NCERT Class 10 History Religion and Anti colonialism

Religion and Anti-colonialism

Colonial domination was exercised by control over all areas of private and public life. The French occupied Vietnam militarily but they also sought to reshape social and cultural life. While religion played an important role in strengthening colonial control, it also provided ways of resistance. Let us consider how this happened. Vietnam’s religious beliefs were a mixture of Buddhism,Confucianism and local practices. Christianity, introduced by French missionaries, was intolerant of this easygoing attitude and viewed the Vietnamese tendency to revere the supernatural as something to be corrected.

From the eighteenth century, many religious movements were hostile to the Western presence. An early movement against French control and the spread of Christianity was the Scholars Revolt in 1868. This revolt was led by officials at the imperial court angered by the spread of Catholicism and French power. They led a general uprising in  Ngu An and Ha Tien provinces where over a thousand Catholics were killed. Catholic missionaries had been active in winning converts since the early seventeenth century, and by the middle of the eighteenth century had converted some 300,000. The French crushed the movement but this uprising served to inspire other patriots to rise up against them.

The elites in Vietnam were educated in Chinese and Confucianism. But religious beliefs among the peasantry were shaped by a varietyof syncretic traditions that combined Buddhism and local beliefs. There were many popular religions in Vietnam that were spread by people who claimed to have seen a vision of God. Some of these religious movements supported the French, but others inspired movements against colonial rule. 

One such movement was the Hoa Hao. It began in 1939 and gained great popularity in the fertile Mekong delta area. It drew on religious ideas popular in anti-French uprisings of the nineteenth century. The founder of Hoa Hao was a man called Huynh Phu So. He performed miracles and helped the poor. His criticism against useless expenditure had a wide appeal. He also opposed the sale of child brides, gambling and the use of alcohol and opium. The French tried to suppress the movement inspired by Huynh Phu So. They declared him mad, called him the Mad Bonze, and put him in a mental asylum. Interestingly, the doctor who had to prove him insane became his follower, and finally in 1941, even the French doctors declared that he was sane. The French authorities exiled him to Laos and sent many of his followers to concentration camps.

Movements like this always had a contradictory relationship with mainstream nationalism. Political parties often drew upon their support, but were uneasy about their activities. They could neither control or discipline these groups, nor support their rituals and practices. Yet the significance of these movements in arousing anti-imperialist sentiments should not be underestimated.

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