page_title: Taragarh Talawa
section_title: Bhagat Singh Thind
hierarchical_section_title: Taragarh Talawa / Bhagat Singh Thind
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph dated November 18, 1918 of Bhagat Singh Thind with his batallion at Camp Lewis, Washington. His unit was called Washington Company No. 2, Development Battalion No. 1, 166th Depot Brigade.
context_page_description: Taragarh Talawa is a village which now officially called Taragarh located at two kilometers from Jandiala Guru, Amritsar district, Punjab, India on the Grand Trunk Road, located at 31° 33' 41N 75° 1'36E at an altitude of 229 m.
  The origin of the village's name is shrouded in myth. One claims that Maharaja Ranjit Singh gave the village to a servant named Tara. Another traces the name to the Punjabi word "talawa", the act of tying thread to a kite, since the road to the village is reminiscent of a "talawa".
  Taragarh is a village in Jandiala-4 Tehsil in Amritsar District of Punjab State, India. It is located 23 km towards East from District headquarters Amritsar. 12 km from Jand. 219 km from State capital Chandigarh. Taragarh Pin code is 143115 and postal head office is Jandiala Guru.
  Janian, Timmowal, Nangal Guru, Gehri, Dhirekot are the nearby Villages to Taragarh. Taragarh is surrounded by Tarsikka-7 Tehsil towards North, Khadur-Sahib-10 Tehsil towards South, Tarn Taran-12 Tehsil towards west, Verka-5 Tehsil towards North.
  Tarn Taran, Amritsar, Batala, Patti are the nearby Cities to TARAGARH.
context_section_description: Bhagat Singh Thind, PhD, (3 October 1892 – 15 September 1967) was an Indian-American Sikh writer and lecturer on spirituality who initiated an important legal battle over the rights of Indians to obtain U.S. citizenship: United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind.
  United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court unanimously decided that Bhagat Singh Thind, an Indian Sikh man, was ineligible for naturalization. In 1923, Thind filed for United States citizenship under the Naturalization Act of 1906 which allowed white persons and persons of African descent to naturalize. He did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions. Instead, he attempted to have Indians classified as "white."
  Thind argued that as a high-caste Indian he was "Aryan" and therefore "Caucasian". The Court found that "the Aryan theory, as a racial basis, seems to be discredited by most, if not all, modern writers on the subject of ethnology," and noted that "the Caucasic division of the human family is 'in point of fact the most debatable field in the whole range of anthropological studies.'"
  Dr. Thind was also the first Sikh to serve in the U.S. Army (a few months before the end of World War I), and successfully fought for the right to wear the turban while in uniform.
caption: Bhagat Singh Thind with his battalion at Camp Lewis, Washington on 18 November 1918.
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