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Thursday, July 1, 2021

Indian Citizenship Act ........ .......... what ? ! ?

Ever heard of Indian Citizenship Act ! ~ that has nothing to do with India !!

Movie is only a form of entertainment, yet there are some films / some scenes that move us. Shankar directed ‘Indian’ [Bharatheeyudu] was a good film.  To many the hero was not the young Kamal but the older Indian Senapathy. The flashback in black & white was really moving taking us to older days, especially the footage of the great Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose.  The story shows Senapathi as a young valiant fighter joining  Bose’s army with the full support of his wife Amirthavalli. The handful of Nation’s soil to be smeared on forehead daily is poetic.  Senapathi gets captured,  survives the brutalities and comes to back in free India riddled with corruption, and he fights that !!

Way back in Apr 1994, India played UAE – Atul Bedade and Bhupinder Singh debuted alongside 11 players for UAE – India won by 71 runs.  The Emirates' reply of 202 was more than respectable and lasted the full 50 overs. Riaz Poonawala opened for UAE raced to 22 from 14 balls, remember he played for India U25 against touring Australians in 1986 (an Indian turned UAE !)



Former India U-19 World Cup-winner Smit Patel has confirmed retiring from Indian cricket. Smit, who now lives in the US, was picked up by Barbados Tridents for the upcoming Caribbean Premier League (CPL). The update had sort of confirmed that he wasn't going to return to Indian domestic cricket as the BCCI's rules don't permit an Indian player to play overseas leagues. Smit can play overseas leagues from now on but can't ply his trade in the Indian Premier League.

Smit scored a vital 62* off 84 in the 2012 U-19 WC final against the home team, Australia, in Townsville. He joined skipper Unmukt Chand when India were reeling at 97/4 in the chase to the target of 226. The duo stitched a match-winning partnership of 130 runs and propelled India to their 3rd title victory.   Smit hit the winning shot too  for the Men in Blue. Since he has now switched to the US, Smit will be eligible to play international cricket for the USA cricket team once he completes the residency period.

To us, the term ‘Indian’ proudly represents the Nationals and Citizens of India,    containing 17.50% of the world's population. In India, the term "Indian" refers to nationality, rather than a particular ethnicity or language; the Indian nationality consists of dozens of regional ethno-linguistic groups, reflecting the rich and complex history of the country. Due to emigration, the Indian diaspora is present throughout the world, notably in other parts of Asia, North America, Europe, the Caribbean, Oceania, and Africa. 

India has a rich history which includes the prehistoric settlements and societies in the Indian subcontinent; the blending of the Indus Valley Civilization;  the rise of sixteen oligarchic republics known as Mahajanapadas;    greatest empires and dynasties in South Asian history like the Maurya Empire, Satavahana dynasty, Gupta Empire, Rashtrakuta dynasty, Chalukya Empire,  Chera, Chola Pandya, Pallava  Empire, and more .. ..

 

Moving away, the  Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, also known as the Snyder Act, (43 Stat. 253, enacted June 2, 1924) was an Act of the United States Congress that granted US citizenship to the indigenous peoples of the United States, called "Indians" in the Act. While the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution defines as citizens any persons born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction, the amendment had previously been interpreted by the courts to not apply to Native peoples. The act was proposed by Representative Homer P. Snyder (R) of New York, and signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge on June 2, 1924. It was enacted partially in recognition of the thousands of Native Americans who served in the armed forces during the First World War.

Under Article One of the United States Constitution, "Indians not taxed" were not counted in the population of a state for purposes of apportionment. The earliest recorded date of Native people becoming US citizens was in 1831 when the Mississippi Choctaw became citizens after the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek of 1830 was ratified. Under article XIV of that treaty, any Choctaw who elected not to move to Native American Territory could become an American citizen when he registered and if he stayed on designated lands for five years after treaty ratification. The US Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) said that Native people could become citizens, though their acquisition of citizenship was by way of naturalization (ie., not by birth within US territory)

Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States; sometimes including Hawaii and territories of the United States, and other times limited to the mainland. There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations.  The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago, possibly much earlier, from Asia via Beringia.    After its formation, the United States, as part of its policy of settler colonialism, continued to wage war and perpetrated massacres against many Native American peoples, removed them from their ancestral lands, and subjected them to one-sided treaties and to discriminatory government policies, later focused on forced assimilation, into the 20th century

The term American Indian is often used to refer to the indigenous cultures of the Western Hemisphere in general; its constituent parts were in use from at least the early 16th century. The word Indian came to be used because Christopher Columbus repeatedly expressed the mistaken belief that he had reached the shores of South Asia. Convinced he was correct, Columbus fostered the use of the term Indios (originally, “person from the Indus valley”) to refer to the peoples of the so-called New World. The term America came into use as a referent to the continents of the Western Hemisphere as early as 1507, when the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller published a map naming them after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The word American was soon thereafter appended to Indian to differentiate the indigenous peoples of these regions from those of South Asia.

Interesting ! 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
2nd June 2021. 

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