by Mike Dash
Felice Beato Vidya Dehejia (ed.), India Through the Lens pp. 118–47. For Beato’s photograph of Thugs, see the reproduction in Tuker, The Yellow Scarf facing p. 144 and incorrectly dated to 1855.
Visit to the Thugs of Agra jail Butler, op. cit. p. 398.
Escape of men from Jubbulpore Jail Sleeman says there were 14 of them in all – see Sleeman correspondence 1834 fo. 842, SB – but his grandson James Sleeman, in Thug p. 239, puts the number of escapees at 27.
‘The narratives of these pursuits …’ Cited in GP Edwards, op. cit. p. 8, V/23/3.
Successful escapes Hutton, op. cit. p. 94.
History of transportation Anderson, Convicts in the Indian Ocean pp. 4–5, 12–13; for the totals of men sent to America and Australia, see Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia 1787–1868 pp. 40–2, 143.
Penal colonies in the East Indies Anderson, op. cit. pp. 4–12; McNair, Prisoners Their Own Warders pp. vi–vii, 1–78.
‘The belief was that transportation would be polluting …’ Anderson, op. cit. p. 16; Chakrabarti, Authority and Violence in Colonial Bengal, 1800–1860 p. 20. The British belief that loss of caste was a mortal blow from which no Hindu could recover was similarly misplaced. James Kerr, in The Domestic Life, Character and Customs of the Natives of India pp. 263–5, notes: ‘It is very generally supposed in Europe that loss of caste involves trials and privations indescribably awful … But in no case does he become an alien or outcast, shunned by everyone. The world at large transacts business with him much the same as ever … If he wishes to be restored to the full privileges of his caste, all he has to do is to submit to a pecuniary fine, to evince his penitence by giving a feast to some of the leading members of his caste, or to condone the offence in some equally easy way.’
‘Kill and eat them …’ CM Turnbull, ‘Convicts in the Straits Settlement 1826–1867’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 43, 1 (1970) pp. 90, 103.
‘The majority went to Penang’ By way of contrast, only 11 convicted Thugs were ever sent to Mauritius. Anderson, op. cit. p. 130. There were a total of 1,250 Indian prisoners in the Straits Settlement by 1841, 1,500 by 1845 and 7,800 (one in five of them Thugs) in 1858, split between camps at Penang, Singapore and Malacca. Turnbull, op. cit. pp. 87, 96, 100.
Hunter-Weston and the Thugs James Sleeman, op. cit. p. 223.
‘inconveniently low …’ McNair, op. cit. p. 12.
Description of the prisons at Penang and Singapore Ibid. pp. 15–17, 28–9, 34, 39–42, 54, 78, 84–8, 92, 94, 143–6; Turnbull, op. cit. pp. 88–9.
‘I remember being struck …’ Cited by Anderson, op. cit. pp. 7–8.
‘Harmless’ According to Turnbull, op. cit. p. 100, however, Thug prisoners ‘played a prominent part in the Dusserah and Muharram festivals and helped to turn them into the rowdy displays of hooliganism they became by the middle of the century’.
‘It is worthy of remark …’ McNair, op. cit. p. 13.
250 remaining Thugs Ibid. p. 146.
‘utter unfamiliarity …’ Sen, op. cit. p. 6. For a description of the Andaman colony and its prison policies in this period, see ibid. pp. 27–30, 212–14.
Approvers on the roads Edwards, op. cit. p. 8.
‘There were 56 of them …’ Hutton, op. cit. pp. 92–3.
The approvers’ lock-up Edwards, op. cit. p. 4.
Description of the School of Industry See the photograph in James Sleeman, op. cit., facing p. 154.
Thuggee Lines Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1869, appendix 3 p. 3, and Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1870, p. 59 and appendix 3 p. 4, both V/24/2088.
‘The approvers are all very fond of money …’ Brown to Sleeman, 4 Jan. 1838, cited in Edwards, op. cit. p. 3.
Schooling This proscription lasted until the early 1840s. A few years later, the government permitted the establishment of a Night School in the Thuggee Lines where children went to study from 5pm, having already worked at their tasks from six in the morning. The boys were taught to read and write Hindi and Hindustani, and the girls to read and knit. Report on the Jubbulpore School of Industry, 1856, microfilm frame 670, V/23/4.
Tent- and carpet-making Ibid. pp. 9–19.
Other prisons’ specialities Arnold, op. cit. p. 177.
Best carpets in India Anthony Sattin (ed.), An Englishwoman in India p. 25.
Great Exhibition Edward Eddrup, The Thugs; or Secret Murderers of India p. 7.
Carpet for Queen Victoria Kevin Rushby, Children of Kali p. 128. The carpet, now rather faded, is still there. It is red, with a prominent golden floral design.
‘Necessary’ tents Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1877, appendix B p. 3, V/24/2090, OIOC.
Employment for Thug children Edwards, op. cit. pp. 9–10, 15; Report on the Jubbulpore School of Industry, 1856, microfilm frame 670, V/23/4.
Commercial concerns in the annual reports Cf. Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1869, appendix 3 p. 2, V/24/2088, and Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1878, pp. 31–2, V/24/2090.
Only remained nominally profitable Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1888, appendix A p. 1, V/24/2092.
Sleeman on the change in Thug willingness to recreate old crimes Sleeman letter of 1848, cited by Edwards, op. cit. pp. 9–10.
Sleeman’s duties East India Register, 1840–54.
‘altogether too willing a horse’ Tuker, op. cit. p. 143.
Size of territory under Sleeman’s control The areas of the various territories of India, as they were in the 1830s, are given in Spry, op. cit. I, map facing frontispiece.
Sleeman’s garden Cited in Tuker, op. cit. pp. 144–5.
The fate of Sleeman’s children Ibid. pp. 110, 121, 139, 140, 146, 169–70.
Popularity of Residencies The post of Resident offered a good deal more than simply monetary rewards, of course. The opportunity to shape policy, influence native rulers and generally wield power was probably the most important lure. Michael Fisher, Indirect Rule in India p. 31.
‘It is a noble country …’ Tuker, op. cit. p. 123.
Sleeman strenuously opposed this policy ‘His reply to Dalhousie when accepting the appointment,’ notes PD Reeves (Sleeman in Oudh p. 16), ‘had been critical of the Governor-General’s propensity for annexation and he never overcame his objections to this policy.’ Sleeman’s position on the matter was set out in four letters published in his Journey Through the Kingdom of Oudh.
Sleeman in Oudh Ibid. pp. 147–59, 180; John Pemble, The Raj, the Indian Mutiny and the Kingdom of Oudh pp. 96–9; Reeves, op. cit. pp. 4–16.
‘Mentally he was in his prime …’ Tuker, op. cit. p. 178.
Attempted assassinations Ibid. pp. 123, 160, 175; Rambles and Recollections I, xxv, xxxv. James Sleeman, Thug pp. 125–6. Tuker’s account of the ‘Thug’ assassin is considerably elaborated.
Sleeman’s death Reeves, op. cit. p. 16; James Sleeman, op. cit. pp. 214–15.
Those too old to work Ibid. p. 19; Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1871, p. 53 and Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1872, appendix B p. 1, both V/24/2088; Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1882, V/24/2091.
Approvers’ sons forced to leave See Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1874 p. 17, V/24/2089.
Final closure of the School of Industry See Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1892, appendix A pp. 1, 5; Report on the Jails of the Central Provinces for the Year 1893 pp. 23, 44, both V/23/2093; James Sleeman, op. cit. pp. 230–1. ‘The only existing traces [of the Thugs],’ reported RV Russell in 1916, ‘are a small number of persons known as Goranda or Goyanda in Jubbulpore, the descendants of the Thugs employed at the school of industry which was established in the town. These work honestly for their living, and are believed to have
no marked criminal tendencies.’ Robert Russell and Hira Lal, The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India IV, 558–9.
Appendix: How Many Dead?
Thug murders Richard Sherwood, ‘Of the Murderers Called Phansigars’, Asiatick Researches 13 (1820) pp. 270–71; PA Reynolds, ‘Notes on the T’hags’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 4 (1837) p. 213; Meadows Taylor, Confessions of a Thug p. vi; ‘Deposition of Rumzan, a noted Thug … taken at Lucknow, 20 April 1837’, Paton papers Add.Mss. 41300 fo. 122v.
Sumachar Durpan Cited by Iftikhar Ahmad, Thugs, Dacoits and the Modern World-System in Nineteenth-Century India p. 126.
James Sleeman’s estimate Fearing that this total would not be believed, Sleeman reduced it to one million quite arbitrarily, by assuming the number of deaths to be 10,000 a year over no more than a century. James Sleeman, Thug pp. 232–6.
Futteh Khan’s estimate Paton papers fos. 28, 122v.
Paton’s map of Thug beles See ibid. fos. 172v, 202v–203. A copy of Paton’s map of Oudh can be found at BC F/4/1898 (80685) fo. 305, and a photograph of it appears in Francis Tuker’s book.
Syeed Ameer Ali’s estimate Meadows Taylor, Confessions of a Thug p. vi.
‘Not broken down’ See, however, Paton papers fos. 202v–203, where Buhram’s murders are broken down by location.
Quarterly Review ‘A religion of murder’, Quarterly Review Oct. 1901 pp. 506–19.
‘Buhram, for one …’ ‘Narrative of a Thuggee expedition in Oude during the cold weather, supposed to have been in 1830 … related by Buhram, a leader of Thugs’, Paton papers fo. 118.
Ramzan’s estimates Ibid. fos. 122v–123, 172.
Average number of victims Median figure calculated from an analysis of all the incidents mentioned in Ramaseeana, Depredations and Thornton’s Illustrations. Even this figure may be an exaggeration, since both Sleeman and Thornton naturally described the most sensational Thug murders rather than the everday.
Number of killings For the Lucknadown gang, see Smith to Swinton, 21 May 1832, BC F/4/1404 (55517) fos. 207, 209. For Feringeea’s gangs and the subahdar’s gang, see Depredations pp. 22–68. For Sayeed Ally and Dawood Newly (the latter, other depositions suggest, being actually a corruption of the name ‘Duriow Nujeeb’), see ‘Deposition of Sheikh Dawood Newly …’, 24 Nov. 1834 and ‘Deposition of Sayeed Ally …’, 25 Nov. 1834, both T&D D2/1, NAI.
Sources of the opening and chapter-heading quotations
Opening quotation from the interrogation of Hurree Singh is from Sleeman, Ramaseeana I, 35n–36n.
The quotations at the head of each chapter are phrases drawn from Sleeman’s lexicon of Thug slang, in Ramaseeana I, 67–140, and Martine van Woerkens, The Strangled Traveller pp. 295–315.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Fiona Jerome, drs Henk Looijesteijn, Professor Radhika Singha of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Sophie Watson Smyth, Dr Kim A Wagner of King’s College, Cambridge, and, in particular, Osamazaid Rahman for the help they gave during many months of research. The work would not have been possible at all without access to the spectacular collections held by the Oriental and India Office Collections at the British Library and the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and I owe debts of gratitude to the excellent staff of both. Sara Holloway, my editor, the staff of Granta Books, and Patrick Walsh, my agent, offered help, encouragement and (particularly) forbearance. And Penny and Ffion, once again, endured and supported me during the protracted process of actually writing the book. I owe both much, much more than I can say.
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