Sakharam Ganesh Pandit (1875–1959), also known as S. G. Pandit, was an

Indian American Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the United States, who ar ...

lawyer and civil rights activist. Pandit immigrated to the United States in 1906 and became a citizen in 1914. In 1923, he represented Bhagat Singh Thind in the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

case ''

United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind ''United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind'', 261 U.S. 204 (1923), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States decided that Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian Sikh man who identified himself as an Aryan, was ineligible for naturalized citiz ...

''; the Court ruled against Thind and found that Indians were ineligible for United States citizenship. However, Pandit successfully fought against a subsequent attempt to remove his own citizenship, and the federal government thereafter gave up its efforts to denaturalize Indian Americans. Pandit died in Los Angeles in 1959.

Early life and immigration to the United States

Born in

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ), also spelled Amdavad (), is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

to a Gujarati

Brahmin Brahmin (; ) is a ''Varna (Hinduism), varna'' (theoretical social classes) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the ''Kshatriya'' (rulers and warriors), ''Vaishya'' (traders, merchants, and farmers), and ''Shudra'' (labourers). Th ...

family, Pandit received both an undergraduate and a doctoral degree from universities in India. Moving to the United States in 1906, Pandit initially made a living as a spiritual teacher in the tradition of Swami Vivekenanda, lecturing on topics such as the esoteric meanings of the life of Jesus. A 1910 pamphlet for a Kilbourn,

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

class entitled "The Fourth Dimension or a Larger World", for example, depicts him against a mystical backdrop.

American citizenship

Pandit applied to become a United States citizen as a resident of California in 1914. The Bureau of Naturalization, charged with implementing the immigration laws of the time, argued that Pandit could not become a citizen as he was not a " free white person" or of African descent, as was required by law. The case stretched on for nine months, but Pandit was granted citizenship by the ruling of Judge Willis Morrison over the Bureau's objection, accepting his designation as white. Sakharam Ganesh Pandit and Lillian Stringer 1920

Sakharam Ganesh Pandit and Lillian Stringer 1920

Subsequently, Pandit became a lawyer and was admitted to the California bar, as well as being admitted to the federal bar to argue appeals before the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts for the following federal judicial districts: * Distric ...

. In 1920, Pandit married a white woman, Lillian Stringer. The marriage was only legal under California law because both were considered officially white. As a result of his marriage, Pandit was disinherited by his family and lost his right to an inheritance of property in India. As a naturalized US citizen, he renounced his British Indian citizenship, losing his doctoral degree in the process.

''United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind''

Pandit represented a fellow Indian American, Bhagat Singh Thind, in the 1923 case ''

'' before the

. The Court found that Thind was ineligible for United States citizenship because he did not qualify as a "white person". Following this case, the Bureau of Naturalization began action to strip Pandit and other Indian Americans of their citizenship, arguing it had been "illegally procured". By the time Pandit's case came to trial in 1926, forty-two of sixty-nine citizenships granted to Indians had been revoked. Pandit, a skilled lawyer, argued that under the doctrine of

equitable estoppel Estoppel is a judicial device whereby a court may prevent or "estop" a person from making assertions or from going back on their word. The person barred from doing so is said to be "estopped". Estoppel may prevent someone from bringing a particul ...

, he would be irreversibly harmed by the revocation of his American citizenship, which he had reasonably relied upon - he would become stateless, lose his property and law license, and his wife would lose her citizenship as well. Judge Paul McCormick, the initial trial judge, ruled in Pandit's favor, accepting his arguments wholeheartedly. In 1926, in ''U.S. v. Pandit'', the Ninth Circuit upheld McCormick's ruling under the doctrine of

res judicata ''Res judicata'' or ''res iudicata'', also known as claim preclusion, is the Latin term for ''judged matter'', and refers to either of two concepts in common law civil procedure: a case in which there has been a final judgment and that is no lon ...

. As a result of Pandit's case, the US government subsequently dropped its other denaturalization cases against Indian Americans. In 1930, Pandit was listed by a

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

committee investigating communism (the Fish Committee) as one of the executive chairs of the Los Angeles branch of the All-America Anti-Imperialist League, describing him as an active participant "in the fight for independence of oppressed nationalities". In 1946, the Luce–Celler Act removed racial qualifications for naturalization under United States law, although it set strict nationality-based quotas that limited immigration from many predominantly non-white countries. Pandit died in Los Angeles in 1959 at the age of 84.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pandit, Sakharam Ganesh 1875 births 1959 deaths United States immigration and naturalization case law Race and law in the United States Anti-Indian sentiment in the United States Indian-American history 1927 in United States case law Emigrants from British India to the United States American people of Gujarati descent Indian activists Gujarati people