Book Talk - Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River: The Global Fight for Indian Independence and Citizenship

Oregon Historical Society, 1200 SW Park Ave Portland, Oregon 97205

A conversation with author Johanna Ogden and Dr. Katy Barber.

Oregon is commonly perceived to have little, let alone notable, South Asian history. Yet in the early 1900s, Oregon was at the center of two entwined quests for Indian independence and civic belonging that rocked the world. Punjabi Rebels of the Columbia River traces the stories of the radical Indian independence organization known as Ghadar and Bhagat Singh Thind’s era-defining U.S. Supreme Court citizenship case. Ghadar sought the overthrow of India’s British colonizers while Thind utilized sanctioned legal channels to do so. Despite widely differing strategies, both Ghadar and Thind were targeted, often in coordination, by the highest levels of the U.S. and British governments. The empires’ united message: India would not be an independent country and Indians could not be citizens. In the decades that followed, it was a verdict Indians refused to abide.

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