Thug: The True Story Of India's Murderous Cult

by Mike Dash

  Thug method of burial distasteful Cf. Theon Wilkinson, Two Monsoons pp. 180, 215.

  … concealed under piles of stones … Depositions of Heurea, 26 Apr. + 23 July 1830, BC F/4/1251 (50480/2) fos. 450–51, 481; ‘11th or Kundee and Juppa Case’, BC F/4/1404 (55517) fo. 269.

  ravines and cliffs ‘Trial No. 9 of 1832: Barwaha Ghat Case’, BC F/4/1490 (58671) fo. 407; Thomas Bacon, First Impressions and Studies from Nature in Hindustan II, 409.

  ‘… where the ground is stony’ Evidence of Sheeodeen, dialogue of 26 Apr. 1837, Paton papers fo. 66.

  Cook and eat Evidence of Futteh Khan, ibid.

  Villagers dispose of bodies Ibid. fo. 24. On blame placed on tigers see ‘Deposition of Bhujda Bheel’ in Smith to Prinsep, 19 Nov. 1830, Sel.Rec. 36; Ramaseeana I, 22–3.

  Bodies recovered from wells ‘Comparative statement of murdered bodies found on the High Roads and in the wells in the zillah of Etawah in the years 1808, 1809 and during the 12 months from the date on which the first Gang of Thugs was apprehended,’ Add.Mss. 5376 fos. 8–8v.

  Animal carcasses in wells Sleeman, Ramaseeana II, 275.

  ‘We change the wells’ Paton papers fo. 28.

  7 Feringeea

  Feringeea’s birth Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 175. On the date, see Feringeea’s age (then 33) in the table ‘Approvers in this case’ in Sleeman to Smith, Sangea 1833, T&D G1 fo. 246, NAI. In addition to the assaults conducted by Blake Sahib and Jacob Sahib, referred to above, Sindouse had already been burned to the ground at least once, by the Rana of Gohud, during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, according to the evidence of the Thug Thukoree in Ramaseeana I, 224. The Rana’s motive was, as usual, the desire to impose taxes on the people of the pargana.

  Feringeea’s family Ibid. I, 165, 173, 223–5; Iftikhar Ahmad, Thugs, Dacoits and the Modern World-System in Nineteenth-Century India p. 86. Feringeea’s family tree, as compiled by Sleeman, is reprinted by Martine van Woerkens, The Strangled Traveller pp. 140–1.

  Brahmins Nicholas Dirks’s recent Castes of Mind observes (pp. 116–17, 251–4) that caste may not originally have been the immutable, hereditary denominator it has since become, being in many cases based as much on local social politics as the exhortations of religious texts. He also suggests that the Brahmins, as the Company’s main source of information on Indian society, exaggerated their own importance and role in pre-colonial India.

  ‘every male …’ This proud claim was not strictly true; one of Purusram’s grandsons was described by the British as merely a pickpocket. Sleeman to Principal Assistant, Nursingpore, 5 Dec. 1832, T&D G1 fo. 169, NAI.

  Death of Purusram See genealogical table in Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, facing p. 270.

  Boys of eight or nine years Ibid. I, 148.

  ‘Fathers are glad …’ ‘Dialogues with Thugs’, Paton papers Add.Mss. 41300 fo. 22.

  Nephew collapses in shock Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 149–50.

  ‘a father does not initiate …’ Paton papers fo. 23.

  Gurus Ibid.; ‘Extract from the examination of Koshal prisoner’, BC F/4/411 (10204) fo. 315; George Bruce The Stranglers pp. 56–7.

  Initiation and the first rumal ‘Deposition of Poorun Phansygur’, 1829, Sel.Rec. 34.

  ‘… fatal goor …’ Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 138, 216–17; HV Russell and Hira Lal, Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India IV, 577; Stewart Gordon, ‘Sword and scarf’ pp. 414–15.

  Elephant keeper Edward Thornton, Illustrations of the History and Practices of the Thugs p. 346.

  Adoptive children Translation of the acknowledgement of Ghoolam Hossyn Thug made before me on the 11th April 1810’ in Perry papers Add.Mss. 5375 fos. 117–22, CUL.

  Thug women Thuggee was an almost exclusively male profession. There are no more than a handful of references to women serving in any capacity with Thug gangs; see JAR Stevenson, ‘Some account of the P’hansigars …’ Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society I, 281–2. Sleeman spoke to a Thug woman, Moosmp, who had assumed the title of jemadar alongside her husband. She was then in jail in Delhi for the murder of three families, but insisted that she had never participated directly in any murder: ‘The female Thugs are only employed in taking charge of the children of the murdered people.’ James Sleeman, Thug pp. 152–3.

  ‘slaves’ BC F/4/1251 (50480/2) fo. 579, OIOC.

  ‘Almost one in 10 …’ Based on an analysis of Sleeman’s Thug genealogies, Ramaseeana I, 270–1.

  Punchum Jemadar Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 173–4; Thornton, Illustrations pp. 182–4.

  Thugs and heredity For examples, see Sleeman’s Thug genealogies, loc. cit; Thornton, op. cit. p. 236.

  Not all children of Thugs take up Thuggee Cf. Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 266.

  Aseel Thugs Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 158.

  All gangs contained some men who were related van Woerkens, op. cit. pp. 139–42.

  Gang of 1829 Sleeman to Smith, 12 Mar. 1833, T&D G/1, NAI. These men were members of the gang led by Sheikh Inaent, himself the son of a noted Thug leader. See chapters 12 and 13.

  Burkas Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 67–140.

  Feringeea’s first expeditions For 1813, see Case 40, Jubbulpore sessions of 1830, BC F/4/1689 (6799) fos. 108–9. For 1816, see deposition of Feringeea, ‘Trial no. 11 of 1832: Deonagar case’, BC F/4/1490 (58672) fos. 165–7.

  Four Indians in every 10 Bayly, Rulers pp. 51–3.

  ‘The castes to be met with …’ van Woerkens, op. cit. pp. 129–31.

  Thugs adopt high-caste disguise Ibid.

  Feringeea as jemadar Sleeman, Rambles & Recollections I, 96–8.

  Youthful appearance Sleeman to Smith, 7 Jan. 1831, Consultation No. 11 of 18 Mar. 1831, BPC P/126/27, OIOC.

  Feringeea as subadar Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 216.

  Sujaina murders Sleeman, Rambles & Recollections I, 96.

  Military service and Ochterlony Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 235–7.

  Feringeea’s time in Rajpootana Ibid. I, 66, 234.

  Ramzan ‘Deposition of Rumzan, a noted Thug …’, 20 Apr. 1837, Paton papers fo. 122v, BL. Suntoke Rae, son of Laljee, the zamindar of Sindhouse, noted that the Thugs of the Chambel Valley ‘never returned in less than six months, and if they were unsuccessful, they sometimes remained absent two years’. Thornton, op. cit. p. 473.

  Murder of the Mughulanee Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 166, 206, 212–16; Thornton, op. cit. pp. 265–70.

  … more attention … Based on the amount of space Sleeman devoted to the case in his works. As van Woerkens observes, he was particularly fascinated by murders involving young and pretty girls, displaying less interest in, or empathy for, older or ugly women.

  ‘The Rule of the bones’ Smith to Swinton, 20 June 1832, Sel.Rec. 124.

  Proscriptions Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 133, 181–2. Robert Russell and Hira Lal, The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, pp. 580–2, provide a recapitulation and an explanatory commentary.

  ‘These, God has afflicted …’ Paton papers fo. 12v. See also van Woerkens, op. cit. pp. 110–11. It is interesting to note that the Thug laws and proscriptions did not apply in reverse, for there were no restrictions on maimed Thugs serving with the gangs. ‘The case of Kehree,’ FC Smith observed after the trial of one Thug gang in 1830, ‘is in point. As a boy he had a hand cut off on conviction of belonging to a Thug association, he witnessed the appalling exhibition of his confederates being blown away from Guns, but so far from abandoning this dangerous profession, he is now, in his old age, condemned to death for the same description of crime he was punished for so severely in his youth.’ Smith to Prinsep, 19 Nov. 1830, Sel.Rec. 54. Most remarkably of all, Bodhoo Jemadar, who had had his nose and both his hands amputated on the orders of the Rajah of Jhalone, returned to his gang even though he could hardly have hoped to resume his work as an inveigler. This was, perhaps, a special case (Bodhoo was, in Feringeea’s words, ‘a Thug of great repute: for sagacity we have never seen his equal: people who had been robbed used to go to him as an oracle
’), but evidently even severe mutilations were not sufficient, in themselves, to prevent a longstanding member of a gang from returning to serve with his old comrades. Ramaseeana I, 245; Thornton, op. cit. pp. 207–8.

  Temptations to break proscriptions It is evident, from the Thugs’ own depositions, that at least some of these decisions were entirely pragmatic, and based on a shrewd calculation as to the likely profit to be made from a given murder. Thugs were occasionally known to decoy away potential victims whose poverty meant that they were not worth killing, even though they were not members of the proscribed groups and castes. Sleeman once related the case of a party of 25 Muslim Thugs who were travelling north from Jubbulpore: ‘While they were at dinner, five travellers came up on their way to Bandah, two of them carriers of Ganges water, two tailors and a native woman. They rested a little while with the gang at the well and as soon as the Thugs were ready they all proceeded together to Shahnagar, where they all passed the night, and the next day went on together towards Beseynee, where they fell in with two other travellers on their way to Bandah. They appeared to be so poor that the Gang wished to separate them from the other five as their murder promised no advantage, and their presence might offer some obstacle to their attempts upon the others. They at first attempted to persuade them to remain when they were about to set out with the five travellers, after the third watch, but finding them obstinate they placed them with four Thugs who led them on the direct road while the main body diverged upon a byroad by which they usually took their victims. But they had not gone far before they became alarmed at being separated from the main body and insisted upon rejoining them, to which the four Thugs reluctantly agreed, and they soon overtook them on the byroad. As soon as they came up, it was determined to put them to death, and six of the gang were ordered to attend them for the purpose and move on a little ahead of the main body. They went on while the main body slackened their pace, and on reaching the nullah where the five men were to have been murdered, they strangled them and concealed their bodies till the main body came up, when the other five were strangled and the bodies of the whole seven were buried under stones … From the first two they got only one rupee, but from the other five they acquired property to the value of about 200 rupees.’ Sleeman to Smith, 12 Mar. 1833, T&D G1, NAI.

  ‘Horribly dangerous’ See, for example, Ramaseeana I, 179.

  Breaking of proscriptions a recent development Thornton, op. cit. p. 27.

  Punchum and Himmut Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 173–4; Thornton, op. cit. pp. 99, 182–4. Punchum was Feringeea’s uncle on his mother’s side.

  Death of Himmut Ibid. I, 174.

  Murder of the Kale Bebee Ibid. I, 164–5, 174–5; Thornton, op. cit. pp. 181–2.

  Lack of scruple of Hindustani Thugs Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 164, 166, 171, 173–4.

  Refusal of Bengal and Bihar Thugs to kill women ‘Do you Behar Thugs ever murder women?’ Sleeman asked a group of captured stranglers in 1835. ‘Never,’ came the answer, ‘we should not murder a woman if she had a lakh of rupees upon her.’ To which a man from the Doab rejoined: ‘Nor would the Dooab Thugs if she had two lakhs upon her.’ Ibid. I, 171, 180.

  ‘Some were sufficiently religious’ ‘We had,’ Feringeea’s associate Zolfukar observed, looking back on the early years of the nineteenth century after his capture in 1830, ‘then some regard for religion. We have lost it since. All kinds of men have been made Thugs, and all classes of people murdered without distinction; and little attention has been paid to omens. How, after this, could we expect to escape?’ Thornton, op. cit. p. 102.

  ‘Among us, it is a rule …’ Ibid. p. 27.

  Jubber Paton papers fos. 120v–121v. For equivalent cases, see also Ramaseeana I, 143, 174.

  ‘The love of money makes us kill them’ Paton papers fo. 12. Bevan, in Thirty Years in India I, 260, tells of one Thug who, whenever he was drunk, ‘would hiccough out repentance for his crimes’.

  ‘a very handsome youth …’ Evidence of Sheodeen, ibid. fos. 17–17v.

  The Peshwa’s handmaid Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 166.

  Arrest at Kotah Ibid. I, 177.

  Murder of Newul Singh ‘21st or Busuynee Case’, BC F/4/1406 (55520) fol. 177–333; ‘25th or Chuparah case’, BC F/4/1406 (55521) fol. 3; ‘Case no. 52 in sessions of 1830’, BC F/4/1685 (67999) fos. 106–7; Sel.Rec. pp. 86–7; Ramaseeana I, 166–9.

  Increase in burials Based on the author’s analysis of 1,459 Thug murders dating from 1790–1839 reported in Sel.Rec.; Sleeman’s Ramaseeana, Rambles and Recollections and Depredations; Thornton’s Illustrations; and Spry’s ‘Some account of the gang murderers of Central India’.

  Feringeea’s precautions ‘Trial no. 11 of 1832, Deonagar case’, BC F/4/1490 (58672) fos. 105–252; ‘Trial no. 12 of 1832, Nayahshahar case’, ibid. fos. 253–346.

  ‘Where the ground is soft …’ Thornton, op. cit. p. 9.

  Varying locations for murder See the ‘Deposition of Kaimraj Phansygur’, n.d. [1829], Sel.Rec. 19–27 for descriptions of a wide variety of murder spots.

  Temple of Kamptee Sleeman to Smith, 31 January 1832, BC F/4/1406 (55520) fos. 248–55.

  Mango groves and orchards Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections pp. 80–2; Christopher Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars p. 43; DEU Baker, Colonialism in an Indian Hinterland p. 28. The groves, notes Bayly, ‘played an important part in the rural economy of some districts, where they accounted for as much as 5 per cent of the total cultivated acreage and provided a significant source of income for the landholders’.

  Matabur beles Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 243n; Paton Papers fol. 123.

  High ground ‘A letter explaining how Thugs selected spots for the murder of their victims’, 1 Dec 1837, T&D E/1, NAI.

  ‘The Thugs speak of such places …’ Thornton, op. cit. p. 9.

  Kali venerated by many classes Russell and Lal, Tribes & Castes IV, 575.

  Pickaxe consecration Ibid. IV, 574; Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 155, 176; II, 304; Reynolds, Notes p. 204; George Bruce, The Stranglers pp. 60–2.

  8 Sleeman

  Stratton and Sleeman’s youth Francis Tuker, The Yellow Scarf: The Story of the Life of Thuggee Sleeman pp. 3–9.

  Recruitment to the East India Company and education of officers BS Cohn, ‘Recruitment and training of British civil servants in India, 1600–1860’, in Ralph Braibanti (ed.), Asian Bureaucratic Systems Emergent from the British Imperial Tradition pp. 102–24; BB Misra, The Central Administration of the East India Company, 1773–1834 pp. 388–408; Suresh Chandra Ghosh, The Social Condition of the British Community in Bengal, 1757–1800 pp. 16, 31–3, 43, 149; Philip Mason, A Matter of Honour pp. 169, 179; James, Raj p. 130.

  Illness and mortality Wilkinson, Two Monsoons pp. 1–13, 45, 172–3, 180; Kincaid, British Social Life in India pp. xii, 37, 46; Mason, op. cit. pp. 86, 174.

  Indian climate Vernede (ed.), British Life in India …1750–1947 pp. 72–5; Ghosh, op. cit. pp. 102–4; AC Newcombe, Village, Town and Jungle Life in India pp. 77–8, 121–2.

  Calcutta in 1809 Dalrymple, White Mughals pp. 407–13; Kincaid, op. cit. pp. 90, 96–7, 140; Ghosh, op. cit. pp. 150–2.

  Griffins Mason, op. cit. p. 175; Tuker, op. cit. p. 11.

  Servants Kincaid, op. cit. p. 131; Vernede, op. cit. pp. 96–7, 104–6; Hilton Brown, The Sahibs pp. 210, 212; James, Raj p. 160, 168; Ghosh, op. cit. p. 109.

  ‘I inquired whether the cat …’ Cited by Brown, op. cit. p. 212.

  Hookah The famous ‘hubble-bubble’ pipe so characteristic of eighteenth-century India. Probably because of its ‘native’ connotations, it fell into disuse shortly after Sleeman’s arrival, and was supplanted by the cheroot.

  Marriage Ghosh, op. cit. pp. 60–71; Kincaid, op. cit. pp. 164, 166–7; Mason, op. cit. p. 176; Brown, op. cit. p, 146. On the relative attractiveness of the women of the ‘fishing fleet’, see Fanny Eden’s comments in Dunbar, Tigers, Durbars and Kings p. 75: ‘It was a very remarkable ball owing to the extraordinary plainness – to use a light exp
ression – of the ladies there, 20 altogether. One was pointed out with great pride as ‘our only unmarried lady’: that fact was not the only remarkable thing about her. She was of that hue generally denominated orange ‘tawny’, in a bright strawberry pink gown, one yard wide, the sort of drawn-up features which allow a view of the back of the skull, and an embroidered bag hanging over her arm while she danced.’

  Daily round Kincaid, op. cit. pp. 96–7, 177–8.

  Food and drink Ibid. pp. 98–9, 160; Brown, op. cit. pp. 49, 51; Ghosh, op. cit. pp. 122, 162; Wilkinson, op. cit. p. 180.

  Increasing insularity of the British community Kincaid, op. cit. pp. xviii, 129, 166; Dalrymple, op. cit. p. 409; Vernede, op. cit. p. 25.

  Sleeman’s character, appearance and early career Tuker, op. cit. pp. 15–23, 37; PD Reeves (ed.), Sleeman in Oudh pp. 9–12, 14–15, 27, 30; Martine van Woerkens, The Strangled Traveller pp. 190–6, 201–34.

  ‘probably the only British official …’ Christopher Bayly, Empire and Information p. 75.

  Civil administration Michael Edwardes, The Sahibs and the Lotus pp. 59–60; Meadows Taylor, The Story of My Life I, 265–6; Wilkinson, op. cit. p. 72; Brown, op. cit. p. 128; Amal Chatterjee, Representation of India 1740–1840 p. 74.

  ‘were almost invariably high-handed …’ Edwardes, op. cit. p. 60.

  ‘The Heaven Born’ Verende, op. cit. p. 10.

  Jubbulpore AE Nelson, Central Provinces District Gazetteers: Jubbulpore District; James Forsyth, The Highlands of Central India pp. 314–15.

  Freebooters Philip McEldowney, Pindari Society and the Establishment of British Paramountcy in India; idem, ‘A brief study of the Pindaris of Madhya Pradesh’, The Indian Cultures Quarterly 27 (1971) pp. 55–70; GL Corbett and RV Russell, Central Provinces District Gazetteers: Hoshangabad District pp. 32–3; Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Central India pp. 23–4; Gordon, The Marathas pp. 114–15; Mason, op. cit. pp. 136–7; Edwardes, op. cit. pp. 60–62; Radhika Singha, A Despotism of Law pp. 177–8.