SAADA

In doing research for SAADA, we constantly encounter new details and stories about people who have made a transformational impact in American and world history, but who have been just as often overlooked. This list serves as an introduction to five more such figures, whose stories we have researched and want to learn more about (see our first list of 5 South Asian Americans You Should Know About). The list is by no means exhaustive or completely representative -- and there will be more to come -- but it serves to remind us of the diversity of voices that have shaped South Asian American history.

Kala Bagai
Kala Bagai arrived in San Francisco on September 6, 1915 with her husband, Vaishno Das Bagai, and their three young sons, Brij, Madan, and Ram. During a period where most South Asian migrants were men, Kala Bagai was one of the very few South Asian women in the entire country. Her arrival as the “first Hindu woman to enter the city in ten years” was reported in the San Francisco Call-Post, and the paper focused on her nose ring -- “the latest fad from India.” Born in 1892, Kala had been married to Vaishno Das when she was eleven years old and he was twelve. After his father’s death, Vaishno Das had begun working with the Gadar Party and decided he no longer wanted to live in India. When Bagai decided to immigrate to the United States, he resolved to take his family along with him, explaining: “Supposing I go to America, I leave my wife here, and then after a few years, I come back and I may not like her, because I might like American people there. That’s why I am going to take her along and my children.” Kala, not speaking a word of English, struggled with everyday life after arriving in the U.S. Eventually they found a German family to take care of their children while Kala learned English and became accustomed to the new country. Following the 1923 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, Bagai and other South Asians who had become naturalized American citizens had their citizenship revoked. Struggling with this injustice and feeling trapped and betrayed, in 1928 Vaishno Das committed suicide. Kala continued to raise their children on her own and a few years later married Mahesh Chandra, a close friend of the family. Kala became a U.S. citizen after Congress passed the Luce-Celler Act in 1946.¹

Rajah Mahendra Rutnam
By ending long-standing Asian exclusion policies and introducing a system of preferences based on skill sets and family reunification, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 began finally to slightly open the door for immigrants from Asia to migrate to the United States. Rajah Mahendra Rutnam was the first Ceylonese immigrant to the United States under the 1952 Act (Ceylon was renamed Sri Lanka in 1972). 19 at the time, Rutnam was the eldest son of Dr. James T. and Evelyn Rutnam. In deciding to leave Ceylon, he traded his role in his family’s political and business dynasty for the uncertainty of life in a new country. Rutnam joined the U.S. Marines soon after his arrival and eventually settled in Los Angeles where he was involved in business and helping to establish the growing Sri Lankan community. In 1964, he opened ‘Rajah’s Elephant Walk’, the first Sri Lankan restaurant in California. Rutnam was the publisher of the first Sri Lankan newspaper in the state, served as Vice President of Asia Pacific Organization and Director of Sri Lanka Trade Tourism and Cultural Information Services, was a founding member of the Sri Lanka American Association of Southern California, and helped to establish the first Buddhist temple in the Hollywood area. Rajah Rutnam died in 2013.²

Syud Hossain
Born to an aristocratic family in Calcutta and educated in London, Syud Hossain first cut his teeth as a journalist with the Bombay Chronicle and later became a member of the Home Rule movement. But his time in the U.S., which spanned close to thirty years, marked a formative and often overlooked part of his biography. First arriving in the United States in 1921,Hossain was soon known as a powerful orator and brilliant lecturer, who delivered speeches across the country castigating British Rule.³ He lectured at the University of Southern California as a professor of Oriental civilization and world affairs, and developed a variety of publications including the New Orient magazine, where he served as editor for four years. As detailed in an article from Pearson’s Magazine, Hossain found himself spending a good amount of time in the U.S. undoing popular misconceptions about both India and Muslims. “From the moment almost of his landing Syud Hossain has been an animated denial. He has been obliged to deny, not once but scores of times, that the Mohammedans and Hindus are deadly enemies; that the former are all Turks; that India is the size of Texas; that the Mohammedan is a ferocious war-maker; that India is unfit to govern itself; that England is in India for the ‘welfare’ of Indians.”³

Asha Puthli
"A sound like Raga meeting Aretha Franklin" was how New York Times critic Robert Palmer described songwriter and vocalist Asha Puthli’s voice. Trained in Hindustani classical music, Puthli first performed in night clubs in Bombay, closely copying jazz vocalists that she’d heard through records. Puthli made her U.S. debut in 1971, when she appeared on the opening track of free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman’s classic Science Fiction. Since that notable debut, Puthli went on to have a remarkable recording career, cutting several innovative solo albums on CBS’ European imprint through the ‘70s and early ‘80s. Her music fused Hindustani classical, jazz, soul, disco, and a number of different genres, eventually finding a second life in samples by artists like Notorious B.I.G. and Dilated Peoples. Her achievements in music and the arts have recently been recognized, when she earned a Bollywood Music Lifetime Achievement Award and was honored at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.⁴

J.J. Singh
After arriving in the U.S. in 1926, Sirdar J.J. Singh ran a successful Indian textile import store in Manhattan. His involvement in the non-cooperation movement and the All-India Congress Committee as a young man quickly shaped his political and social commitments in New York, and Singh soon became the high-profile leader of the India League of America. Established in the 1940s, the ILA was shaped by an anticolonial nationalist outlook, and published several political pamphlets and newsletters which sought to educate Americans on India’s movement for independence. Aside from organizing around the cause of Indian independence, the ILA, along with the Pakistan League of America, became involved in supporting legislation that would undo restrictions against immigrants from Asia. J.J. Singh and his peers were involved in the campaigning and lobbying that led to the eventual passing of the Luce-Celler Act of 1946, allowing Indians in the U.S. to naturalize and accepting a quota of 100 Indians per year to immigrate to the United States. Time magazine described Singh as writing thousands of letters, making hundreds of phone calls and tirelessly stalking Capitol Hill hallways to get the bill passed. Singh eventually returned to India in 1959.⁵

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1. Bagai, Rani. "'Bridges Burnt Behind': The Story of Vaishno Das Bagai." Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.
2. Rutnam, George. "Rajah Rutnam - Sri Lanka's First Immigrant to US." Sri Lanka Reporter.
3. Two blog posts were particularly helpful here: David Riley on "Syud Hossain, Muslim Voice of Freedom."
and Ullattil Manmadhan on "Dr. Syud Hossain and Indian Independence from Indian Independence"
4. See Asha Puthli's biography and Ved Mehta's memoir Portrait of India for a more detailed account.
5. Shaffer, Robert. "J.J. Singh and the India League of America, 1945-1959: Pressing at the Margins of the Cold War Consensus." Journal of American Ethnic History. 31.2 (2012): 68-103.