Thuggee

L'uomo superiore che scarta ogni prospettiva di furto rispetto a beni misurabili e ruba una ricchezza immensa, raggiunge Çiva. (Dharmacauryarasàyana, II, L'Induismo si caratterizza per la sua straordinaria capacità di includere nei suoi presupposti dottrinali, nei suoi miti e nei suoi simboli, pressoché ogni aspetto del reale, da quello più alto a quello più basso, con una spiccata predilezione per gli aspetti estremi e paradossali. Compresi quelli per lo più evitati o scartati dalle altre forme religiose. Non poteva dunque fare eccezione il mondo dei ladri e dei briganti che, come in altri cosmi religiosi, viene riferito e in qualche modo risolto all'interno di specifici e paradossali aspetti del divino e dei loro riflessi mondani. Abbiamo così alcune divinità indù che autorevolmente ricoprono la funzione di patroni del furto e dei ladri. E, diversamente da tutte le religioni conosciute, nell'Induismo esiste un Dharma dei ladri 1 , cui corrisponde una dottrina tradizionale del furto, detta in sànscrito Cauryavidyà, che viene addirittura annoverata tra le sessantaquattro arti, considerate come applicazioni complementari del Veda. 2 Un'arte che, in passato, è stata oggetto di numerosi trattati canonici, noti come Steyaçàstra. Tranne che in un caso 3 , di essi ci sono rimasti solo dei frammenti, riportati in numerose altre opere, perlopiù di carattere letterario. 4 Così come il mitico Vyàsa viene considerato tradizionalmente l'autore del Veda, l'estensore del primo Steyaçàstra sarebbe stato Mùladeva, noto anche col nome di Karòìsuta, ritenuto il prototipo e il decano dei ladri indù, nonché il grande teorico e guru del furto. 5 Come tutte le simbologie, anche quella legata ad attività antinomiche e antisociali, che di per sé sarebbero contrarie al Dharma 6 , alla Legge cosmica, costituisce l'ennesima applicazione di quel senso inverso dell'analogia che sta alla base di gran parte della simbologia spirituale dell'Induismo. In particolare, quel che è illecito per l'essere umano è invece comunque sempre lecito per la Divinità, che è il principio stesso della Legge in quanto tale. Anche il furto compiuto da parte di un Deva altro non è, da un punto di vista assoluto e di principio, che il

Drawing on Josiah Heyman's attempt of explaining rise of state, tis is an attempt to show how criminal groups like Thuggs and Private militia reacted to increasing control of British colonial empire in South asia and how state often used such subversive groups for its own benefits.

Il filo conduttore che unisce fra loro i diversi contributi specialistici che compongono questo volume non è semplicemente la storia delle diverse organizzazioni della furfanteria e del brigantaggio tra l'Europa e l'Asia. Da questo punto di vista, come da quello sociologico, esistono già numerosi studi, anche se si avverte una certa lacuna per quanto riguarda il mondo islamico. 1 Muovendo questa volta da un punto di vista più propriamente storico religioso, il tentativo ambizioso che si è qui solo abbozzato è quello di far emergere, con la maggior nettezza possibile per le diverse aree culturali, le specifiche credenze e pratiche, sia religiose sia parareligiose, di ladri e briganti. Ma anche la loro integrazione, o meno, con le grandi tradizioni spirituali delle rispettive civiltà d'appartenenza. Si è cercato dunque di ricostruire alcuni frammenti di un cosmo religioso non ancora riconosciuto come tale, e della relativa fenomenologia. Una particolarissima tipologia di spiritualità espressa nei secoli passati, e in qualche misura ancora oggi, da una categoria di individui e di organizzazioni sempre vissute ai margini della società. Un aspetto e un capitolo della storia spirituale dell'umanità che fino a oggi è stato assai poco documentato, anche per via dei molti pregiudizi riguardo alla sua problematicità, che è sempre stata molto reale e concreta. Ma, soprattutto in vista di una più ampia analisi comparativa, tale aspetto dev'essere finalmente riconosciuto almeno sul piano culturale 2 , come avevano fatto nel recente passato studiosi quali Walter Benjamin, Gershom Scholem e Piero Camporesi. Scrive in particolare Walter Benjamin, pur mantenendo ancora una sorta di romantica distinzione fra ladro e brigante 3 :

In British India, positioning Kali within the thuggee cult and rationalizing human sacrifice ran parallel and witnessed a paradigmatic shift by the end of the nineteenth century. The cult provided a basis for high romanticization and assisted in the mission of projecting a disgraced religious practice. This paper explores how the mother-figure was idealized for rationalizing human sacrifice and the religious symbols were overused. Central to the discussion is the role of the earthly and celestial body of the goddess that codified the practice in its extremity. In addition, controlling the body and subjugating the Orient remained operative within the discourse of mother-worship.

A lot has been written on Thuggee and nineteenth century British operations against it. Instead of delving directly into either of these two well investigated areas of research, this paper seeks to chart how several nineteenth century British writings exhibit a curious fear of Thug infiltration. Keeping in their minds some actual instances, early British colonial officials worried about the Thugs joining government services under them to survive and sabotage the anti-Thuggee campaign. This paper argues that this apprehension gradually developed into the fantasy of being reverse colonized by the Thugs. Late Victorian writers of fiction fantasized the Thugs invading England, or, what must have been more unnerving to them, converting the Britons themselves to Thugs. Using unpublished official records and literary works as sources, this paper tries to map how colonial anxiety of 'Thug infiltration' originated and later grew into the fantasy of reverse colonization by the Thugs. It also tries to link this to specific historical developments in that period.

A lot has been written on Thuggee and nineteenth century British operations against it. Instead of delving directly into either of these two well investigated areas of research, this paper seeks to chart how several nineteenth century British writings exhibit a curious fear of Thug infiltration. Keeping in their minds some actual instances, early British colonial officials worried about the Thugs joining government services under them to survive and sabotage the anti-Thuggee campaign. This paper argues that this apprehension gradually developed into the fantasy of being reverse colonized by the Thugs. Late Victorian writers of fiction fantasized the Thugs invading England, or, what must have been more unnerving to them, converting the Britons themselves to Thugs. Using unpublished official records and literary works as sources, this paper tries to map how colonial anxiety of ‘Thug infiltration’ originated and later grew into the fantasy of reverse colonization by the Thugs. It also ...

Although he is primarily remembered today as the author of On Liberty and other works of political philosophy, John Stuart Mill also worked his way up from junior clerk to Examiner of Indian Correspondence in London's India House on Leadenhall Street from 1823-1858, during which he penned over 1,700 dispatches to British India. Writing these dispatches may have been the type of work that only a "mechanical drudge" would love, as Mill himself observed, but he nevertheless put together several dispatches on the suppression of thagi that make for fascinating insights into his political thought.

In 1839, thanks to the novel Confessions of a Thug, the stereotype of a Hindu sect of murderers, alleged worshippers of Kali, who acted after gaining the confidence of their future victims, spread in the West. Since then the Thugs appeared in many novels as well as later on in many films. In nineteenth-century India there really existed gangs of marauders, who nevertheless killed travellers only in order to rob them, without any religious implications, contrary to popular belief. But those who invented the stereotype were maybe aware of the existence of secret tantric cults, which attributed a special religious value to actions opposed to public morals, such as murder.

Believing as the British did in the exclusive notions of state authority contrary to 'divisible' or 'discrete' perception of authority practised by Indians, the British Raj tried from the very inception to impose their absolute supremacy on Indian society by establishing law and order. In so doing, they showed their utmost concern in collective criminal actions which were perceived as most threatening to their existence in India. Dacoity, which was considered as the most defiant form of collective action against state authority and which was widespread in the then Bengal, was at once thought to be a challenge and a reflection on the empire's ability to rule. Moerover, collective actions of this kind was susceptible to stimulation by widespread economic and social unrest over such matters as famines, scarcities, tenancy grievances, onerous burden of taxation and the like. Hence, to contain open violence before it became contagious, and of course, to impose the will of the state, the British government in Bengal from the onset adopted vigorous measures to stamp out the crime of dacoity.

In this article, an attempt will be made to throw some light on the activities of the Dacoity Commission instituted in April, 1852 for the suppression of dacoity in Bengal. Part I is a background leading to the institution of the office of the Dacoity Commissioner along with a short account of the early efforts at controlling dacoity. It also discusses the organizational set-up of the Office of Dacoity Commissioner and the methods employed for the apprehension and committal of criminals. The drive against the suppression of professional gangs, both in land and in water, in the various districts of Bengal is the subject-matter of Part II. The results of the campaign is discussed in Part III, along with a brief commentary on the reasons for the abolition of the Office of Dacoity Commissioner.

The district of Bakarganj had long been associated with serious violent crimes from the early days of British rule in Bengal. Not only successive magistrates, judges and police officers had repeatedly asserted the view but even the people of the neighbouring districts considered them as a species of demon. As far back as 1766, Warren Hastings had found the zaminder of Bakergunge guilty of connivance in a brutal murder and robbery and had written to the Nawab to take a severe example of such kinds of zamindars. Even Henry Beveridge, who was fond of the people of Bakarganj, admitted that they were a byword for turbulence. In 1868, the lawlessness of the district became the subject of special enquiry by the then Deputy Inspector General of Police, J. H. Reilly and the Commissioner of Dacca Division, F. Simon apparently recommended to the government in August of the same year to disarm the district. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Sutherland, the then District Magistrate, confiscated 1,500 or 2,000 guns which were later on destroyed under Mr. Beveridge's order and thrown into the river. It is thus abundantly clear that the district had a long history of criminality of the worst type at its back. The record in this regard was still further darkened in the last decade of the nineteenth century by phenomenal rise of violent crimes against persons, namely murder.

In this paper, an attempt will be made to bring to light the various aspects of murder as it manifested itself in the late nineteenth century. In Part I, the incidence and volume of murder together with its various features will be examined. We will seek, in Part II, to locate the probable causes behind the rise of such a murder wave. Remedial measures adopted to check the epidemic of murder with their consequent results and reaction will be the subject matter of discussion in Part III.

This article examines how some colonial fictions intertwine historically unconnected Thuggee and the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 to make sense of Indian resistance to British rule. This was done by only a few writers. The article tries to find out what led these colonial writers to link the two unconnected events. To do this, representations of Thuggee and the Mutiny in the works of Captain Meadows Taylor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Emilio Salgari are scrutinized. The article also considers other relevant works, like those by Sir George MacMunn, Hermann Goedsche, Jules Verne and Francisco Luis Gomes. It tries to ascertain whether a writer's nationality affected his conceptualization of the relationship between Thuggee and the Mutiny in any significant way. In doing so, it seeks to highlight how representations of Indian insurgency in colonial writings varied in accordance with the writer's nationality and outlook vis-à-vis British colonialism in India.

This article examines how some colonial fictions intertwine historically unconnected Thuggee and the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 to make sense of Indian resistance to British rule. This was done by only a few writers. The article tries to find out what led these colonial writers to link the two unconnected events. To do this, representations of Thuggee and the Mutiny in the works of Captain Meadows Taylor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Emilio Salgari are scrutinized. The article also considers other relevant works, like those by Sir George MacMunn, Hermann Goedsche, Jules Verne and Francisco Luis Gomes. It tries to ascertain whether a writer's nationality affected his conceptualization of the relationship between Thuggee and the Mutiny in any significant way. In doing so, it seeks to highlight how representations of Indian insurgency in colonial writings varied in accordance with the writer's nationality and outlook vis-à-vis British colonialism in India.

This article studies the cinematic representations of the Indian Thugs. In doing so, it examines whether such representations conform to or problematize the negative stereotyping of the Thugs as ruthless murderers. The colonial stereotyping of Thuggee as a religion of murder has been problematized by modern scholars and historians, some of whom see Thuggee as an act of anti-colonial resistance. The Thugs in this view were actually rebels whom the British purposefully criminalized. This article provides a reading of the recently released film Thugs of Hindostan, showing how the film problematizes the criminalization of the Thugs by the British. In doing this, the film accepts the re-evaluation of the Thugs as baagis or rebels. By comparing the representation of the Thugs in this film with earlier cinematic representations, it is argued that this film’s deviation from the popular practice of representing the Thugs as heinous criminals reflect a shift in current understanding of Thuggee.

Thuggee as a distinct class of criminal homicide has generated much interest ever since the British colonizers in India exposed it in the nineteenth century. While the male thugs were certainly more common, female practitioners of thuggee were not entirely unknown. Curiously, both colonial writers and contemporary researchers have conceptualized thuggee as an all-male activity, thereby consigning the female thugs to oblivion. By bringing the focus back on the female thugs, this paper questions the gendering of thuggee. It also shows how the acknowledgement of the existence of the female thugs destabilizes both colonial constructions of thuggee and contemporary understandings of the subject.

This paper examines the role of code-switching, style-shifting, and sociolinguistic crossing in Philip Meadows Taylor’s 1839 novel Confessions of a Thug. Contextualizing these linguistic aspects in view of the role played by language in British attempts to suppress Thuggee, the paper highlights the novel’s complex representation of Thuggee’s contradictory practices as criminal, often violent, yet in some ways also honourable. More importantly, I draw attention to the novel’s ambivalent representation of linguistic performance as both a Thuggee strategy, and an essential element of the novel’s construction as a fictionalized interview with a Thug. Drawing on my analysis of the role of sociolinguistic crossing in the novel, I argue that Taylor’s obfuscation of the interviewer’s role as mediator, and of his own authorial role as animator, displays an imitative admiration of the Thug’s linguistic performance, even as it invites the conclusion that it is this very linguistic prowess which must be outdone if India is to be mastered by British rule.