India’s Declaration of Independence in the United States

This essay is part of a content series exploring the nations, stories, and themes included in the Museum’s special exhibition The Declaration’s Journey, presented by Griffin Catalyst, on view through Jan. 3, 2027.  

At noon on Jan. 26, 1931, the Indian declaration of independence was read aloud at Independence Hall. It was the first anniversary of the document, also called Purna Swaraj, meaning complete self-rule or total independence from Great Britain. Dr. Haridas Muzumdar (1898–1995), an adherent of Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948), stood next to the Liberty Bell as he read the declaration. The moment was also captured by a local radio station, WPEN. 

Born in India, Muzumdar was educated in the U.S. He returned to India as Gandhi’s non-violent movement gained momentum, and in 1930, he took part in the Salt March, a protest of the British monopoly on salt. Back in the U. S., Muzumdar was treated as a spokesperson for the All-India National Congress and a resource for Americans who were interested in learning more about Gandhi, who was widely known by the honorific “Mahatma.” He gave frequent interviews and presentations about India and self-rule. Muzumdar also launched a series called India Today and Tomorrow, which he edited and published in New York.  

In January 1931, Muzumdar traveled to Philadelphia to draw a clear connection between the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the Indian declaration of independence. The Philadelphia Inquirer described the moment of reading the Indian declaration at Independence Hall as an east-meets-west moment of “a common understanding of the desire for political freedom in each.” At a reception with the mayor of Philadelphia, Harry Mackey, Muzumdar compared the Salt March to the Boston Tea Party. There were other commonalities between the fight for Indian independence and the American Revolutionary War. As the principal author of the Indian declaration, Gandhi referred back to the inalienable rights articulated in the U. S. Declaration and the notion that, “if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them, the people have a further right to alter it or to abolish it.” 

The Declaration’s Journey features a commemorative printing of the Indian declaration of independence, marking the one-year anniversary on Jan. 26, 1931. In advertisements for India Today and Tomorrow, Muzumdar promised that “a copy of India’s Declaration of Independence will be mailed free to all our subscribers.” 

The struggle for Indian independence continued, and in the United States, there were celebrations each year on Jan. 26, sometimes described in the press as India’s Fourth of July. When the Hindustan Welfare Association marked the fourth anniversary of the Indian declaration in 1934 in New York, Muzumdar hung a wreath on the statue of American revolutionary Nathan Hale. The 10th anniversary on Jan. 26, 1940, during World War II, renewed broader interest in the topic. Indian-born activist Bhicoo Batlivala (1910–1983) toured the United States for months on a lecture tour advocating for Indian independence. When she spoke in Quincy, Massachusetts, in February 1940, the local newspaper described her as “seemingly the soul of India,” dressed “in a fuschia [sic] sari with brocaded bands.” Batlivala not only pled for Indian independence, but also provided context about the history of British rule, as well as the everyday lives of women in India. She said that non-violence was “not the unresistence [sic] of cowards, but of those people who know they are right and that because they are right they must win in the end.”  

Advocates for Indian independence in the United States were not limited to people like Muzumdar and Batlivala who were born there. On Sept. 28, 1942, the New York Times printed a full-page letter to the American public which stressed that “The Time For Mediation Is NOW.” The leading question in this letter was, “Is India America’s business?” The simple answer was yes—not only because of the ongoing war, but because of the “long struggle” for independence in India. This open letter was the work of Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973), who lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, not far from Philadelphia. Buck won the Pulitzer Prize in Literature for her novel, The Good Earth, and became known not only for her writing, but also for her humanitarian efforts. With her husband, Richard Walsh (1886–1960), who was chairman of the India League of America, Buck collected signatures and paid for the full-page letter in the New York Times. Fellow author and activist Dorothy Canfield Fisher signed and made a small contribution to the cost. She wrote to Walsh in October 1942, “I rather guessed that it was Pearl’s munificently generous hand which had financed that hideously expensive advertisement!” She described how the letter had “reverberated all over our country, like a roll of thunder!” 

Buck’s advocacy for India continued as World War II came to a close. She was a frequent contributor to the magazine Asia Americas, and in 1946, she wrote an essay called “Questions Indians Ask Me.” Buck claimed to have an “ever-increasing pile” of letters on her desk from people “all over India, separate voices from village homes and schoolrooms and cities, from men and women, boys and girls.” Some of these questions focused on racial discrimination in the United States. Others were about economics, education, or daily life. But a throughline in many of these letters was “something very near to deep and unforgiving anger about the apathy of Americans toward freedom for Indians.” In India, there was an awareness that the American Revolutionary War had shifted the focus of British imperialism onto India. 

Indian independence became official on Aug. 15, 1947—more than 17 years after the declaration was first published and with many challenges, including the partition of India and Pakistan. Muzumdar continued to speak and publish about India for American audiences. But his civic identity had changed. In July 1947, after living and teaching in the United States for many years, Muzumdar became a U. S. citizen. He had lobbied for the passage of the Luce-Celler Act in 1946, which set an immigration quota for people from India and the Philippines and extended naturalization rights. In an interview with a New Mexico newspaper, Muzumdar said that “the most cherished privilege of American citizenship is that one may look the world in the eye confidently with self-respect, viewing others as equals.” While he had previously thought of himself as “serving India, America, and the world,” his viewpoint had changed: “henceforth my effort shall be to serve America, India, and the world.” 

My thanks to Samantha Freise, curator at the Pearl S. Buck National Historic Landmark, for allowing access to Buck’s papers. 

Dr. Emily Sneff is an early American historian, guest curator of The Declaration’s Journey, and leading expert on the United States Declaration of Independence, as well as the author of When The Declaration of Independence Was News, published in April 2026.