With thanks to Tim Willasey-Wilsey for his photograph of William Sleeman's memorial plaque, and for suggesting this topic. The other images were scanned by the author. You may reproduce any of them without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer/person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or to the Victorian Web in a print document.]
Thugs strangling a traveller
(Kaye, frontipiece).
he Scottish artist and writer James Forbes (1749–1819) went out to India with the East India Company in 1765, making it his home for seventeen years and later publishing an invaluable record of life there during that time. At one point he observed,
Sarungpoor [Sarangpur, in Gujurat] is famous for a manufactory of muslins for turbans, and other cottons.... Several men were taken up there for a most cruel method of robbery and murder, practised on travellers, by a tribe called phanseegurs, or stranglers, who join passengers frequenting the fair, in bye-roads, or at other seasons convenient for their purpose: under the pretence of travelling the same way, they enter into conversation with the strangers, share their sweetmeats, and pay them other little attentions, until an opportunity offers of suddenly throwing a rope round their necks with a slip knot, by which they dexterously contrive to strangle them on the spot. [Forbes II: 397]
At the end of the century, following British success in the Fourth Mysore War, the phenomenon became more widely known with reports that a very large group of such robbers, as many as a hundred, were caught in Bangalore and accused of using similar methods to prey on passers-by (Yule and Burnell 916). Their modus operandi seemed to mark them as following a dangerous cult with roots in pagan ritual: they were thought to be followers of the powerful Hindu goddess Kali, in her role as destroyer, generally referred to in this context by the name of Bhowani. Determined to suppress the perceived practice, the British adopted heavy-handed means to deal with it, allowing the conviction of those simply known to be connected to such groups: even without proof of direct involvement in a crime, by a famous (or infamous) Act of 1836 they could be sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour (Kaye n.16-17). Other punishments mentioned were hanging, and transportation.
Memorial to W.H. Sleeman on the north wall
of King Charles the Martyr Church, Falmouth.
Photo by Tim Willasey-Wilsey
The driving force behind the campaign against them was the British administrator, Captain (later Major-General) William Henry Sleeman (thenceforth often nicknamed "Thuggee Sleeman"), who compiled a two-volume book about the problem, The Thugs or Phansigars of India: comprising a history of the rise and progress of that extraordinary fraternity of assassins.... (1839) — the word "phansigar" being derived from "phansi," the Urdu for "noose" (Yule and Burnell 916). In February 1839, Sleeman took the office of General Superintendent of the operations for the Suppression of Thuggee, and later he became Commissioner for the Suppression of Thuggee and Dacoity (a more general term for armed robbery). His memorial in the Church of King Charles the Martyr, Falmouth, in Cornwall, tells of his "uninterrupted service of forty-seven years" in India, and of his death on shipboard during the voyage home on 10 February 1856, at the age of 67. Interestingly, it also tells of the respect he earned from the Indians themselves, "who always regarded him as their friend and by whom his equity was profoundly appreciated." From his biography of 1961 by Sir Francis Tuker, it would seem that this respect was not only merited, but reciprocated.
For all William Sleeman's efforts, the Victorians still saw thuggee as a threat, and rather a fascinating one at that — taken together, more "strange, cruel, and deadly" than any of the notorious figures of past history, none of whom, according to an article in the Illustrated London News of 1843, "can stand any comparison with the skill and murderous dexterity of the Thugs" — as revealed in "the volumes from the pen of a gallant officer, which, in giving many curious particulars of this tribe, invested them with an atmosphere of romance" ("The Thugs"). The reference here is probably to Captain Meadow Taylor's Confessions of a Thug (1839).
From left to right: (a) Thugs strangling their victim (Kaye 7). (b). Thugs burying the dead body (Kaye 10). (c) Thugs dividing the spoil (Kaye 13).
The same journalist recommends the work not for the activities described, of course, or its sensationalism, but because of the useful record that Meadows Taylor provides. In particular, the Illustrated London News suggests, "When time and civilization shall have rendered such associations mere matter of history, not of real occurrence, the portrait of the chief of the Thugs may then, as now, be turned to with a philosophic eye to scan the lineaments of one capable of making murder and spoliation the common business of his career."
Portrait of the Chief of the Thugs, taken after his recent capture (Illustrated London News, 18 February 1843, p. 113).
Here, on the right, is the cunning and dangerous leader to which this journalist refers: "Our engraving displays him as he appeared when taken disguised as a traveller’s escort, the upper part of his face painted white after the usual fashion of the country with commercial travellers. He holds in his hand the charmed axe of Deera [probably Dhyeya, another of the many names of Kali], the sanguine goddess of his idolatry." In fact, the previous week's issue of the Illustrated London News had taken evident satisfaction in reporting the man's capture:
Captain Vallancey has again been successful in Thug capturing, having secured one of great note in Northern Arcot. Being the only one left of his profession in the north, and as his influence was great among the fraternity in the south, Vallancey had kept up a vigilant search after him. Besides this important capture, other two noted Thugs are reported as having been shot. He is now off in pursuit of the three sons of the late celebrated female Thug, Jugdamah, and other parties who have emigrated to the south, and who have turned their steps in a direction where they are little expected. Vallancey has captured ten noted Thugs within twenty months. ["Bombay"]
Sir John Kaye, whose book about the suppression of thuggee was published by the Christian Literature Society for India in 1897, goes to some lengths to justify the measures used against it, giving examples to prove that there was no other way to deal with the problem. These harsh measures were, he claimed, "warranted by the extraordinary character and the extreme enormity of the crime" (16). The result, he concluded, more than justified the means: to him, the suppression of thuggery was "a greater exploit than the conquest of Sindh or the Punjab, or the annexation of Pegu [Bago, the former name of an important city in Myanmar]; and the names of the commander of that little army of Thug-hunters and of his unflinching lieutenants, ought, in every History of India, to have honorable mention, and by every student of that history to be held in grateful remembrance" (17).
Efforts were made, too, to ensure that it would not re-emerge: "Through the instrumentality of Colonel Sleeman and one of his assistants, Lieutenant Brown, Schools of Industry were established at Jubbulpore [Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh], with the view of affording employment to adult approvers, and of educating their children — so that the little ones, instead of being initiated into the fearful mysteries of Thuggee, were trained to the understanding and the practice of useful trades, and the rising generation of professional murderers turned into industrious artisans" (Kaye 20-21). This kind of rehabilitation project was very much in line with Victorian beliefs. Christianity is not mentioned here, but (in view of Kaye's publishers, the Christian Literature Society for India) efforts at conversion would very likely have been part of the scheme. In such ways, the British reassured themselves that colonisation was not just to the advantage of the colonisers, but part of a civilising and proselytising mission.
Left: Reclaimed thugs (Kaye 19). Right: The Old Thug Prison, later a School of Industry, at Jubbulpore [Jabalpur] (Sleeman, James, facing p. 154).
Such was the interest in India, that all the publicity this phenomenon generated at home had a great effect on the literature of the time. Suvendrini Perera writes,
De Quincey was fascinated by it; Bulwer-Lytton suggested a “Thug romance” to a retired colonial official, Meadows Taylor, who published his Confessions of a Thug in 1839. Taylor's work, described by [Patrick] Brantlinger as “one of the great Victorian crime novels” (1988:87) was extremely successful. In the 1860s, literary interest in "thuggee" was revived by Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, which derives its gang of sinister Indian stranglers from Taylor. For years critics, including Edmund Wilson, have suggested that Dickens follows Collins in centering Edwin Drood around a “thuggee” murder. [113]
Interest in the subject continued well into the twentieth century: Sleeman's grandson Colonel James Sleeman wrote a highly dramatised account of the so-called cult in his book, Thug or a Million Murders, published in 1933.
There were debates at the time over interference with local customs, but, not surprisingly, clamping down on thuggee seems to have aroused none of the controversy provoked by the outlawing of suttee or widow-immolation. More significant has been the backlash, closer to our own times, by postcolonial critics who question earlier versions of the "history" of thuggee, and doubt the very existence of such an organised movement or cult. Mike Dash looks at both sides of the argument in the introduction to his book on the subject (see especially x-xiii). Was there really a "Chief Thug" with a numerous, linked following which adopted ritualistic methods of dispatch? If in fact there was no such cult or over-arching secret society, he asks, how was it that gangs in various widely separated locales operated in similar ways? Then, Dash points to the detailed contemporary confessions recounted by informers in Tuker's appendix 3 ("Thug Approvers"), and the numbers of victims whose bodies were recovered as a result. More damaging, and harder to answer, have been more recent claims, like Henry Schwarz's — not that thuggee itself was a fabrication, but that the British widened the net considerably to suit their own purposes, and coloured the various individual cases with notions of some ancient evil threat against society, which needed to be vigorously eradicated. "This is not to say that it was untrue per se, but that its representation as truth congealed many types of explanation for several different phenomena all at once" (Schwarz 57).
Whatever the facts here, and however exaggerated or manipulated they might have been, there is no doubt that the idea of thuggee really captured the British imagination. As well as inspiring certain fictional scenarios in the more sensational novels, it may have given the idea to robbers who practiced a certain kind of street crime called "garrotting" — half strangling a pedestrian from behind so that other members of a gang could snatch and run off with any valuables (White 337).
A cartoon in Punch by Charles Keene, suggesting a way to protect oneself from this kind of attack: "Mr. Temble Borrows a Hint from his Wife's Crinoline, and invents what he calls his 'Patent Anti-garotte Overcoat,' which places him completely out of Harm's Reach in his walks home from the City" (27 December 1856): 251).
More generally no doubt, the stories about thuggee played on fears of being ambushed by the unpredictable, including the "other" even within our own selves, adding to the sort of anxiety that permeated so much of late nineteenth-century fiction, fin de siècle culture generally, and even the whole genre of horror fiction which is still popular today.
Related Material
- The Judiciary and Legal System of British India in 1856
- The Fiend Breaks Loose: "Shadows," Doubles and Demons in London-based Fiction of the Late Nineteenth-century
Bibliography
"Bombay." Illustrated London News Vol. 2 (11 February 1843): 94. Internet Archive. Web. 24 May 2025.
Bulley, Anne. "Forbes, James (1749–1819), author and traveller." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Web. 25 May 2025.
Dash, Mike. Thug: The True Story of India's Murderous Religion. London: Granta Books, 2005.
Forbes, James. Oriental Memoirs: A Memoir of Seventeen Years Residence in India Vol. II of 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley, 1833. Internet Archive, from the Digital Library of India; JaiGyan. Web. 24 May 2025.
Kaye, John William. The Suppression of Thuggee and Dacoity. London and Madras: Christian Literature Society for India, 1897. Internet Archive, from Columbia University Libraries. Web. 24 May 2025.
Perera, Suvendrini. Reaches of Empire: The English Novel from Edgeworth to Dickens. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
Schwarz, Henry. Constructing th Criminal Tribe in Colonial India: Acting Like a Thief. Chichester, W. Sussex.: Wiley-Blackwel., 2010.
Sleeman, James L. Thug or a Million Murders. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1933. Internet Archive, from the Digital Library of India; JaiGyan. Web. 24 May 2025.
Sleeman, W.H. The Thugs or Phansigars of India: comprising a history of the rise and progress of that extraordinary fraternity of assassins. And a description of the system which it pursues, and of the measures which have been adopted by the supreme government of India for its suppression. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1839. Internet Archive, from the Wellcome Library Collection. Web. 24 May 2025.
Taylor, Philip Meadows. Confessions of a Thug. 1839. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.
"The Thugs." Illustrated London News Vol. 2 (18 February 1843): 114 (engraving on p.113). Internet Archive. Web. 24 May 2025.
Tuker, Sir Francis. The Yellow Scarf: The Story of the Life of Thuggee Sleeman. 1961 (Dent). London: White Lion, 1977.
Wagner, Kim A. Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Ward, W. A View of the History, Literature, and Religion, of the Hindoos [...] 2nd (abridged) ed. 2 vols. Vol. II. Serampore: The Mission Press, 1815. Internet Archive. Web. 24 May 2024.
Yule, Henry, and A. C. Burnell. Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary. 1886. Ware, Herts.: Wordsworth, 1996.
Created 24 May 2025