On Saturday 21 Jul 2012 7:07:45 pm Nikhil Mehra wrote: > I think racism came to be recognized as unacceptable as a matter of law > only after WW II.
Probably. Europe, the dominant continent before WW2 were in search of some ancient history and Germany found that in the form of "Aryan" and stuck a finger up the backside of the rest of Europe. The first Indian to emigrate to the US as per Wiki was a Bengali http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.K._Mozumdar > In 1913 Mozumdar became the first Indian-born person to earn U.S. > citizenship, having convinced the Spokane district judge that he was in > fact Caucasian and thereby met the requirements of naturalization law then > restricting citizenship to "free white persons". Ten years later a Punjabi was refused immigration on the following grounds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind > The eligibility of this applicant for citizenship is based on the sole fact > that he is of high caste Hindu stock, born in Punjab [Amrit Sar], one of > the extreme northwestern districts of India, and classified by many > scientific authorities as of the Caucasian or Aryan race...In the Punjab > and Rajputana [Rajasthan], while the invaders seem to have met with more > success in the effort to preserve their racial purity, intermarriages did > occur producing an intermingling of the two and destroying to a greater or > less degree the purity of the “Aryan” blood. The rules of caste, while > calculated to prevent this intermixture, seem not to have been entirely > successful... the given group [Asian Indian] cannot be properly assigned > to any of the enumerated grand racial divisions. The type may have been so > changed by intermixture of blood as to justify an intermediate > classification. Something very like this has actually taken place in > India. Thus, in Hindustan [India] and Berar [town in India] there was such > an intermixture of the “Aryan” invader with the dark-skinned Dravidian It is ironic that the Bengali got in and the Punjabi was turned down because a few decades later the Muslims among the two ethnic groups (Bengali and Punjabi) were clubbed together in one country united by Islam as West Pakistanis and East Pakistanis. Benazir Bhutto once said that she had been taught in school that West Pakistans were tall, had white skin and ate wheat. East Pakistanis were short, had a dark complexion and ate rice. Of course the original Gunga Din of Kipling was from the Indian northwest - which included Indian and Pakistani Punjab and the North West Frontier Province, whence the Taliban come from. But after the Indian army revolt of 1857 the British army made it a point to recruit the relatvely apolitical north-western Indian and were suspicious of the politicking "Bengalee". The former were praised as "martial races" who were immune to syphilis among other valuable traits. This mythical trait, I am told, was internalized by the Pakistan army. LOL shiv
