>You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
He said that in the 20th century. Imprisoning the mind is the province of the 21st century. Both governments and pseudo-"activists" now seek to do this by leveraging the Internet.
All it will take to "imprison the mind" is convincing enough people to use a system that gives positive reinforcement when your friends act "correctly". Normal social behavior will do the rest. China (with Tencent) is already trying this, and Facebook has at least explored this area[2].
Ghandi got away with his stunts because because he was up against the British, and they had comparatively okay ethics. Try that shit on someone who's actually bad and at best you'll just end up digging your own grave at gunpoint, then being "shot while escaping".
While publicly the U.S. government probably wants to keep on the good side of popular opinion, they've proved time and again that in private they have little to no compunction about doing "whatever it takes" to get their way.
But not "listen to your complaint, laugh, shoot you in the face, set fire to your children."
Bad things happened under their rule but they weren't actively evil in the same league as so many regimes. If you think British rule was the worst thing that could happen to a place you're pretty sheltered.
As Gandhi states:
>You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.