Indian Mutiny and Taiping Rebellion

Compare and contrast the ‘Indian Mutiny’ and the Taiping rebellion as indigenous reactions to globalization.

The Indian Mutiny (1857-1858) and Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) were a result of Britain’s desire for a global empire. This desire is called globalization and is defined by John Darwin in his work as, “The growth of global connectedness.” With the help of new technologies and appealing goods, Britain was successful in connecting their world to the Asian world during the 19th Century. For a long time, the British wanted to move deeper into the India and China to improve their global influence. Merchants disliked restraints on trade, missionaries wanted to convert more people to Christianity, and sailors demanded more ports for docking. Once India and China were influenced by the British Empire, they reacted to the globalization in two specifically different ways that also had many similarities. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the Indian Mutiny and Chinese Taiping Rebellion as indigenous reactions to globalization in the following areas: British influence, religion and education, economics and socio-politics. Both the Taiping rebellion and the Indian Mutiny were reactions against globalization in the form of British imperialism, but the Taiping rebellion took its inspiration from Western ideas and attacked Chinese traditions, while the Indian Mutiny was an assault on British invasion and an attempt to preserve their traditional culture.

The Taiping rebellion was not a rebellion against foreign authorities like that of the British, but an upheaval against local authority after western ideas were introduced into the Chinese culture. The Rebellion was a civil war led by Christian convert Hong Xiuquan ag...

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...estern modernity into non-industrial Asia was inevitable, how indigenous populations decided to deal with globalization was however the key to their future.

Work Cited

Darwin, John. After Tamerlane: The Rise and Fall of Global Empires, 1400-2000. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

Hong Xiuquan. "Voices from the Heavenly Kingdom." In Meridians Sources in World History., edited by Mark Kishlansky. Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2010.

Khan, Syed Ahmed. "The Causes of the Indian Revolt." In Meridians: Sources in World History., edited by Mark Kishlansky, New York: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2010.

Metcalf, Thomas. The Aftermath of the Revolt. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964.

"The Onrush of Modern Globalization in China." In Globalization in World History, edited by A. G. Hopkins, by Hans Van De Ven, New York: Norton, 2002.