THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF GANDHI’S LIFE
To organize your thoughts as you read this section of the chapter, consider the following question: What were the major trends in the historical context in which Gandhi lived?
Mohandas Gandhi lived during a time of momentous change when worldwide trends trans-formed the old order into a new social and political world. Gandhi was born in an India that was part of the British Empire—on which, according to the slogan, “the sun never set.” His death by an assassin’s bullet came when India had gained its independence as a sovereign nation. Although the struggle for Indian independence has elements that are unique to that subcontinent’s history and culture, it was also part of the epic story of the decline of imperialism and the liberation of colonial peoples from foreign domination.
British Imperialism 大英帝国
By the end of the nineteenth century, India—divided into British India, which was ruled directly by Great Britain, and the many princely states indirectly under English rule—was regarded as the crown jewel of Britain’s far-flung empire. The history of British rule in India, which began in 1639 when the Mughal rulers ceded a tract of land to the English near Madras, was part of the larger story of Western imperialism. The European nations of Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Germany, until its defeat in World War I, had carved out colonies primarily in Africa and Asia. Great Britain controlled India, Burma, and Malaya in Asia and Nigeria, Ghana, Rhodesia, and South Africa in Africa; France controlled Morocco, Algeria, and Equatorial Africa in Africa and Indochina in Asia; and the Netherlands controlled the Dutch East Indies.
The pattern of imperialism was for a European power such as Great Britain to claim an African or Asian territory by virtue of exploration and to establish settlements of missionaries, civil servants, soldiers, and merchants in the colony. In the case of...