Islanded: Britain, Sri Lanka and the Bounds of an Indian Ocean Colony

摘要

In a prospectus entitled Ceylon in 1883: The Leading Crown Colony of the British Empire intended for outside investors and visitors, John Ferguson, a life member of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, remarked of the island's relationship to the Indian mainland: "To that continent it is related as Great Britain is to Europe, or Madagascar to Africa". In 1927, Mahatma Gandhi, after a visit to Ceylon, wrote in his newspaper Young India: "I have no imperial ambitions for India of my imagination. I should be content to regard Ceylon as an absolutely independent State; but I should not hesitate to accept Ceylon as part of free India if the Islanders express their wish to be so in an unmistakable language".