New Delhi, Jan. 18 -- When Christopher Columbus set sail from Europe and turned up on the American continent, he was in fact trying to reach India. Native Americans came to be called Indians, and the continent got populated by people from Europe. Triumphalist Americans, who would later characterise their land seizure as "manifest destiny", were the original "undocumented aliens", to use the term with which the United States describes people who enter the country without proper papers.

They saw nothing wrong in treating the land as theirs to take, and displaced and killed many native Americans. To meet their needs of agriculture, commerce and industry, they brought people forcibly to the US. The hierarchy was clear; the enslaved had no ri...