Taiping Rebellion

Religion in China has always been a mystery to me. It is hard to find a neutral and comprehensive account of modern China. The exoticism in most of the books on contemporary China doesn't appeal so much to a non-westerner like me. I think that due to lack of free media, the massive language barrier and the unwillingness of Chinese people to discuss current events on the country, it is somewhat difficult to have a general sense of religion in China. The official theory of "no-religion" in China didn't sound very much plausible to me. Having grown up in India I do think that "not having a religion" doesn't necessarily mean a lack of religious conviction. In fact most of the societies that were conquered (and partly humiliated) by West at some point have witnessed radicalization of the "religion" to some extent. An interesting event is the Taiping Rebellion. This was a religious movement but ironically enough was suppressed by the Western forces. It seems like the feudal system of China had given in to the Western forces. The Qing rulers having been of Manchu origin (most of the Chinese people are of Han origin) might have helped quite a bit in getting support for a rebellion against the rule. It is hard not to compare this with the 1857 sepoy mutiny in India. It happened about the same time and was in some way a repercussion of the new Western control. It is remarkable that in India, the rebellion was initiated by sadhus - a group of religious people who could never have been supported by the Moghul ruler (Muslim). But still the mutiny was later headed by a Moghul ruler. In other words, the mutual opponents had united against the Western forces. Most Indians seem to have had little trouble in considering the Western forces as their enemy. In the Chinese context this would be similar to Qing and Hans attempting to unite against the British. However the "mutiny" can hardly be compared with the Taiping rebellion. The mutiny was neither as widespread nor as deeply entrenched in society as the Taiping revolution. About 20 million people are known to have died in the rebellion. The fact that the rebellion was started by someone who wished to be a part of the civil (imperial) services alone suggests that China was indeed being governed much better than India and that China's was a much more integrated society unlike India, where Muslim rule never influenced the rural Hindu population. It is not surprising that the Taiping rebels had clear ideas of governance after dislodging the Qing rule.

For those reasons, the rebellion does seem more similar to Russian revolution. When the feudal Tsar system had failed to govern the country and was losing wars in foreign excursions (Japan) the Bolsheviks party emerged and attempted to overthrow the Tsar rule. The difference of course is that there was no Western interference in Russia. Chinese "Gordon" defeated the short-lived government of the Taiping rebels. It took more than a decade to wipe out the rebels. The other major difference is the unique religious nature of the rebellion. The fact that a "foreign" religion was used to root out a feudal system is quite remarkable. The rebels were primarily Hakka ( a migrant newcomer group among Hans) and Zhuang and both were economically disadvantaged. Christianity definitely has had the appeal to the common people. Chinese case would've been no different. That Christianity wasn't seen as a foreign religion suggests that the differences between Eastern and Western religion were either not obvious or immaterial to the average people in China. In modern China, only about 10 % of the total population is atheist. Confucianism is deeply entrenched in Chinese society. As things were Buddhism was an inquiry and skepticism to Confucianism. For the most part things are still the same. Only 3-4% of Chinese are Christians. The ancestral worship and spirit-worship might be widespread but such ritualism is accepted both by Christians and Buddhists alike in modern day.