the rele-
vance of India to their own histo-
ry.
Thoreau and Emerson, who
were important figures of
Transcendentalism, were
famously influenced by transla-
tions of works like the Bhagavad
Gita. Both Emerson and
Thoreau, in turn, were very influ-
ential to Gandhi, particularly
Thoreau’s discussion of “civil dis-
obedience,” which was a key
concept in Gandhi’s conception
of Satyagraha.
In what ways did Indians living
in America at that time and oth-
ers in this country influence or
fight for India's Independence?
The Gadar Party is one of the
most powerful examples of the
way that Indian migrants in the
U.S were involved in the fight for
India’s independence. Founded
in 1913 and based in San
Francisco, the Gadar Party advo-
cated the revolutionary over-
throw of the British from India.
Its members included laborers
(the majority of whomwere
Punjabi Sikh), students, and
other Indian expatriates, includ-
ing prominent figures like
Taraknath Das and M.N. Roy.
The Gadar Party published a
newspaper, which soon gave the
party an international reach,
spreading to places like Japan,
Hong Kong, Burma, and the
Philippines.
The Indian Home Rule League
of America was a more moderate
political organization involved in
the Independence struggle. The
group was led by Lajpat Rai in
NewYork City, and advocated for
home rule status, demanding
more autonomy as a colony
within the broader common-
wealth of the British Empire.
Lajpat Rai, as most people will
know, would become an iconic
figure in the history of Indian
Independence, but many people
overlook his formative period
during a four year exile between
1914-1919 in the U.S., in which
he connected with many influ-
ential progressives and tried to
gain their support.
Other organizations include
the Friends of Freedom for India,
and the India League of America,
founded by the Punjabi immi-
grant and businessman J.J.
Singh. There’s such a long and
impressive list of figures involved
in the independence movement,
who had spent formative years
in the U.S.– Dr. Babasaheb
Ambedkar, Taraknath Das, Dada
Amir Haider Khan, M.N. Roy,
Jayaprakash Narayan,
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, and
Vijayalakshmi Pandit, among
many others.
The U.S. took a position oppos-
ing British rule in India, but how
did this play out in the U.S. and
internationally? Did the U.S.
support the Gadar Party and
other groups? Did something like
the Time magazine naming
Gandhi Man of the Year in 1930
for instance, reflect popular sen-
timent?
This is a complicated ques-
tion, in part, because
Washington was not always sup-
portive of Indian Independence.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt in
later years supported Indian
independence, but in the
decades prior that position was
not always the case.
The U.S., for instance, did not
support the efforts of the Gadar
Party, and in fact recent work by
the historian Seema Sohi points
to the way that the U.S. worked
in collusion with the British to
surveil Gadar activists along the
U.S.-Canada border. Har Dayal,
one of the founders of the Gadar
Party, was chased out of the U.S.,
when he was accused of spread-
ing anarchist ideas around the
Bay Area. This intensive surveil-
lance famously led to what was
called the “Hindu-German
Conspiracy trial.” The Gadar
Party received support from the
German Foreign Office, which
had funded an effort to incite an
Indian revolt against the British
in 1915. The conspiracy was
folded by British and US intelli-
gence, and 29 Gadar Party mem-
bers were convicted in San
Francisco.
One of the most important
controversies that shaped
American opinion on the ques-
tion of Indian Independence
revolved around the publication
of the American writer Katherine
Mayo’s Mother India in 1927.
Mayo’s book was based off a
short visit to India, and she made
the case against Indian inde-
pendence by highlighting the
backwards-ness of Indian socie-
ty. The book was a huge best
seller, and was famously
described by Gandhi as a “drain
inspector’s report.” It also galva-
nized many Indians in the U.S.,
as well as prominent American
thinkers (like the Modernist
painterWyndam Lewis), who
responded and criticized the
book for its misrepresentations
and hypocrisy. Of course, there
were many supporters of Mayo’s
book too.
Americans seem to know little
about how far back Indians were
in this country and that several
were inspired by the U.S. war of
independence against the
British.Why is that?
Part of the reason that so few
people are aware of these earlier
histories might have to do with
the fact that they're not taught in
schools, or if they are, they’re
seen as a minor footnote in a
larger history — this is as true, I
think, of U.S. history as South
Asian history. But I should also
mention that there have been
generations of scholars, activists,
and individuals who have helped
independently research and raise
awareness of these histories. I
see the work that SAADA (South
Asian American Digital Archive)
is doing as a continuation of the
hard work of these earlier efforts.
Which Americans, black and
white, played an important role
in supporting groups in the U.S.
fighting for India's
Independence and how? How
intense or deep was the connec-
tion between leaders of the
Indian struggle living here and
the African American leaders?
For many African American
intellectuals — likeW.E.B. Du
Bois, Langston Hughes, and later,
Bayard Rustin, Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. — the Indian independ-
ence struggle was an important
symbol against the forces of
global racism that shaped the
20th century. In fact, the 20th
century saw a great deal of
exchange between Black and
South Asian activists, which con-
tinued well after independence
in 1947. RamManohar Lohia
was in contact with important
Civil Rights activists in the 1960s,
when he visited Mississippi.
Writers involved in the Dalit liter-
ary movement like M.N.
Wankhade, Namdeo Dhasal were
influenced by the Black Panthers
in the late 1960s. One source
that has been particularly great
in highlighting these histories is
Anirvan Chatterjee’s “Secret
History of South Asian and
African American Solidarity.”
There were many others in
the U.S. who were supportive of
Indian independence, including
a diverse group of people, from
social reformers to “celebrities,”
like Margaret Sanger, Upton
Sinclair, Agnes Smedley, even
Albert Einstein. Another group
that supported Indian
Independence were many Irish-
American groups, who saw direct
connections between the British
occupation of Ireland and India.
What are the major contribu-
tions to the study of Indian-
American and other involvement
in the U.S. with the struggle for
independence in the South Asian
Subcontinent?
In recent work, there has been
a great deal of research that has
been uncovering the complex
history of South Asian presence
in the U.S. Recent books on the
Gadar Party by Seema Sohi and
Maia Ramnath have done an
amazing job in shedding new
light to this history. Other works
by Dohra Ahmad, Nayan Shah,
Nico Slate, Sujani Reddy, Vivek
Bald, and many others, have
uncovered and helped illustrate
the complexities these early
South Asian American histories.
And of course, SAADA has made
it a priority to help us piece
together these histories and
make them accessible to as
many people as possible.
P
Independence Special
I-Day
Special
– that’s all you need to know
How Indians Rallied Americans
To Support Freedom Struggle
News India Times
August 21, 2015
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