- Source: Vaishno Das Bagai
Vaishno Das Bagai (1891–1928) was an Indian American business owner and activist. His suicide, prompted by racism and denaturalization, is often cited as a poignant example of the human impact of racist policies facing South Asian immigrants.
Early life and immigration
Bagai was born in 1891 in Peshawar, British India (now Pakistan), into a wealthy family. His father died in 1913, and he and his brother went on to inherit his family property. Vaishno Das Bagai married Kala Bagai, and they had three sons, Brij, Madan, and Ram. While in Peshawar, he got involved with the Ghadar Party, which advocated for Indian self-rule.
In 1915, Vaishno, Kala, and their children traveled to San Francisco, hoping to work with the Ghadar Party. Upon arrival, the Bagais spent a few days in detention at Angel Island. They were questioned about why they immigrated, but officials became less suspicious after seeing that the Bagais had brought all their savings with them.
Life in the United States
Vaishno Das Bagai settled his family in the San Francisco Bay Area. He briefly opened India Arts and Curios, a store in Downtown Berkeley.
Despite his efforts to assimilate, including adopting Western clothing, the Bagais faced racial discrimination. In her 1982 oral history interview, Kala Bagai described how she and her husband attempted to move from San Francisco to Berkeley, California, where racist neighbors prevented them from entering their newly purchased home. Writes historian Erika Lee, "The family achieved a dream when they bought their first home in the city of Berkeley. But when they pulled up to their new neighborhood on moving day, they found that the neighbors had locked up the house to prevent them from moving in. 'All of our luggage and everything was loaded on the trucks,' recounted Kala Bagai. 'I told Mr. Bagai I don’t want to live in this neighborhood. I don’t want to live in this house, because they might hurt my children, and I don’t want it. He agreed. We paid for the house and they locked the doors? No!'"
The Bagais made their lives in San Francisco, where over the years, Vaishno ran several stores. One was an import store called "Bagai's Bazaar," which sold things like curios and handmade goods from India, embroideries from China, and other goods from Asia. He also ran a general store that sold items like candy, trinkets, soap, and supplies; the Bagais lived in an apartment right above.
Vaishno Das Bagai also remained active in the Ghadar Party, a movement advocating for Indian independence.
The struggle for citizenship
= Gaining citizenship
=Two weeks after arriving in the United States, Vaishno Das Bagai formally declared his intention to become a U.S. citizen. In 1920, he filed his naturalization papers, providing caste certifications from officials in Peshawar that identified him as a "high caste Hindoo of Aryan origin." These documents were intended to satisfy the racially restrictive naturalization laws of the time, which required applicants to be classified as "white." Bagai successfully became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1921.
= The Thind decision, and United States vs. Vaishno Das Bagai
=In 1923, following the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, Bagai and other South Asian Americans would lose their U.S. citizenship, as the court ruled they were not "white" and therefore ineligible for naturalization.
In 1924, the U.S. government filed a case titled United States of America vs. Vaishno Das Bagai. The government claimed that Bagai had "illegally obtained and procured naturalization" because he had represented himself as a “white person, whereas in fact and in truth he was a Hindu and not a white person."
Writes Erika Lee, "Referring to the Thind decision that decreed that 'a Hindu was not a white person' within the meaning of the U.S. law, the bill of complaint charged that Bagai 'then and there at the time well knew' that he was illegally obtaining naturalization. The absurdity of the charge that Bagai had illegally represented himself as white years before the Thind decision had been handed down did not seem to matter to the U.S. government."
= Impact of denaturalization
=On March 11, 1925, the U.S. Attorney submitted an order to revoke and cancel Vaishno Das Bagai's naturalized citizenship. By early May, the Bureau of Naturalization officially declared that Vaishno Das Bagai was no longer recognized as a citizen.
Losing his citizenship had devastating consequences. Under California's Alien Land Law of 1913, he could no longer legally own property or operate his business. The family was forced to sell their property, including their store.
This loss of citizenship also rendered Bagai stateless, preventing him from obtaining a U.S. passport or returning to British India without risking arrest due to his anti-colonial activism. According to Rani Bagai:"that meant that now he could not travel to India unless it was back under an Indian passport under the crown, the British Crown…But there were a lot worse implications…he now could not own a business. So I believe it had to be transferred to a friend or someone who was not Indian. So there were a lot of problems then with that. It was bad enough trying to run it on his own, and the discrimination and the bias, but now having to run it through a second party and, you know, the trust you put into someone to manage the money and give you the money that's owed to you…there were…issues there where he was swindled or lost money and he felt, I think, quite a bit of despair and frustration towards the end. No matter what he did…he can't go home to India. They would pursue him, they would probably arrest him if he came back there because of the work he did with the Ghadar party in San Francisco. He couldn't make a go of things the way he dreamed of in San Francisco, for his family and, you know, the idea of a business and all that were kind of vanishing. So it was a very…depressing, frustrating time for him."
Final letter
The stress of losing his citizenship, his business, and his sense of belonging deeply affected Bagai. He tried to commit suicide in San Francisco in February 1928, but was thwarted. On March 17, 1928, he died by suicide in a rented room in San Jose, leaving a note that criticized both himself and the American government for his disenfranchisement.
Vaishno Das Bagai's suicide note highlighted the profound personal toll of systemic racism and exclusion. It reads, in part:I have a good home, fine health, good family, nice and lovely wife, extra good children, few but best friends and a paying business. I came to America thinking, dreaming and hoping to make this land my home. Sold my properties and brought more than twenty-five thousand dollars gold to this country, established myself and tried my very best to give my children the best American education.
In the year 1921 the Federal court at San Francisco accepted me as a naturalized citizen of the United States and issued to my name the final certificate, giving therein the name and description of my wife and three sons. In last 12 or 13 years we all made ourselves as much Americanized as possible.
But who is responsible? But they now come to me and say, I am no longer an American citizen. They will not permit me to buy my home and lo, they even shall not issue me a passport to go back to India. Now what am I? What have I made of myself and my children? We cannot exercise our rights, we cannot leave this country. Humility and insults, who is responsible for all this? Myself and American government.
I do not choose to live the life of an interned person: yes, I am in a free country and can move about where and when I wish inside the country. Is life worth living in a gilded cage? Obstacles this way, blockades that way, and the bridges burnt behind. Yes, you can call me a coward in one respect, that I did not try to break the mountain with my naked head and fists. Vaishno was survived by his wife Kala, and their three sons.
Legacy
Vaishno Das Bagai's story has been widely cited by American historians and legal scholars as a powerful example of the human impact of racist policies impacting South Asians and other immigrants. Many specifically reference his suicide note, describing life in the United States as "living in a gilded cage."
The city of Berkeley, California renamed a downtown street "Kala Bagai Way" in 2021, recognizing the Bagai family's racist exclusion from the city a century earlier.
See also
Kala Bagai
Bhagat Singh Thind
United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind
Racial classification of Indian Americans
Ghadar Party
