PHILADELPHIA, USA, February 14, 2009: You may not know who Satyanand Stokes (1882-1946) was, but Mohandas Gandhi did. So does the Dalai Lama, and a picture of Satyanand hangs in the Nehru Memorial Library in New Delhi, among other leaders of India’s independence movement. Born Samuel Evans Stokes Jr., the firstborn son of a Philadelphia Quaker family, Stokes set off for India’s Simla Hills at the age of 21 to work in a home for lepers.
Before long, Stokes took on local dress, rejected the privileges of a white Westerner, gave away his belongings, and adopted the name Satyanand. In 1912, he married a local woman. He introduced American Red Delicious apples to the Himalayas in 1916, and in 1924, he opened a school to educate the children of local farmers. He became a leader in Gandhi’s independence movement–the only American member of the All India Congress Committee, and the only American ever imprisoned by the British for involvement in that cause. In 1932, he converted to Hinduism, in part because he detested the Christian notion of eternal punishment.
Stokes’ story is told by his granddaughter, Asha Sharma, in a lovingly detailed and enormously moving biography entitled “An American in Gandhi’s India: The Biography of Satyanand Stokes.” Sharma’s excellent combination of smooth storytelling and detailed research makes Stokes’ story alluring in both its early Philadelphia moments and its long unfolding in India.