Taraknath Das: Race and Citizenship between India and the U.S.A

The itinerant nationalist and anti-colonial activist Taraknath Das (1884–1958) remains a relatively understudied figure in the history of India as well as the history of the United States of America. Given his centrality to the Ghadar movement,¹ his education in the USA, and his role in inter-war anti-colonial movements, his life serves as a window into entangled histories of race and citizenship between the United States of America and colonial India in the late colonial era. Seen alongside other “expatriate patriots” such as Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) and Shyamji Krishnavarma (1857–1930), Das appears as a central figure in