by Mike Dash
‘… are now provided with approvers’ Bruce, op. cit. p. 141.
Thug loot Ibid. p. 119.
Three great results Ibid. p. 122.
‘In all my experience … Blood for blood’ Smith to Swinton, 25 June 1832, Sel.Rec. 125.
15 In Cutcherry
There were nearly 4,500 of them in all … The number of men arrested as suspected Thugs up to the end of 1840 was 3,689. A further 531 were committed in the years 1841–7 and 120 in 1848. James Hutton, A Popular Account of the Thugs and Dacoits pp. 92–4.
‘Threatened to overwhelm’ Sel.Rec. ii.
Proportion of Muslims and Hindus A breakdown of the religious affiliation of all the prisoners tried up to and including the sessions of 1832 appears in BC F/4/1685 (67999) fos. 124–8, OIOC. A slightly higher proportion of Muslim Thugs was reported in the 26 trials that made up the sessions of 1831; see BC F/4/1406 (55521) fo. 177. When Sleeman asked his approvers to tell him how many Thugs were Muslims and how many were Hindus, Feringeea replied: ‘In Oude nine-tenths are Musulmans. In the Dooab, four-fifths are Hindus. South of the Nerbudda, three-fourths Musulmans. In Rajpootana one-fourth Musulmans. In Bengal, Bihar and Orissa about half and half. This is a rough guess, since we have no rule to prescribe or ascertain them.’ Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 178.
Hindu castes Van Woerkens, The Strangled Traveller pp. 129–31, summarizes lists drawn up of the prisoners tried at Indore in 1829 and in the Jubbulpore sessions of 1832–33.
Thugs in prison For Syeed Ameer Ali, see BC F/4/1406 (55521) fo. 205; for the Sindouse Thugs, Ramaseeana I, 219–20; for the Lucknadown gang, Ravenshaw and Marjoribanks to Governor General, 28 Nov. 1832, BC F/4/1483 (55514) fos. 19–26.
Instances of Thugs detained by British forces, 1799–1828 A provisional listing of the fate of Thugs arrested by Company officials up to the beginning of the anti-Thug campaign would include well over 20 cases and gives the lie to the commonly held assumption that the British encounter with the Thugs began only in the late 1820s.
Date Place Description Outcome
1799 Seringapatem 99 Thugs captured after the fall of the city ?
1807 Chittoor, Arcot Gang of Phansigars detained ?
Bangalore Trial of a gang of Phansigars ?
1809 Gorruckpore Arrest of 16 Thugs Acquitted
Bihar Apprehension of a gang of Thugs Released
1810 Shekoabad Arrest of 8 Thugs causes ‘a sensation’ Delay in obtaining warrants leads to escape
1811 Chittoor Gang of Phansigars detained Some convictions
Cuddapore Gang of Thugs appears in court ?
1812 Calastry Gang of Thugs arrested Held in jail
1812–13 Mynpooree Four Sindouse Thugs tried Released
1813 Barelly, Benares Execution of Thugs 49 men hanged
1813–14 Zillah Salem 500 Phansigars detained Magistrate discharged for abuse of process
1814 Bihar Gang detained Gorruckpore 1809 rearrested Released on security
? 15 members of the above gang rearrested Acquitted
Mynpooree Stockwell and Perry arrest 200 Thugs 180 released on security
Cawnpore Wright arrests 100 Thugs Released
c.1815 Banda Notorious Thugs seized by Mr Wauchope ?
1816 Malwa Gang of Thugs captured by British official ?
1820 Bhopal Gang of Thugs arrested Deported from Malwa by Resident at Indore
c.1820 Jubbulpore Thugs arrested for murders in Jhansee Held in jail
1821 Akoolah Gang of Thugs arrested Found guilty at Jhalna, 1823, imprisoned at Aurangabad
1822 Kotah Gang of 46 Thugs detained by British and handed over to local ruler Held in jail
Seonnee 60 Thugs arrested for murders in 1820 Held until 1832, then tried
c.1823 Mynpooree Three leading Thugs and followers held Escaped
1823 Nerbudda valley 115 Thugs arrested for murder of 37 people Held until 1830, then tried
1824 ? One of 1809 Gorruckpore gang rearrested
Released
c.1826 Mozuffurpore Gang of 16 Thugs arraigned Four hanged, 12 transported, approver released
1826 Gorruckpore Thug trial Two men hanged
Nerbudda valley 26 Thugs arrested and tried at Jubbulpore Two hanged and 24
transported
1827 Patna Gang of Thugs detained Prisoners released, informants lashed and jailed
1828 Candeish 6 members of Dhoolea gang tried Two hanged and four transported
Sources: 1799, Sherwood, Asiatick Researches 13; 1807 Chittoor, Thornton, p. 3; 1807 Bangalore, Sahai, Crime of thagi I; Gorruckpore, Ramaseeana II, 250–2; 1809 Bihar, Crime of thagi I; 1810 Shakoabad, Perry papers; 1811 Chittoor, Ramaseeana II, 307; 1811 Cuddapore, Thornton, p. 286; 1812, Ramaseeana II, 307; 1813, Crime of thagi I; 1812–13, Ramaseeana I, 221; 1813–14, E/4/929 Madras dispatches; 1814 Bihar and?, Ramaseeana II, 253; 1814 Mynpooree and Cawnpore, Ramaseeana I, 257–60; c.1815, Ramaseeana II, 371; 1816, Malcolm, Memoir II; 1820, Ramaseeana II, 139–40; c.1820, BC F/4/1309 (52131); 1821, Ramaseeana II, 273, 288; 1822 Kotah, Ramaseeana I, 212; II 123–31; 1822 Seonnee, BPC P/123/13; c.1823, Sel.Rec. 56–61; 1823 BC F/4/1483; 1824, Thornton, p. 309; c.1826, Ramaseeana I, 185–6; 1826 Gorruckpore, Ramaseeana II, 251; 1826 Nerbudda valley, Ramaseeana I, 46–7; 1827, Ramaseeana II, 245–7; 1828, Ramaseeana I, 46.
There were undoubtedly also numerous instances in which captured Thugs appeared before Indian rulers or courts. Few if any relevant records survive from the Native States, however, and references to these cases appear only sporadically in British sources. The following instances are known:
Date Place Description Outcome
c.1775 Kundul All Thugs in area jailed for several days Released
1785 ? Several Phansigars arrested ?
1794 Muthura 70 Thugs captured by Mahadji Sindhia Hanged
1809 Gwalior Gang of 21 Thugs captured by Jacob Sahib Hanged
1812 Jetulpoor 56 Thugs captured Imprisoned; some escaped
1813 Nodha 80 Sindouse Thugs arrested ?
1812–13 Gwalior 133 Sindouse Thugs arrested Released after 13 months; many died in prison
1813 Ellichpore 250 Thugs arrested Released after one month
1814/15 Jhalone Two Thugs arrested Trampled to death by elephants
1816 Hyderabad Gang of Thugs arrested for murder of 10 21 men executed
c.1816 Jubbulpore Gang of Thugs arrested 2 had nose/hands cut off; 3 released; some escaped
1818 Gwalior Thug jemadars seized and imprisoned Released on payment of a fine
1822 Bundelcund Gang of Thugs arrested at Bijawar ?
1822 Kotah Feringeea’s gang of 30 men arrested Released after one day with faces blackened
1828–9 Alumpore Feringeea arrested Escaped from prison
Sources: c.1775, Ramaseeana I, 157–8; 1785, Forbes, Oriental Memoirs IV, 13; 1794 Ramaseeana I, 221; Russell and Lal, Tribes & Castes 573; 1809, Ramaseeana I, 208; 1812, Perry papers Add.Mss. 5376 fos. 24–7, CUL; 1812–13, Ramaseeana I, 219–20; 1812, Ramaseeana II, 296; 1813, Ramaseeana I, 157; 1814/15, Ramaseeana I, 156, 245; 1816, Ramaseeana I, 34–5; c.1816, Ramaseeana II, 233–4; 1818, Ramaseeana II, 133; 1822, Bundelcund, BPC P/123/13; 1822, Kotah, Ramaseeana I, 177; 1828–9, BC F/4/1251 (50480/2) fo. 444.
A good deal more work needs to be done to make these provisional listings definitive ones.
Abortive cases Perry to Dowdeswell, 6 Oct. 1812, Perry papers, Add.Mss. 5376 fos. 17–18v, CUL; ‘Deposition of Rujub, approver’, 30 Nov. 1832, in Ramaseeana II, 245–9.
Courts and law in early nineteenth-century India Singha, A Despotism of Law pp. 3–6; Chakrabarti, Authority and Violence in Colonial Bengal, 1800–1830 pp. 4–12, 33–5; van Woerkens, op. cit. p. 83; Clare Anderson, Convicts in the Indian Ocean p. 17; James, Raj p. 204. It should be added that British felons in India were tried in different courts, under English rather than Islamic law.
The inconsistent bandying about … Smith to Swinton, 20 June 1832, Sel.Rec. p. 111.
Cost of attending court
Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections I, 97n.
Justice in the Native States … Smith to Swinton, 5 July 1830, BC F/4/1251 (50430/2) fo. 417; Ramaseeana II, 133; Singha, op. cit. pp. 31–2, 80–1, 306; Sel.Rec. 80–1; Bearce, British Attitudes Towards India, 1784–1858 pp. 90–1.
‘… carries not even the appearance …’ Moodie to Swinton, 4 July 1822, in Consultation No. 19 of 26 July, P/123/13, OIOC; see also Smith to Swinton, 26 May 1832, Sel.Rec. 79; Smith to Macnaughton (Agent to the Governor General, Simla), 29 May 1832, ibid. 82.
Commencement of trials Sleeman Ramaseeana II, 379–84; Singha, op. cit. pp. 203–4.
Majority tried in Saugor Of the 1,803 Thugs eventually tried between 1829 and 1836, 1,514, or 84 per cent, were tried by the Agent for Saugor & Nerbudda in either Saugor or Jubbulpore. Data from Ramaseeana I, 38–9; for later trials see Sleeman, Depredations pp. 184–5.
Position of the Saugor & Nerbudda Territory The Territory thus became – the officer commanding it observed in 1836 – ‘a theatre for the experiments of incipient legislation’. Singha, op. cit. pp. 173–5, 207.
Arduous trials Smith to Swinton, 20 June 1832, Sel.Rec. 104, 114. See also Smith to Swinton, 8 May 1832, ibid. 72; Foreign Quarterly Review 21 (1838) pp. 29–30.
Fanny Parks Parks, Wanderings of a Pilgrim, in Search of the Picturesque I, 122–3. I have translated some of Parks’s Anglo-Indian phraseology.
Disinterrals See Sel.Rec. 35, 84; van Woerkens, op. cit. p. 77.
18 in one place T&D G/1/2 fos. 5–6.
Goldsmiths ‘Trial No. 11 of 1832’, BC F/4/1490 (58672) fos. 105–6. ‘Even when such identifications were not possible,’ added Smith, ‘the credibility of the evidence of the approvers is doubtless increased by the exhumation of the bodies of the murdered at their suggestion, and by their pointing out the very graves in which they were buried.’ Bruce, The Stranglers p. 160.
Meadows Taylor Confessions p. xviii.
Proportion of bodies recovered Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 38–9; Anon., ‘Ramaseeana’, in Foreign Quarterly Review 21 (1838) p. 32.
One wife recognized … Bruce, op. cit. p. 91; see also Borthwick statement, n.d. [1829], Sel.Rec. 35
Borthwick’s gang Borthwick statement, ibid. 39.
‘The confession of some prisoners …’ Sleeman to Smith, 20 Feb. 1833, T&D G/1 fos. 225–7.
‘The following precautions …’ Smith to Swinton, 20 June 1832, Sel.Rec. 35.
Incident at Hyderabad ‘Ramaseeana’, Foreign Quarterly Review 21 (1838) p. 39.
‘native defendants lie freely …’ Moodie to Swinton, 4 July 1822, in Consultation No. 19 of 26 July, BPC P/123/13, para 17. The same was certainly true of prosecution witnesses, though the courts were less willing to accept this. The magistrate at Midnapore, early in the nineteenth century, admitted that innocent men were often punished on mere suspicion and confessions extracted by force. To make matters worse, many courts were plagued by men who earned a dubious living hiring themselves out to give false evidence. Chakrabarti, op. cit. pp. 41, 72.
Checks on Thug alibis Cf. ‘Trial No. 8 of 1832’, BC F/4/1490 (58671); van Woerkens, op. cit. pp. 80–1.
In a third, … ‘Trial No. 12 of 1832’, BC F/4/1490 (58672) fos. 283–5.
‘These men …’ Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 38–9.
Believed old tactic of denial would still serve ‘I used to think,’ the Thug Sheodeen told Captain Paton, ‘that, as usual, I should escape by denying guilt.’ ‘Dialogues with Thugs’, Paton papers fo. 18v, BL.
‘the change in the demeanour …’ Smith to Swinton, 20 June 1832, Sel.Rec. 122.
Cheinsah and Bhudalee BC F/4/1404 (55517) fos. 229–33.
Sleeman’s view of Thug witnesses Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections I, 107.
Evidence in Thug trials Trial No. 7, BC F/4/1490 (58671) fos. 95–6; Trial No. 10, BC F/4/1490 (58672) fos. 1–2; Trial No. 13, ibid. fos. 347–8; Akola case, BC F/4/1403 (55515) fos. 384–508; Smith to Swinton, 8 May 1832, Sel.Rec. 77. The sepoy’s name was Lalsingh Soobadar, and Smith recommended that his son, Girdharee, be allowed ‘3 rupees per mensem till he is sufficiently old to provide for himself, and then to make him a Burkindaz’ (police militiaman). The child had been readily identified, not least because Dirgpal had failed even to change his name.
Khoman’s identity parades BC F/4/1309 (52131) fos. 134.
… long association … Cf. Singha, op. cit. p. 184.
‘never convicted upon the mere evidence of accomplices …’ Ravenshaw and Marjoribanks (Directors, East India Company) to Governor General, 28 Nov. 1832, BC F/4/1403 (55514) fos. 19–26.
16 Demon Devotees
‘Just 16 miles of Asia’ George Bearce, British Attitudes Towards India, 1784–1858 p. 42. On ‘Persian poetry and Hindu metaphysics’, see Dennis Kincaid, British Social Life in India p. 129. On Mrs Graham, see ibid.
‘Oh, nothing, thank goodness’ Hilton Brown, The Sahibs p. 225.
British officers and Indian women For a moving study of one relationship between a British officer and an Indian woman, in Hyderabad in the period 1798–1806, see Dalrymple, White Mughals. For the costs of running a zenana, see Michael Edwardes, The Sahibs and the Lotus p. 47.
The British and Hinduism Bernard Cohn, An Anthropologist Among the Historians, and Other Essays p. 146; Katherine Prior, The British Administration of Hinduism in North India, 1780–1900; PJ Marshall (ed.), The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century pp. 1–43; Amal Chatterjee, Representation of India 1740–1840 pp. 6, 8, 87, 95, 100, 103; Atis Dasgupta, The Fakir and Sannyasi Uprisings pp. ii, 8, 59–60.
Kali and Calcutta On important occasions, British administrators attended ceremonies at Kali’s temple outside Calcutta. Michael Edwardes, The Sahibs and the Lotus p. 38. This led the Thugs to observe that the Company itself worshipped Kali.
‘lust, injustice …’ This quote, by the evangelical Christian William Wilberforce, is cited by John Keay, India p. 429.
‘the horrid rite of chundee pooja’ Basudeb Chattopadhyay, Crime and Control in Early Colonial Bengal, 1770–1860 p. 8, citing BCJC, 23 May 1794.
Distrust of fakirs Amal Chatterjee, Representation of India 1740–1840 pp. 6, 8, 87, 95, 100, 103; Atis Dasgupta, The Fakir and Sannyasi Uprisings pp. ii, 8, 59–60.
Female infanticide Malavika Kasturi, ‘Law and Crime in India: British Policy and the Female Infanticide Act of 1870’, Indian Journal of Gender Studies 1 (2) (1994) pp. 169–94.
Suttee In Hindu eyes this custom – which gave the widow the opportunity to perform the necessary rites of purification and select the most propitious spot to die – charged its victims with divine power. To the Mughals and their successors, the British administrators of Bengal, it seemed akin to human sacrifice, and suttees were generally discouraged on the grounds that the practice, while ancient, was not approved by any sacred text. There were about 8,200 cases in the Bengal Presidency between 1815 and 1828 – that is, 585 a year – and the custom was considerably rarer in Bombay and Madras: an average of 172 incidences a year across the latter two Presidencies combined. VN Datta, Sati pp. 188–92. The practice was finally outlawed by a new Governor General, Bentinck, in the late 1820s. See Chatterjee, op. cit. pp. 111–24; Singha, A Despotism of Law pp. 108–10.
Juggernaut The word means ‘Lord of the world’ and is one of the 1,000 titles accorded to the god Vishnu. The temple is in the Cuttack district, on the coast of Orissa a little over 300 miles from Calcutta, and the statues, roughly carved from sandalwood, were each about six feet high. Although they were popularly reputed to be covered in ‘obscene sculptures’, one sober British observer confessed that ‘if there … it requires a very searching eye to find them out’. They were reputed to be more than 4,000 years old. The procession lasted for two or three days. Visitors who ate food prepared at Juggernaut were supposed to be absolved from the four cardinal Hindu sins, those of killing a Brahmin, drinking spirits, committing adultery and killing a cow. A second, bathing, festival was held at Juggernaut each y
ear in addition to the more celebrated ‘car festival’. In Britain, both were scarcely known before 1810, when the poet Robert Southey described Juggernaut in an epic verse ‘full of the shrieks of the victims and the groans of the unfortunates who were sacrificed to bloody and superstitious rites’. After that, though, Juggernaut became part of the demonology of the Subcontinent. Walter Hamilton, The East-India Gazetteer II, 55–8; Thomas Bacon, First Impressions and Studies from Nature in Hindustan I, 174–7; Bearce, British Attitudes p. 104.
‘hideous moral wilderness’ Lawrence James, Raj pp. 195–6.
‘universally and wholly corrupt …’ The opinion of the Company director, Charles Grant, cited in Dalrymple, White Mughals p. 46.
Dacoits, Fakirs, Sanyassis, Nagas and Kallars Chattopadhyay, op. cit. pp. 8–10; David Shulman, ‘On South Indian Bandits and Kings’, IESHR 17 (1980) pp. 284–8.
Conversations with Thugs Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 64–6. Sleeman offered these ‘almost literal translations’ on the grounds that ‘these conversations were often carried on in the presence of different European gentlemen who happened to call in, and as they seemed to feel a good deal of interest in listening to them, I thought others might possibly feel the same in reading them if committed to paper’. The transcripts fill the final hundred or so pages of the first volume of Ramaseeana and have become the principal source – indeed in some cases the only source – for modern accounts of Thuggee. They are considerably more interesting and colourful than the dull pages of unpublished court transcripts in the Company’s archives, but both, taken in isolation, can be very misleading. It is important to read them in conjunction.
Ramasee dictionary Ibid. I, 67–140; see also van Woerkens, The Strangled Traveller pp. 114–15, 295–315.
Sikh Thugs There seem to have been very few Sikh Thugs. But Sahib Khan, the Deccan strangler, ‘knew Ram Sing Siek: he was a noted Thug leader – a very shrewd man’, who also served with the Pindaris for a time and was responsible for the assassination of the notorious Pindari leader Sheikh Dulloo. Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 239–40.