Armies of the Enlightened

In recent years, massive groups of fervent believers have taken to the streets of Asia with angry political demands. They've railed against government corruption, condemned the onslaught of Western values and decried the erosion of traditional morals. Having built an extensive network of grass-roots aid groups, their numbers are exploding. Some have even picked up arms to defend their beliefs. Sound familiar? It should—only the faithful in question aren't Islamic fundamentalists or conservative Christians. They're Buddhists: members of what used to be Asia's quietest religion, one usually associated with pacifism and contemplation.

No more. In this era of religious fervor, an Asia-wide resurgence of Buddhism is spawning activists and increasingly assertive political movements, some of which even act like fundamentalists of other faiths. True, many Buddhist groups, like Taiwan's massive Tzu Chi movement, still practice nonviolence and antimaterialism; indeed, this meditative side is helping Buddhism make inroads among alienated urban professionals in India, China and elsewhere.

But other organizations are now wading straight into the rough-and-tumble of everyday politics, suggesting last year's monk-led protests in Burma weren't an anomaly. In Thailand, an ultraconservative Buddhist faction helped topple Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006. In India, the populist leader of a rapidly expanding Buddhist-supported party is now being touted as a future prime minister. And in the most dramatic cases, some Buddhists have even begun advocating violence—such as Sri Lanka's fiercely nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) party—or have started picking up guns themselves, as in southern Thailand.

The rise of this more activist form of Buddhism "is an instance of the wider politicization of religion worldwide," says Jim Holt, a religion professor at Bowdoin College. "I don't like the term 'Buddhist fundamentalism,' but there certainly is a militancy showing up."

Buddhism, which emphasizes detachment from worldly desires and compassion for all living beings, has been around for 2,500 years and has an estimated 350 million followers worldwide. Buddhists have yet to turn to terrorism—perhaps due to the religion's injunctions against violence. Still, many Buddhists are adopting a tough-minded new profile, which can be explained in part by their numbers. The religion is growing fast. Though it's hard to nail down exact figures, scholars say there are now some 100 million Buddhists in China alone. In India, the birthplace of Buddha, there were only 8 million in 2001, but experts now set the total at 35 million. And in Taiwan, the number of Buddhists grew from 5.5 million in 2001 to 8 million in 2006.

The boom reflects several factors. In China and Taiwan, the growth of the faithful reflects the loosening of political control. In recent years, Beijing has significantly eased restrictions on all the country's faiths, not least because religious values (once attacked during the Cultural Revolution) are now viewed as a vital bulwark of the "harmonious society" touted by the government. Meanwhile, as Asian societies grow richer, Buddhism's powerful critique of materialism is resonating among the new middle classes. Akash Suri, for instance, is a 25-year-old banker in New Delhi who once lived a lavish lifestyle, splurging on clothes, restaurants and expensive holidays. But a couple of years ago he began thinking "that all this fancy lifestyle was not making me happy. Instead there was anxiety and stress." Buddhism and meditation calmed him.

Buddhism offers Indians another powerful incentive: a way out of the country's oppressive caste system. This appeals especially to the vast number (approximately 170 million) of Dalits, or Untouchables. Last year, for instance, Hukum Das, a 22-year-old villager from the state of Maharashtra, joined 5,000 people in a mass conversion ceremony in Mumbai. "I don't want to be treated like an animal anymore," he says. Dalit scholars say more than a million Dalits have converted in the last decade.