Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind, Ph.D, (3 October 1892 - 15 September 1967) was an Indian American Sikh writer and lecturer on "spiritual science" who was involved in an important legal battle over the rights of Indians to obtain U.S. citizenship. Only 4 months before his arrival in Astoria a new organization had been formed called the Hindoostan Association of the Pacific Coast. It main objective was to liberate India as the Americans had done more than a century before.