Thug: The True Story Of India's Murderous Cult (57 page)

Sleeman’s register kept up to date
Percival Griffiths,
To Guard My People
p. 132.

River dacoits
Sukmar Sen, ‘“Bungoo” – River Thugs on the Hooghly’,
Bengal Past & Present
86 (1967) pp. 167–8; Chakrabarti,
Authority and Violence
pp. 140–2; Arun Mukherjee,
Crime and Public Disorder in Colonial Benga
l 1861–1912
pp. 43–4; Anthony Sattin (ed.),
An Englishwoman in India
p. 26.

River Thugs
Paton papers, Add.Mss. 41300 fo. 11v, BL;
Ramaseeana
I, 43, 72, 178–80, 264–8; II, 436–72; Edward Thornton,
Illustrations of the History and Practices of the Thugs
pp. 31–42, 408–20.

Seasonality of the River Thugs
‘In March it becomes too hot’, the Thug Shumsera explained, ‘and in the rains the river becomes too rapid, and the boats cannot be pulled along the banks.’
Ramaseeana
I, 268.

Arrest of the River Thugs
Arun Mukherjee, op. cit. p. 43.

Megpunnas
Sleeman,
Report on the System of Megpunnaism
pp. 1–99.

Tusma-Baz Thugs
Hutton,
A Popular Account of the Thugs and Dacoits
pp. 98–100; Fanny Parks,
Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque
I, 452–3. Other groups of suspected Thugs were harshly treated in this period. On one occasion, the British magistrate at Agra ordered every member of the ‘tribe of Nats’ – a group of acrobats – to be deported south across the Nerbudda river, an order that a second judge described as ‘of the same value as would be the order from a London Magistrate to put all Italian Opera dancers and singers across the water’. Radhika Singha, ‘Providential circumstances: the thuggee campaign of the 1830s and legal innovation’,
Modern Asian Studies
27 p. 115.

Dr Cheek’s bearer
William Tayler,
Thirty-Eight Years in India
I, 194; Russell and Lal,
The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India
IV, 570.

Sleemanabad
Kevin Rushby,
Children of Kali
pp. 146, 160–1.

‘
seeing that the best arrangements
…’ Hussain Dost Khan to Captain Malcolm, 17 Aug. 1840, cited by James Hutton, op. cit. pp. 93–4.

‘
Do not I pray you
…’ Sleeman to Fraser, 22 Feb. 1838, Mss. Eur E/258/V fo. 13, OIOC.

Sentences
Martine van Woerkens,
The Strangled Traveller
p. 47.

‘
They should never recover their unrestricted liberty
…’ Smith to Prinsep (Secretary to Governor General), 19 Nov. 1830,
Sel.Rec
. 54.

‘
branding on the forehead
…’ Swinton to Smith 2 Apr. 1831, ‘Government of India orders
confirming
sentence of death …’ T&D D/1/1, NAI.

Godna
Clare Anderson, ‘“Godena”: tattooing & branding prisoners in nineteenth-century India’, in Jane Caplan (ed.),
Writing on the Body
:
The Tattoo in European and American History
pp. 106–9.

Plan for executions in home villages
Stewart (Resident, Indore) to Swinton, 12 Aug. 1829, Appa Sahib & Thuggee papers, SB; Swinton to Stewart, 23 Oct. 1829, ibid.

Sleeman’s description of the execution of Feringeea’s gang
This took place at Jubbulpore. Sleeman to the editor of the
Government Gazette
(n.d., published 7 Oct. 1830), in Das Gupta (ed.),
The Days of John Company
pp. 580. The letter was originally published anonymously. For Sleeman’s authorship, see Smith to Prinsep, 19 Nov. 1830,
Sel.Rec
. 51.

‘
met their fate
…’ Extract Bengal Political Consultations 5 March 1830 No. 59, BC F/4/1251 fos. 379–83, OIOC. The British authorities nevertheless remained utterly convinced of the safeness of the Thugs’ convictions. Indeed, the condemned men’s desperate protests of innocence were – in Borthwick’s view – ‘clear proof of their guilt’.

…
whether real or feigned
… As noted, they were probably real. Cf. Andrew Ward,
Our Bones Are Scattered
pp. 441, 456–7, 668.

‘…
coarse and disgusting levity
’ Henry Spry,
Modern India
II, 165–8.

Wellington on executions
Ward, op. cit. p. 441.

Number of executions
Spry, op. cit. II, 168; Hutton, pp. 92–3. For the deaths of members of Feringeea’s family, see Sleeman’s ‘Thug genealogy No. 1’, printed in
Ramaseeana
I, facing p. 270.

The fate of executed Thugs
For requests for cremation, see Spry, op. cit. II, 165. For bodies left on the gallows, see David Arnold, ‘The colonial prison’,
Subaltem Studies
8, p. 161. For hanging in chains, see
Sel.Rec
. 92; Thornton p. 240. A photograph, dated 1859 and allegedly showing the skeletons of two Thugs, hanged in 1837, in gibbets on the road near Bangalore, was
published
by James Sleeman,
Thug
, facing p. 196.

Ritual mutilation
of Thug corpses
George Bruce,
The Stranglers
p. 162.

Number of Thug trials
Sleeman
Ramaseeana
I, 38–9;
Depredations
pp. 184–5. The fate of Thugs committed up to 1840 was:

Saugor jail
K. Mojumdar, ‘Sleeman correspondence: 1824–1856’,
The Indian Archives
37 (1988) p. 3; Ind. BCJC, Western Provinces 1831, Consultation No. 21 of 11 Jan. 1831, Z/P/207, OIOC. Numbers continued to grow, and by 1837 two new brick jails had been built in the town. Henry Spry,
Modern India
II, 163.

Indian convict population
Ibid. II, 152.

‘
a large proportion
’ Consultation No. 19 of 5 Mar. 1831, BPC P/126/27, OIOC.

Conditions in Indian jails
Ranjan Chakrabarti,
Authority and Violence in Colonial Bengal, 1800–1860
pp. 100, 118–20; Radhika Singha,
A Despotism of Law
pp. 254–5, 269–72; David Arnold, ‘The colonial prison: power, knowledge and penology in nineteenth-century India’,
Subaltern Studies
8 (1994) p. 167. The allowance system was superseded by the provision of set rations from 1839 and, eventually, by highly unpopular central canteens. Anand Yang, ‘Discliplining “Natives”: prisons and prisoners in early nineteenth-century India’,
South Asia
10 (1987) pp. 29–47; Satadru Sen,
Disciplining Punishment
pp. 10–12.

Mortality among Thugs awaiting trial
James Hutton,
A Popular Account of the Thugs and Dacoits
pp. 92–4.

Wheat cakes
Spry, op. cit. II, 2–3.

‘
Nothing is so distasteful
…’ Cited in Chakrabarti, op. cit. p. 112.

Work on the roads
Spry, op. cit. II, 152–3. Charles Davidson, author of
Diary of Travels and Adventures in Upper India
I, 123–5, agreed with Spry that hard labour on the roads was far from an effective punishment, likely only to provide the prisoner with a ‘superior bodily condition’.

Thugs’ earlier experiences in jail
Cf.
Ramaseeana
I, 261; II, 252–4; Edward Thornton,
Illustrations of the History and Practices of the Thugs
, p. 244.

Thugs confined to prison
Not all magistrates took this point. Sleeman prevented one from
sentencing
captured Thugs to work in the fields of villages near Jubbulpore, where, he asserted, ‘they would assuredly either follow their old trade … or teach others to follow it’. Cited by GP Edwards,
Report on the Jubbulpore School of Industry
(1854) pp. 2–3, V/23/3, OIOC.

Secured each evening
… Sleeman correspondence, File 1832 fo. 752, SB.

‘
the respiration of prison-air
…’ Spry, op. cit. II, 155.

The change from extramural to intramural work
Ibid. pp. 262–5; Arnold, op. cit. pp. 176–7.

Thugs at Aurangabad
Neville,
Rare Glimpses of the Raj
p. 136.

Cawnpore
Emily Eden,
Up the Country
(London: Virago, 1983) pp. 59–60.

Agra
Butler,
The Land of the Veda
p. 398.

Fanny and Emily Eden
See J Dunbar (ed.),
Tigers, Durbars and Kings
p. 104; Emily Eden,
Up the Country
p. 60.

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.