General Knowledge: Who Was The First Indian To Get US Citizenship? – News18

Last Updated:January 29, 2025, 14:09 IST

Acquiring American citizenship was never an easy process. In the early 20th century, Bhikaji Balsara became the first Indian to gain American citizenship

Among his first moves after taking oath for the second time, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end birth-right citizenship. The move has been stayed by a federal judge for now but is the first chapter in Trump’s pet project to tighten immigration to the US.

According to the latest census, more than 54 lakh Indians live in the US, making up about 1.47 per cent of the population. Two-thirds of them are immigrants, while 34 per cent were born in America. If Trump’s move is implemented, children of Indian citizens living in the US on temporary work or tourist visas will no longer automatically gain citizenship.

Indians have a strong presence in the US, from politics to the job market, and even within the administration. Citizens of Indian origin hold top positions in many major companies. But how did Indians begin becoming US citizens?

Acquiring American citizenship was never an easy process. In the early 20th century, Bhikaji Balsara became the first Indian to gain American citizenship.

Who is Bhikaji Balsara?

Bhikaji Balsara, a textile merchant from Bombay (now Mumbai), had to fight a long legal battle to achieve this. In the early 1900s, only free white people were granted American citizenship under the Naturalisation Act of 1790. To acquire US citizenship, one had to prove they were white and free.

A Legal Battle in 1906

Balsara fought his first battle against the Naturalisation Act of 1790 in the Circuit Court of New York in 1906. He argued that Aryans, including Caucasians and Indo-Europeans, were white. This argument was later used by other Indians seeking naturalised US citizenship.

The court said that granting him citizenship based on this argument would open the door for Arabs, Hindus, and Afghans to seek naturalisation as well. The court rejected his application but allowed him to appeal for citizenship to the High Court.

As a Parsi, Balsara was considered a member of the Persian sect, which was regarded as a free white group. He was granted US citizenship in 1910 by Judge Emile Henry Lacombe of the South District of New York.

The decision was made with the expectation that the lawyer would challenge it and appeal for an official interpretation of the law. The case was brought to the Circuit Court of Appeals in 1910, where it was decided that Parsis were classified as white. Following this ruling, another federal court granted US citizenship to AK Majumdar.

The Immigration Act of 1917

This decision in favour of Balsara contradicted the 1907 statement of US Attorney General Charles J Bonaparte, who had declared that under no law could natives of British India be considered white. After the Immigration Act of 1917, Indian immigration to the US declined. However, Punjabi immigrants continued to enter the US via the Mexican border, and the Punjabi population in California’s Imperial Valley helped these immigrants integrate.

Increased Immigration After WWII

After World War II, the US again opened its doors to Indian immigration. The Luce-Celler Act of 1946 allowed 100 Indians to migrate to the US each year. The Naturalisation Act of 1952, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, repealed the Barred Areas Act of 1917 but restricted naturalisation to just 2,000 Indians annually. From 1965 to the mid-1990s, long-term immigration from India averaged 40,000 people each year. Indian immigration grew substantially after 1995, reaching nearly 90,000 immigrants in 2000.

Benefits from the IT Boom

In the early 21st century, migration trends from India to the US shifted significantly, largely due to the rapid growth of the IT sector in cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, and Hyderabad. This led to an influx of people from states such as Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu. Indians now account for more than 80 per cent of all H-1B visas issued by the US.

A large number of Indian students also began moving to the US for higher education, with more than 500,000 Indian-Americans attending higher education institutions in the US each year.