by Mike Dash
Forced migrations of this sort continued for as long as there were Thugs, and were probably more common after 1812 than they had been before, as men fleeing into Bundelcund were forced to establish new and no doubt sometimes uneasy relationships with the zamindars and rajahs of their adopted districts. Certainly Thugs frequently quarrelled with their protectors over the division of their spoils, or attracted so much unwelcome attention that their protectors were forced to expel them from their lands. Yet another flight, from the town of Jhalone into the Deccan, took place in 1823, and others again occurred wherever Company officials took up arms against the gangs.
The Thug gangs were, thus, of necessity, far more mobile – geographically, and also socially – than most Indians of their day. At a time when the great majority of peasants lived their entire lives in a single village, clinging stubbornly to whatever plots of land they could obtain the rights to farm, it was not at all uncommon for a Thug to dwell in six or seven different places in the course of a long life of crime. This was, on the whole, an advantage to the gangs. Individual stranglers became familiar with a variety of districts within the territories in which they operated. It was more difficult for the authorities to track them down, not least because many Thugs also employed a variety of aliases. And the members of each gang undoubtedly recruited novice stranglers to their ranks as they moved from place to place.
The establishment of good relations with the zamindar or rajah of their chosen homes was nonetheless of critical importance to the Thugs. In addition to offering protection, a cooperative zamindar could be approached for loans of the cash or goods required to fund an expedition. Laljee had certainly financed the Sindouse Thugs, advancing capital that the gangs used to pay their way through India in return for interest at the exorbitant rate of 25 or even 50 per cent, and making what amounted to personal loans to members of the gangs in exchange for loot. ‘If we have nothing to eat,’ explained Budloo Thug, an Afghan who had lived in the pargana for well over a decade, ‘he feeds us, in lieu of which he takes a horse, or money, or anything else – whatever he finds, he takes.’
The relationship between the members of a Thug gang and their protectors was, of course, an unequal one.* Fear of incurring a landholder’s displeasure led some stranglers to pay as much as fifty times the going rate to rent land in their villages, and all were regularly forced to part with their choicest plunder in return for protection. It was highly risky to upset a zamindar in this respect. ‘Our chiefs give a part to our village chiefs before giving us our part,’ explained one Thug, and generally it was ‘the handsomest horse, sword or ornament’ that was ‘reserved for the most powerful patron of the order’. Any attempt to make do without the support of a local notable of this sort, or to cheat him, led swiftly to the Thugs’ arrest or imprisonment at the hands of men more anxious to extort their dues from the captured bandits than they were to render justice. Even the fiercest Thugs, so formidable on the roads, cowered in the presence of their zamindars.
The men responsible for dealing with the petty notables whose patronage was so vital to the Thugs were the leaders of the various Thug bands. Each of the 200 or more gangs scattered across India was organized along broadly similar lines, being recruited and commanded by leaders known as subadars and jemadars – titles that aped those awarded to native officers in the Company’s armies. But it would be a mistake to imagine, because of this, that Thug gangs were rigidly obedient to their leaders or subject to military discipline. They were much more loosely organized than that.
The members of a Thug gang were never simply ordered out onto the roads; each man made up his own mind whether or not to join an expedition, and the depositions of captured stranglers are full of accounts of Thugs who decided to remain at home, working the land, for months or even years at a time, or who had to be talked into joining some planned foray into the Deccan. It was equally common for Thugs to break off an expedition and return home when they thought they had garnered enough loot, and for gangs to join together for a few days before breaking apart again. Similarly, rank-and-file Thugs were not beholden to any particular commander for more than a few weeks at a time; men only ever agreed to serve a leader for the duration of a single expedition. There were, certainly, cases of Thugs working together in the same band for decades on end – but jemadars who failed to accumulate sufficient plunder to pay adequately for the services of their men soon found their followers abandoning them to join more successful gangs.
The size of the band commanded by a given Thug thus offered an accurate reflection of his status and ability. The smallest that we have records of numbered as few as 5 or 10 men, but most were between 15 and 25 strong. This was a practical number; any more and the cost of maintaining the gang for a period of several months would be excessive; fewer, and there would be insufficient men to tackle more than a moderately sized party of travellers. Thus while a handful of the richest and most successful Thugs were capable of mustering as many as 50 or even 60 followers, gangs containing more than 25 men were considered to be noticeably large, and the Thugs had a special vocabulary to describe them.
The title of subadar was the grandest to which a Thug could aspire. It seems to have been awarded by general acclamation, and was only bestowed upon the most respected and experienced Thugs – men capable of leading and coordinating the actions of several gangs. A jemadar, on the other hand, was simply the self-appointed leader of a single band, or even the head of a small group of Thugs absorbed into a larger gang commanded by several leaders. The rank was not perceived as an especially distinguished one. Experienced Thugs sought many different qualities in their jemadars, but it was not necessary for a would-be leader to possess more than one or two in order to gather a small gang around him. The most important qualification, certainly, was to be ‘a man who has always at command the means of advancing a month or two’s subsistence’ to his men, either from his own resources or in the form of a loan from the local zamindar. But
a strong and resolute man, whose ancestors have been for many generations Thugs, will very soon get the title, or a very wise man, whose advice in difficult cases has weight with the gang; one who has influence over local authorities, or the native officers of the courts of justice; a man of handsome appearance and high bearing, who can feign the man of rank well – all these things enable a man to get around him a few who will call him jemadar; but it requires very high and numerous qualifications to gain a man the title of subadar.
The members of the Thug band itself were divided according to their duties and paid according to their skills and seniority. Some worked as scouts. The best dressed, most plausible and eloquent were employed as inveiglers, the men responsible for befriending parties of travellers and luring them into the clutches of the gang. The victims were actually murdered by designated stranglers, who were invariably Thugs of long experience and considerable strength, assisted by ‘hand-holders’ who restrained a victim and prevented their escape. Some gangs also contained specialist grave-diggers, responsible for the disposal of the bodies. Camp followers, in the shape of older Thugs past their prime, children and, in many cases, ordinary labourers and other villagers who were certainly not hardened murderers, but had been recruited on a more or less casual basis in order to swell the ranks of the gang as a whole, generally took no part in the killing of victims, serving instead as lookouts or guards.
Scouts seem to have been employed by only a few Thug bands, and then only occasionally; in most cases a gang’s victims consisted of parties of travellers unlucky enough to fall in with a jemadar and his men on the road. There were, nonetheless, obvious advantages to employing men to scour the countryside for potential targets. For one thing, a single gang could cover a far wider stretch of countryside with the help of scouts; for another, an experienced spy might be expected to distinguish between wealthy groups of merchants or treasure bearers and poorer travellers, thus greatly increasing the chance that his gang would seize a substantial quantity of loot.
Sometimes scouts would double as inveiglers and begin the process of luring a chosen group into the clutches of their gang:
Inquiry is also made for any party of travellers who may have arrived; every art is brought into practice to scrape an acquaintance with these people; they are given to understand that the [scout] is travelling the same road, an opportunity is taken to throw out hints regarding the insecurity of the roads, and the frequency of murders and robberies, an acquaintance with some of the friends or relations of the travellers is feigned, and an invitation given to partake of [a] repast … The result is, that the travellers are inveigled into joining the party of Thugs, and they are feasted and treated with every politeness and consideration by the very wretches who are also plotting their murder and calculating the share they shall acquire in the division of their property.
In general, however, the tricky job of seducing a victim was left to men with the experience and subtlety to attempt it successfully. Soothing the suspicions of wary travellers – many of them fully alert to the dangers of the road, if not to the existence of the Thugs themselves – required a considerable degree of charm and cunning, and only the most intelligent members of a gang were permitted to attempt it.* In many cases a gang’s jemadar would himself act as inveigler; being better dressed and wealthier than his men, and often mounted on a tattoo, or pony, he would find it easier to effect an introduction to the leader of another party. On other occasions, the task would be allocated to a specialist known as a sotha.
Most gangs of any experience possessed a variety of tried and tested stratagems for deceiving a traveller, and which was used depended largely on the destination, the job or the caste of the unfortunate men selected as victims. Probably the most common method was to overtake a party of travellers on the road and enquire as to the purpose of their journey. Once the strangers had disclosed that they were heading for Meerut, say, or for Benares, it was a simple matter for the Thugs to declare that they were travelling by the same road, and to suggest the two groups should join forces as a protection from dacoits and thieves. Other Thugs adopted appropriate disguises. ‘When going south towards the Native States,’ one explained, ‘where many native soldiers found service, I used to assume the disguise of a native sepoy, and wear a sword, shield and carry a matchlock, pretending I was going to service. I had a large horse with me, and used to ride with English spurs; this disguise enabled me to deceive sepoys … On returning from the south, I used to assume the apparel of a table attendant of a rich man, or I gave myself out as the darogah [police officer] of some Raja. In short I suited my disguise to the traveller I had to inveigle, so as to blind him and disarm his suspicion.’ On the whole, however, Thug gangs cultivated an unremarkable demeanour that the Company officials responsible for hunting them down plainly regarded as more terrifying than the more bloodthirsty appearance of the dacoits. ‘There was nothing to excite alarm or suspicion in the appearance of these murderers; but on the contrary they are described as being mild and benevolent of aspect, and peculiarly courteous, gentle and obliging.’
The great majority of men and women murdered by the Thugs fell prey to a device of this sort. But the best inveiglers were capable of even greater subtlety on occasion, and when in pursuit of a particularly rich prize the most skilled displayed a cunning and determination that Company officials came to regard as practically diabolic. It was, for example, common for a large gang to split into several smaller groups, strung out across several miles of road, in order to render its members inconspicuous and assuage the suspicions of any party met along the way. The various portions of the gang would move at different speeds, those in the lead pausing for a while so that their comrades could come up, those at the rear overtaking one another as they went. Then, if ‘the travellers show any signs of disliking or distrusting the inveigler of one [group] … the inveigler of the one in advance learns of it by signs from the other as he and the travellers overtake him. The new inveigler gets into conversation with the traveller and pretends to dislike the appearance of the first, who, in turn, pretends to be afraid of the new one and lags behind, while the new man and the travellers congratulate each other on having shaken off so suspicious a character.’
Possibly the most extraordinary example of the successful inveigling of a suspicious victim was related by a group of Thugs imprisoned at Lucknow, the capital of Oudh, whom a sepoy officer overheard discussing their most memorable expeditions. These men had once encountered
a stout Mughal officer of noble bearing and singularly handsome countenance, on his way from the Punjab to Oudh … mounted on a fine horse and attended by his butler and groom. Soon after crossing a river, he fell in with a small party of well-dressed and modest-looking men going the same road. They accosted him in a respectful manner, and attempted to enter into conversation with him. He had heard of Thugs, and told them to be off. They smiled at his idle suspicions, and tried to remove them, but in vain. The Mughal was determined; they saw his nostrils swelling with indignation, took their leave, and followed slowly.
The next morning he overtook the same number of men, but of a different appearance, all Musalmans. They accosted him in the same respectful manner; talked of the danger of the road, and the necessity of keeping together, and taking advantage of the protection of any mounted gentleman that happened to be going the same way. The Mughal officer said not a word in reply, resolved to have no companions on the road. They persisted – his nostrils began again to swell, and putting his hand to his sword, he bid them all be off, or he would have their heads from their shoulders. He had a bow and quiver full of arrows over his shoulders, a brace of loaded pistols in his waist-belt, and a sword by his side, and was altogether a very formidable-looking cavalier.
In the evening another party, lodged in the same inn, became very intimate with the butler and groom. They were going the same road; and, as the Mughal overtook them in the morning, they made their bows respectfully, and began to enter into conversation with their two friends, the groom and butler, who were coming up behind. The Mughal’s nostrils began again to swell, and he bid the strangers be off. The groom and butler interceded, for their master was a grave, sedate man, and they wanted companions. All would not do, and the strangers fell in the rear.
The next day, when they had got into the middle of an extensive uninhabited plain, the Mughal in advance, and his two servants a few hundred yards behind, he came upon a party of six poor Musalmans, sitting weeping by the side of a dead companion. They were soldiers from Lahore, on their way to Lucknow, worn down by fatigue in their anxiety to see their wives and children once more, after long and painful service. Their companion … had sunk under the fatigue, and they had made a grave for him; but they were poor unlettered men, and unable to repeat the funeral service from the holy Koran – would his highness but perform this last office for them, he would, no doubt, find his reward in this world and the next.
The Mughal dismounted – the body had been placed in its proper position, with its head towards Mecca. A carpet was spread – the Mughal took off his bow and quiver, then his pistols and sword, and placed them on the ground near the body – called for water, and washed his feet, hands, and face, that he might not pronounce the holy w
ords in an unclean state. He then knelt down and began to repeat the funeral service, in a clear, loud voice. Two of the poor soldiers knelt by him, one on each side in silence. The other four went off a few paces to beg that the butler and groom would not come so near as to interrupt the good Samaritan at his devotions.
All being ready, one of the four, in a low undertone, gave the signal, the handkerchiefs were thrown over their necks, and in a few minutes all three – the Mughal and his servants – were dead, and lying in the grave in the usual manner, the head of one at the feet of the one below him. All the parties they had met on the road belonged to a gang of Thugs of the kingdom of Oudh.
In most cases, an inveigled victim would be despatched relatively quickly – typically the night after he fell in with the Thugs, or early the next morning. But, in special circumstances, the members of some gangs were capable of displaying inhuman patience in order to disarm the suspicions of a large party of potential victims, or when no good opportunity arose to dispose of their prey discreetly. ‘They will travel,’ one British officer discovered in the 1830s, ‘with a party of unsuspecting travellers for days, and even weeks together, eat with them, sleep with them, attend divine worship with them … and live with them in the closest terms of intimacy till they find the time and place suitable for the murder of the whole.’ The most striking example of such persistence, dating to 1820, concerned a gang that accompanied its intended victims for ‘about twenty days, on the most intimate terms’, covering a total of 200 miles, before putting the entire party to death.