The Remarkable Indian-American Dreamers
On the sunny afternoon of Monday, 13 February 2023, I stood outside the United States Postal Service office building at 30777 Rancho California Road in Temecula, after a two-hour long drive from Los Angeles. It was a proud moment for me for the building has been designated as the “Dalip Singh Saund Post Office Building”. Dalip Singh Saund, (1899-1973) represented California’s 26th congressional district and was the first Asian American to be elected to the U.S. Congress in 1956. Throughout his life, Congressman Saund championed the rights of Indian Americans.
The success of the Indian Americans is an amazing coming-of-age story. And the events of the past few weeks for the Indian Americans have been dramatic, to say the least.
It began centuries ago in 1492 when Christopher Columbus an Italian explorer navigated through rough waters in unchartered territories in his quest to reach India. He was stirred by the writings of the world traveler, Marco Polo, who had noted, "The part of India known as Malabar was the richest and noblest country in the world.” Columbus made landfall on the American continent on 12 October 1492 and swiftly claimed the prize from the King Ferdinand II of Spain for having discovered the sea route to India.
To mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s landing at the Bahamas, a World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago in 1893. On 11 September, the charismatic Swami Vivekananda of India stood on the stage at the exposition’s World’s Parliament of Religions. In his now historic address, he referred to the audience as “sisters and brothers of America”. The seven thousand attendees responded with massive applause and America was enthralled by Indian spirituality. In the decades to follow, Indians arrived on the western shores of the United States in significant numbers. Facing racial discrimination Indians swiftly grasped that achieving racial equality in America was inextricable from attaining India’s freedom from British rule.
On 1 November 1913, a group of determined Indian revolutionaries in San Francisco led by an Oxford scholarship-winning former Stanford University lecturer Lala Har Dayal raised a red, yellow, and green flag that represented freedom, brotherhood, and equality. These pioneers of the Indian freedom struggle launched a global movement to overthrow the British empire through an armed revolution. Their newspaper was called Ghadr (rebellion) and their non-sectarian political start-up with its headquarters in California and branches worldwide came to be known as the Ghadr Party. During the WW1 period, the British Empire faced the most significant threat from the Ghadr patriots to its despotic rule in India. Despite the formidable representation by Har Dayal, Sudhindra Bose, and Bishen Singh at the U.S. Congress House Committee for Immigration in Washington in February 1914, the British intelligence’s intervention prevented Indians from becoming American citizens.
A hundred years ago, on 23 February 1923, Bhagat Singh Thind, a WW1 veteran of the United States Army faced a complicated situation. The application of this immigrant from Punjab for American Citizenship ran into trouble with the Immigration and Naturalization Service despite an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army. Justice George Sutherland of the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against Thind and denied him citizenship. The Nye-Lea Act of 1935 favoring the veterans of WW1 eventually fetched citizenship for Thind. However, it was largely due to the decades of lobbying by Dalip Singh Saund and an Indian American businessman Jagjit J. Singh that President Harry Truman signed the Luce-Celler Act, on 2 July 1946. This groundbreaking act finally granted Indians the right to citizenship and paved the way for immigration.
Today Indian American diaspora has swelled north of 4 million and is the second-largest immigrant group in the United States. From being farmhands and laborers over a hundred and fifty years ago, the Indian immigrants have realized the American dream with incredible resilience in the face of racism and economic challenges. Indian-origin residents in the United States also have the highest median household income in the country. According to a National Geographic magazine study, “About eighty percent of the demographic is Indian, with a median annual household income of $100,000— nearly double the median for all U.S. households.” America is perhaps the world's most competitive professional space, and Indian Americans are now respected for their “first world intellect”.
On 4 March 2021, at around five in the evening, U.S. President Joe Biden was in a teleconference with the NASA JPL Perseverance Team discussing the successful Mars Landing. In his conversation with Dr. Swati Mohan, an Indian-origin scientist, Biden remarked, “What an honor this is. This is an incredible honor. And it’s amazing. Indian of descent - Americans are taking over the country: you; my Vice President; my speechwriter, Vinay (Indian American Vinay Reddy). I tell you what. But thank you. You guys are incredible.”
Today, there exist thousands of stories of trailblazers and pioneers in the Indian-American community. Leaving behind the shackles of India’s colonial past they worked hard to make unique and lasting contributions in all sectors of American society: business, education, engineering, medicine, military service, spirituality, sports, technology, and the arts. From creating global brands like Bose Corporation to dominating the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Indian Americans have made their presence felt in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the Capitol, and even within the closed gates of Hollywood. Adapting to the land of opportunity, Indians have led states as Governors, served in the armed forces, and headed universities and banks besides dominating the hospitality trade including the countless motels across the U.S.A. The success stories of Indian entrepreneurs and influencers like Rajeev Motwani, Vinod Khosla, Suhas Patil, and Kanwal Rekhi in Silicon Valley led to the formation of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) a not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship with chapters in 14 countries now.
Half a century since V. Bhaskar Menon broke through the glass ceiling in corporate America and transformed Capital Records into a global music powerhouse CEOs of Indian origin have attained epic status in the corporate boardrooms globally. Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, and Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks have joined the league of extraordinary CEOs. Among other gifted individuals Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo, Devika Bulchandani, Global CEO of Ogilvy, Revathi Advaithi, CEO of Flex, Leena Nair, CEO of Chanel, Jayshree Ullal, CEO of Arista Networks, Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, Raj Subramaniam, CEO of FedEx, Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, George Kurian, CEO of NetApp, Laxman Narasimhan, CEO of Starbucks, and many other persons of Indian ethnicity have proven that they can reach the top in any environment that continuously rewards merit, hard work, integrity, ethics, and devotion. It is estimated that some 25 Indians lead companies with a total market cap of $5 trillion, currently greater than the Indian GDP.
Just a few weeks ago, on 15 February, Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor whose parents arrived in the U.S. from Amritsar announced that she is running for President. Within a week another Indian-American Vivek Ramaswamy announced his run for the U.S. presidency. Around the same time in Hollywood, former Miss India USA Bela Bajaria was elevated to the powerful position of Chief Content Officer of Netflix. Then on 23 February Biden administration nominated Indian American Ajaypal Singh Banga, former CEO of MasterCard to lead World Bank as its President. Earlier World Bank appointed Indermit Gill, an Indian national, chief economist & senior vice-president for development economics at the multilateral development bank.
The significant population of Indian Americans is today shaping American history and identity. Combined with a democratic tradition and youthful enterprise the Indian brainpower has proven time and again that we can compete and rise to the top as world-beaters no matter what the competition is like.
And the United States is just the starting point.
And Dalip Singh Saund had envisioned this way back in the 1950s.
Award-winning Author and Filmmaker Dr. Bhuvan Lall is the biographer of Subhas Chandra Bose, Har Dayal and Vallabhbhai Patel. He can be reached at writerlall@gmail.com
