Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 71

20. The reader who is not practically acquainted with the work of administration in India will probably think that the magistrate who allows such intrigues to go on must be very careless and inefficient.

But that thought, though very natural, would be unjust. The author was one of the best possible district magistrates, and yet was unable to suppress the evils which he describes, nor have the remedies which he advocated, and which have been adopted, proved effectual. The Thanadar now has generally to pay the Inspector and the people in the District Superintendent's office, in addition to 'the native officers of the magistrate's court'.

21. We have already seen how mistaken the author was concerning the army.

22. This statement requires to be guarded by many qualifications. The author's following remarks only ill.u.s.trate the well-known fact that in India official rank is ardently desired by the cla.s.ses eligible for it, and carries with it great social advantages.

23. Rampur is the small Rohilla state within the borders of the Bareilly District, United Provinces.

24. This description of the cla.s.s of officials alluded to is somewhat idealized, though it applies to a considerable proportion of the cla.s.s.

25. These propositions were, doubtless, literally correct in the author's time, but they are not at all fully applicable to the existing state of affairs.

APPENDIX

THUGGEE, AND THE PART TAKEN IN ITS SUPPRESSION BY GENERAL SIR W. H.

SLEEMAN, K.C.B.

NOTE BY CAPTAIN J. L. SLEEMAN, ROYAL SUSs.e.x REGIMENT

The religion of murder known as 'Thuggee' was established in India some centuries before the British Government first became aware of its existence, It is remarkable that, after an intercourse with India of nearly two centuries, and the exercise of sovereignty over a large part of the country for no inconsiderable period, the English should have been so ignorant of the existence and habits of a body so dangerous to the public peace. The name 'Thug' signifies a 'Deceiver', and it will be generally admitted that this term was well earned.[1] There is reason to believe that between 1799 and 1808 the practice of 'Thuggee' (Thagi) reached its height and that thousands of persons were annually destroyed by its disciples. It is interesting to note the legendary origin of this strange and horrible religion: In remote ages a demon infested the earth and devoured mankind as soon as created. The world was thus left unpeopled, until the G.o.ddess of the Thugs (Devi or Kali) came to the rescue. She attacked the demon, and cut him down; but from every drop of his blood another demon arose; and though the G.o.ddess continued to cut down these rising demons, fresh broods of demons sprang from their blood, as from that of their progenitors; and the diabolical race consequently multiplied with fearful rapidity. At length, fatigued and disheartened, the G.o.ddess found it necessary to change her tactics. Accordingly, relinquis.h.i.+ng all personal efforts for their suppression, she formed two men from perspiration brushed from her arms. To each of these men she gave a handkerchief, and with these the two a.s.sistants of the G.o.ddess were commanded to put all the demons to death without shedding a drop of blood. Her commands were immediately obeyed; and the demons were all strangled. Having strangled all the demons, the two men offered to return the handkerchiefs; but the G.o.ddess desired that they should retain them, not merely as memorials of their heroism, but as the implements of a lucrative trade in which their descendants were to labour and thrive.

They were in fact commanded to strangle men as they had strangled demons.

Several generations pa.s.sed before Thuggee became practised as a profession--probably for the same reason that a sportsman allows game to acc.u.mulate--but in due time it was abundantly exercised. Thus, according to the creed of the Thug, did their order arise, and thus originated their mode of operation.

The profession of a Thug, like almost everything in India, became hereditary, the fraternity, however, receiving occasional reinforcements from strangers, but these were admitted with great caution, and seldom after they had attained mature age. The Thugs were usually men seemingly occupied in most respectable and often in most responsible positions. Annually these outwardly respectable citizens and tradesmen would take the road, and sacrifice a mult.i.tude of victims for the sake of their religion and pecuniary gain. The Thug bands would a.s.semble at fixed places of rendezvous, and before commencing their expeditions much strange ceremony had to be gone through. A sacred pickaxe was the emblem of their faith: its fas.h.i.+oning was wrought with quaint rites and its custody was a matter of great moment. Its point was supposed to indicate the line of route propitious to the disciples of the G.o.ddess, and it was credited with other powers equally marvellous. The brute creation afforded a vast fund of instruction upon every proceeding. The a.s.s, jackal, wolf, deer, hare, dog, cat, owl, kite, crow, partridge, jay, and lizard, all served to furnish good or bad omens to a Thug on the war-path.

For the first week of the expedition fasting and general discomfort were insisted on, unless the first murder took place within that period. Women were never murdered unless their slaughter was unavoidable (i.e. when they were thought to suspect the cause of the disappearance of their men-folk). Children of the murdered were often adopted by the Thugs, and the boys were initiated in due course in the horrid rites of Thuggee. Men skilled in the practice of digging and concealing graves were always attached to each Thug gang. These were able to prepare graves in antic.i.p.ation of a murder, and to effectually conceal all trace of the crime after they were occupied.

To a.s.sist the grave-diggers in this duty all roads used by Thugs had selected places upon them at which murders were always carried out if possible. The Thugs would speak of such places with the same affection and enthusiasm as other men would of the most delightful scenes of their early life.

It was these people, versed in deceit and surrounded by a thousand obstacles to conviction, that General Sir W. H. Sleeman so n.o.bly set out to exterminate. Within seven years of his first commencing the suppression of Thuggee it had practically ceased to exist as a religion; and he had the privilege of seeing it entirely suppressed as such before giving up this work for the Residents.h.i.+p at Lucknow.

He was described when taking over the latter appointment as follows: 'He had served in India nearly forty years. His work had been of the best. He had done more than any one to suppress 'Thuggee' finally, and had a knowledge of the Indian character and language possessed by very few. He was personally popular with all cla.s.ses of Indians, and respected, feared, and trusted by all.'

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES BY THE EDITOR

Captain J. L. Sleeman, who had intended to contribute an account in some detail of his grandfather's operations for the suppression of Thuggee, has been ordered on active service, and consequently has been unable to write more than the short note printed above.

The editor thinks it desirable to supplement Captain Sleeman's observations by certain additional remarks.

The earliest historical notice of Thuggee appears to be the statement in the History of Firoz Shah Tughlak (1351-88) by a contemporary author that at some time or other in the reign of that sovereign about one thousand Thugs were arrested in Delhi, on the denunciation of an informer. The Sultan, with misplaced clemency, refused to sanction the execution of any of the prisoners, whom he s.h.i.+pped off to Lakhnauti or Gaur in Bengal, where they were let loose. (Elliot and Dowson, _Hist. of India_, iii. 141.) That absurd proceeding may well have been the origin of the system of river Thuggee in Bengal, which possibly may be still practised.

The next mention of Thugs refers to the reign of Akbar (1556-1605).

Both Meadows Taylor and Balfour affirm that many Thugs were then executed, and according to Balfour, they numbered five hundred and belonged to the Etawah District, I have not succeeded in finding any mention of the fact in the histories of Akbar--the memory of the event may be preserved only by oral tradition. Etawah, between the Ganges and Jumna, in the province of Agra, has always been notorious for Thuggee and cognate crime.

In the year 1666, towards the close of Shahjahan's reign, the traveller de Thevenot noted that the road between Delhi and Agra was infested by Thugs. His words are:

'The cunningest Robbers in the World are in that Countrey. They use a certain slip with a running-noose, which they can cast with so much slight about a Man's Neck, when they are within reach of him, that they never fail; so that they strangle him in a trice.' (English transl., 1686, Part III, p. 41.)

After the capture of Seringapatam in 1799 the attention of the Company's government was drawn to the prevalence of Thuggee. In 1810 the bodies of thirty victims were found in wells between the Ganges and Jumna, and in 1816 Dr. Sherwood published a paper ent.i.tled 'On the Murderers called Phansigars', _sc._ 'stranglers', in the _Madras Journal of Literature and Science_, which was reprinted in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. xiii (1820). Various officers then made unsystematic efforts to suppress the stranglers, but effectual operations were deferred until 1829. During the years 1881 and 1832 the existence of the Thug organization became generally known, and intense excitement was aroused throughout India. The Konkan, or narrow strip of lowlands between the Western Ghats and the sea, was the only region in the empire not infested by the Thugs. (See H. H.

Wilson in supplement to Mill, _Hist. of British India_, ed. 1858, vol. ix, p. 213; Balfour, _Cyclopaedia of India_, 3rd ed., 1885, _s.v._ Thug; and Crooke, _Things Indian_, Murray, 1906, _s.v._ Thuggee.)

The records summarized above prove that the Thug organization existed continuously on a large scale from the early part of the fourteenth century until Sir William Sleeman's time, that is to say, for more than five centuries. In all probability its origin was much more ancient, but records are lacking. It is said that a sculpture representing a Thug strangulation exists among the sculptures at Ellora executed in the eighth century. No such sculpture, however, is mentioned in the detailed account of the Ellora caves by Dr. Burgess.

The magnitude of the organization with which Sleeman grappled is indicated by the following figures.

During the years 1831-7 3,266 Thugs were disposed of one way or another, of whom 412 were hanged, and 483 were admitted as approvers.

Amir Ali, whose confessions are recorded in Meadows Taylor's fascinating book, _The Confessions of a Thug_, written in 1837 and first published in 1839, proudly admitted having taken part in the murders of 719 persons, and regretted that an interruption of his career by twelve years' imprisonment in Oudh had prevented him from completing a full thousand of victims. He regarded his profession as affording sport of the most exciting kind possible.

V. A. S.

Notes:

1. p.r.o.nounced 'T'ug', a hard cerebral _t_, with some aspiration.