Thuggee

Thuggee or tuggee (assassins.

The Thugs travelled in groups across India for six hundred years.[1]
Although the Thugs traced their origin to seven Muslim tribes, Hindus
appear to have been associated with them at an early period. They were
first mentioned in iy-ud-Dn Baran's History of Frz Shh dated
around 1356.[2] In the 1830s they were targeted for eradication by
William Bentinck and his chief captain William Henry Sleeman. They
were seemingly destroyed by this effort.[1][3]

The Thugs would join travelers and gain their confidence. This would
allow them to then surprise and strangle their victims by pulling a
handkerchief or noose tight around their necks. They would then rob
their victims of valuables and bury their bodies. This led them to also be
called Phansigar (English: using a noose), a term more commonly
used in southern India.[4] The term Thuggee is derived from Hindi
word , or hag, which means "thief". Related words are the verb
thugna, "to deceive", from Sanskrit sthaga "cunning, sly,
fraudulent", from sthagati "he conceals".[5] This term for a
particular kind of murder and robbery of travellers is popular in South
Asia and particularly in India.

History

Origin and recruitment

The earliest currently known recorded mention of the Thugs as a
special band or fraternity, rather than as ordinary thieves, is found in
the following passage of Ziau-d din Barni's History of Firoz Shah
(written about 1356):

In the reign of that sultan (about 1290),

some Thugs were taken in Delhi, and a man
belonging to that fraternity was the means
of about a thousand being captured. But not
one of these did the sultan have killed. He
gave orders for them to be put into boats
and to be conveyed into the lower country,
to the neighbourhood of Lakhnauti, where
they were to be set free. The Thugs would
thus have to dwell about Lakhnauti and
would not trouble the neighbourhood of
Delhi any more.
 Sir HM Elliot, History of India, iii. 141.

Membership was sometimes passed from father to son, in what would

now be termed a criminal underclass. The leaders of long-established
Thug groups tended to come from these hereditary lines, as the gang
developed into a criminal 'tribe'. Other men would get to know a Thug
band and would hope to be recruited, in the way that one might aspire
to join an elite regiment or university: they were the best operators in
"the business" and, like a regiment or college fraternity, once in the
group, there was a camaraderie of numbers and shared experience. The
robbery became less a question of solving problems of poverty and
more a profession, like soldiering.

Sometimes the young children of the travellers would be spared and

groomed to become Thugs themselves, as the presence of children
would help allay suspicion. A fourth way of becoming a Thug was by
training with a guru, similar to an apprenticeship for a guild or
profession, during which the candidate could be assessed for reliability,
courage, discretion and discipline.[6]

Guru Multhoo Byragee Jogee, Native of Ajmere, aged 90, in jail (1840)

Modus operandi

The modus operandi was to join a caravan and become accepted as

bona-fide travellers themselves. The Thugs would need to delay any
attack until their fellow travellers had dropped the initial wariness of
the newcomers and had been lulled into a false sense of security,
gaining their trust. Once the travellers had allowed the Thugs to join
them and disperse amongst them a task which might sometimes,
depending on the size of the target group, require accompaniment for
hundreds of miles the Thugs would wait for a suitable place and time
before killing and robbing them.

There were obviously variations on this theme. When tackling a large

group, a Thuggee band might disperse along a route and join a group in
stages, concealing their acquaintanceship, such that they could come to
outnumber their intended victims by small, non-threatening
increments. If the travellers had doubts about any one party, they might
confide their worries to another party of the same Thuggee band. The
trusted band would thus be the best placed to deal with these members
of the caravan at the appropriate time, but might also be able to advise
their colleagues to 'back off' or otherwise modify their behavior, to allay
suspicion.

The killing place would need to be remote from local observers and
suitable to prevent escape (e.g., backed against a river). Thugs tended
to develop favored places of execution, called beles. They knew the
geography of these places wellbetter than their victims. They needed
to, if they were to anticipate the likely escape routes and hiding-places
of the quicker-witted and more determined of the travellers.

The timing might be at night or during a rest-break, when the travellers

would be busy with chores and when the background cries and noise
would mask any sounds of alarm. A quick and quiet method, which left
no stains and required no special weapons, was strangulation. This
method is particularly associated with Thuggee and led to the Thugs
also being referred to as the Phansigars, or "noose-operators", and
simply as "stranglers" by British troops. Usually two or three Thugs
would strangle one traveller. The Thugs would then need to dispose of
the bodies: they might bury them or might throw them into a nearby
well.[6]

The leader of a gang was called the "Jemadar".

As with modern criminal gangs, each member of the group had his own
function: the equivalent of the "hit-man", the "lookout", and the
"getaway driver" would be those Thugs tasked with luring travellers
with charming words or acting as guardian to prevent escape of victims
while the killing took place.

They usually killed their victims in darkness while the Thugs made
music or noise to escape discovery. If burying bodies close to a well-
travelled trade-route, they would need to disguise the "earthworks" of
their graveyard as a camp-site, tamping down the covering mounds and
leaving some items of rubbish or remnants of a fire to "explain" the
disturbances and obscure the burials.

One reason given for the Thuggee success in avoiding detection and
capture so often and over such long periods of time is a self-discipline
and restraint in avoiding groups of travellers on shorter journeys, even
if they seemed laden with suitable plunder. Choosing only travellers far
from home gave more time until the alarm was raised and the distance
made it less likely that colleagues would follow on to investigate the
disappearances. Another reason given is the high degree of teamwork
and co-ordination both during the infiltration phase and at the moment
of attack.

Use of garotte

The garotte is often depicted as the common weapon of the Thuggee.[7]

[8]
It is sometimes described as a Ruml (head covering or kerchief), or
translated as "yellow scarf". "Yellow" in this case may refer to a natural
cream or khaki colour rather than bright yellow.

Most Indian males in Central India or Hindustan would have a

puggaree or head-scarf, worn either as a turban or worn around a
kullah and draped to protect the back of the neck. Types of scarves were
also worn as cummerbunds, in place of a belt. Any of these items could
have served as strangling ligatures. Behram, the most prolific killer
among the Thuggee is known to have improvised his method of
strangulation by sewing a large medallion into his cummerbund to
possibly add weight to the cloth. The medallion he used has been
identified as the Canova medallion.

Death toll

Estimates of the total number of victims vary widely, since no reliable

source confirms the length of the Thugs' existence. According to the
Guinness Book of Records the Thuggee cult was responsible for
approximately 2,000,000 deaths, while British historian Mike Dash
states that they killed 50,000 persons in total over an estimated 150
years. According to political scientist David C. Rapoport an estimate of
500,000 were killed by the Thugs, making them the most destructive
terrorist group in history.[9] According to other estimates, the Thugs
murdered 1 million people.[10]

Yearly figures for the early 19th century are better documented, but
even they are inaccurate estimates. For example, gang leader Behram
has often been considered the world's most prolific serial killer, blamed
for 931 killings between 1790 and 1830. Reference to contemporary
manuscript sources, however, shows that Behram actually gave
inconsistent statements regarding the number of murders he had
committed.[11]

While he did state that he had "been present at" 931 killings committed
by his gang of 25 to 50 men, elsewhere he admitted that he had
personally strangled around 125 people. Having turned King's Evidence
and informing on his former companions, Behram never stood trial for
any of the killings attributed to him, the total of which must thus
remain a matter of dispute.[11]

British suppression

The Thuggees were suppressed by the British rulers of India in the

1830s.[6] The arrival of the British and their rigorous methods to fight
crime meant the techniques of the Thugs had met their match.
Suddenly, the mysterious disappearances were mysteries no longer and
it became clear how even large caravans could be infiltrated by
apparently small groups that were in fact acting in concert. Once the
techniques were known to all travellers, the element of surprise was
gone and the attacks became botched, until the hunters became the
hunted.
Reasons for success included:

Reports regarding Thuggee activities were circulated through all the

territories of British India borders, so that each administrator was
made aware of new Thuggee methods as soon as they were put in
practice. This made it possible to warn travellers and advise them on
possible counter-measures.

At a time when, even in Britain, policing was in its infancy, the British
set up a dedicated police force, the Thuggee and Dacoity Department,
and special tribunals that prevented local influence from affecting
criminal proceedings.

The British authorities allowed captured Thuggees to turn King's (or

Queen's) evidence to save their own lives by informing on their
accomplices. This undermined the code of silence that protected
members.

The Thuggee Department applied the new detective methods to record

the locations of attacks, the time of day or circumstances of the attack,
the size of group, the approach to the victims and the behaviour of the
Thuggees after the attacks. In this way, a single informant, belonging to
one gang in one region, might yield details that would be applicable to
most, or all, gangs in a region or indeed across all India.

The initiative of suppression was due largely to the efforts of the civil
servant William Sleeman, who captured "Feringhea" (also called Syeed
Amir Ali, on whom the novel Confessions of a Thug is based), and got
him to turn King's evidence. He took Sleeman to a grave with a hundred
bodies, told him the circumstances of the killings, and named the Thugs
who had done it.[12]

After initial investigations confirmed what Feringhea had said, Sleeman

started an extensive campaign involving profiling and intelligence. The
Government of India established the Thuggee and Dacoity Department
in 1835, with Sleeman appointed the first Superintendent. Thousands
of men were either put in prison, executed, or expelled from British
India.[6]

The campaign was made heavy used on captured Thugs who became
informants. These informants were offered protection on the condition
that they told everything that they knew. By the 1870s, the Thug cult
was extinct, but the history of Thuggee led to the Criminal Tribes Act
(CTA) of 1871. Although the CTA was repealed upon Indian
independence, the concept of criminal tribes and criminal castes is still
present in India.[13][14] The Thuggee and Dacoity Department remained
in existence until 1904, when it was replaced by the Central Criminal
Intelligence Department (CID).

Aftermath

The discovery of the Thuggee was one of the main reasons why the
Criminal Tribes Act was created. In Following the Equator, Mark
Twain wrote of a government report made in 1839 by Major Sleeman of
the Indian Service:[12]

There is one very striking thing which I

wish to call attention to. You have surmised
from the listed callings followed by the
victims of the Thugs that nobody could
travel the Indian roads unprotected and
live to get through; that the Thugs respected
no quality, no vocation, no religion,
nobody; that they killed every unarmed
man that came in their way. That is wholly
truewith one reservation. In all the long
file of Thug confessions an English traveller
is mentioned but onceand this is what the
Thug says of the circumstance: "He was on
 his way from

Chapter xlvi, conclusion.

Thuggee viewpoint

Thuggee trace their origin to the battle of Kali against Raktabija;

however, their foundation myth departs from Brahminical versions of
the Puranas. Thuggee consider themselves to be children of Kali,
created out of her sweat. This particular point is also one of the clear
disconnects in the story built on the Thuggees. While only Hindus
worship Kali, a large number of the Thuggees captured and convicted
by the British were Muslims.[15]

According to some sources, especially old colonial sources, Thuggee

believed they had a positive role, saving humans' lives. Without
Thuggee's sacred service, Kali might destroy all of humankind:

"It is God who kills, but Bhowanee has name for it."
"God is all in all, for good and evil."
"God has appointed blood for her (Bhowanee) food, saying 'khoon
tum khao', feed thou upon blood. In my opinion it is very bad, but
what she can do, being ordered to subsist upon blood!"
"Bhowanee is happy and more so in proportion to the blood that
is shed."[16]

In contrast, Dash states that they did not have a religious motive to kill
and that the colonial sources were wrong and prejudiced in that
respect.

21st century revisionist views

In her book The Strangled Traveler: Colonial Imaginings and the

Thugs of India (2002), Martine van Wrkens suggests that evidence
for the existence of a Thuggee cult in the 19th century was in part the
product of "colonial imaginings"British fear of the little-known
interior of India and limited understanding of the religious and social
practices of its inhabitants. For a comparison, see Juggernaut and the
Black Hole of Calcutta.

Krishna Dutta, while reviewing Mike Dash's Thug: the true story of
India's murderous cult in The Independent, argues:[17]

In recent years, the revisionist view that

Thuggee was a British invention, a means
to tighten their hold in the country, has
been given credence in India, France and
the US, but this well-researched book
objectively questions that assertion.

In his book, Dash rejects scepticism about the existence of a secret

network of groups with a modus operandi that was different from
highwaymen, such as dacoits. To prove his point Dash refers to the
excavated corpses in graves, of which the hidden locations were
revealed to Sleeman's team by Thug informants. In addition, Dash
treats the extensive and thorough documentation that Sleeman made.
Dash rejects the colonial emphasis on the religious motivation for
robbing, but instead asserts that monetary gain was the main
motivation for Thuggee and that men sometimes became Thugs due to
extreme poverty. He further asserts that the Thugs were highly
superstitious and that they worshipped the Hindu goddess Kali, but
that their faith was not very different from their contemporary non-
Thugs. He admits, though, that the Thugs had certain group-specific
superstitions and rituals.

English language

The story of Thuggee was popularized by books such as Philip Meadows

Taylor's novel Confessions of a Thug, 1839, leading to the word "thug"
entering the English language. Ameer Ali, the protagonist of
Confessions of a Thug was said to be based on a real Thug called Syeed
Amir Ali.

Bibliography

Dash, Mike Thug: the true story of Indias murderous cult ISBN 1-
86207-604-9, 2005
Dutta, Krishna (2005) The sacred slaughterers. Book review of Thug:
the true story of India's murderous cult by Mike Dash. In The
Independent (Published: 8 July 2005) text
Guidolin, Monica "Gli strangolatori di Kali. Il culto thag tra
immaginario e realt storica", Aurelia Edizioni, 2012, ISBN 978-88-
89763-50-6.
Paton, James 'Collections on Thuggee and Dacoitee', British Library
Add. Mss. 41300
Woerkens, Martine van The Strangled Traveler: Colonial Imaginings
and the Thugs of India (2002),

External links

Acting in the "Theatre of Anarchy": 'The Anti-Thug Campaign' and

Elaborations of Colonial Rule in Early-Nineteenth Century India by
Tom Lloyd (2006) in PDF file format
Parama Roy: Discovering India, Imagining Thuggee. In: idem, Indian
Traffic. Identities in Question in Colonial and Postcolonial India.
University of California Press 1998. (in html format)

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