What Are The Similarities Between India And British Imperialism

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Anastasia Khorounjaia Hist 202 - Stevens 8 December 2014 China and India In the last few decades, China and India have become full members in the modern global culture and economy. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, both China and India reorganized themselves from an era of western imperialism to their present day status. British imperialism in China and India brought very differing responses from both countries. Although, the British impacted both these countries, the British directly governed India, while China on the other hand did not entail direct British rule. During the 1700’s, Queen Elizabeth I of England chartered a joint-stock company called the British East India Company. The main intention of the company was…show more content…
Gandhi believed that the decisions the British were making were wrong, and it resulted in him developing a political consensus to get the British out of India by organizing nonviolent protests. He encouraged Indians to do “satyagraha” and “ahimsa” to do civil obedience against the British government. One of the demonstrations that he organized was the Salt March, which was a protest against British control of the salt industry in India. The British heavily taxed and regulated the salt trade, which Gandhi regarded as an act of injustice. Gandhi called it “the most inhuman poll tax the ingenuity of man can devise” (736). He and his followers marched for a month to Dandi on the Gujarat coast to break the law by removing salt from the ocean. Gandhi felt that becoming oppressed to contemporary industrial civilization colonized India. He perceived that the only way to attain independence was for them to become self-reliant. Motivated by Gandhi’s examples, thousands on Indians enlisted in his protests by boycotting foreign goods and replacing domestic hand-knit fabric for imported textiles. Gandhi also led the “Quit India” movement, which was a nonviolent gesture for the British to get out of their country. That movement resulted in the British apprehending all the leaders of the campaign. In the end, after World War II, Britain became too weak to control India. The British realized that they…show more content…
Unfortunately, the Chinese wouldn’t buy anything from the Europeans, except for silver and gold. By the end of the 18th century, the Europeans were trying to devise a plan on how to sell commodities to the Chinese. The British finally developed a trading strategy, selling opium to China. The result of opium in the Chinese culture guided the society to going down hill. Once opium was implemented into Chinese lifestyle, people began stealing money, the military was notably declining, there was decreased productivity, and the tax collecting classes were the ones that were doing the drugs. By the end of the 1830’s, a meeting was called in Beijing amongst the best Confucians to talk about the opium epidemic. A Confucian named Lin Zexu had two approaches to ridding opium from their country: they must very strictly enforce laws against opium and give help and treatment to those that are addicted. Zexu sends Queen Victoria a letter pleading for her to stop the trade of Opium to China as its brought great misery to their country. The British justify selling opium because of free market. In 1839, Lin Zexu travels to Canton to call a Confucian examination. He notifies the British that Opium is now illegal, and that he will confiscate the narcotics if they continue importing it to their country, which he actually ended up doing. The British’s response to Lin disposing the Opium was to declare
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