Bhagat Singh Thind - Third Attempt

Third Attempt

In 1935, the 74th congress passed a law allowing citizenship to U.S. veterans of World War I, even those from the barred zones. Thind received his U.S. citizenship through the state of New York in 1936, taking the oath for the third time to become an American citizen.

Thind had come to the U.S. for higher education and to "fulfill his destiny as a spiritual teacher." Long before his arrival in the US or of any other religious teacher or yogi from India, American intellectuals had shown keen interest in Indian religious philosophy. Hindu sacred books translated by the English missionaries had made their way to America and were the “favorite text” of many members of the Transcendentalists' society which was started by some American thinkers and intellectuals who were dissatisfied with the Unitarian Church. The society flourished during the period of 1836–1860 in the Boston area and had some prominent and influential members including author and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892), and writer Henry David Thoreau (1817–62).

Emerson had read Hindu religious and philosophy books including the Bhagavad Gita, and his writings reflected the influence of Indian philosophy. In 1836, Emerson expressed "mystical unity of nature" in his essay, "Nature." In 1868, Walt Whitman wrote the poem "Passage to India." Henry David Thoreau had considerable acquaintance with Indian philosophical works. He wrote an essay on "Resistance to Civil Government, or Civil Disobedience" in 1849 advocating non-violent resistance against unethical government laws. Many years later, in 1906, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi adopted a similar methodology: satyagraha, or non-violent protest, to defy the law to gain Indian rights in South Africa. Gandhi quoted Thoreau many times in his newspaper, Indian Opinion.