HOWZAT

There can be no doubt that it was, in the author’s words, an “industry of death”, wrought by practice and tradition to the highest pitch of efficiency. As in any traditional activity, too, there were rules and codes of observance to be maintained. It was forbidden to strangle a woman. Anyone travelling with a cow was allowed to go in peace. The maimed and the leprous were exempt. And no strangler could touch a fakir, musician or dancer. It was deemed unfortunate to select a poor man as the first victim, although economic as well as religious imperatives might seem to have determined that choice.

Of course, the rules were not always observed; women were killed, for fear that they would set off an alarm through the neighbourhood, and the maimed were also despatched. Nevertheless, it was still widely believed that these breaches of custom would bring ill luck upon the gangs.

By the later 1820s and early 1830s there were more arrests and trials. The Thugs’ principal adversary, however, was a Cornishman named William Sleeman. He had survived the rigours of the Indian climate, during which six out of seven officers died of dysentery, cholera or typhoid, and became the scourge of the gangs. He had served in one district of the sub-continent without realising that the bodies of one hundred travellers were buried on his local roads.

Once alerted to the presence of the Thugs, however, he became indefatigable in their pursuit. He managed to capture two large gangs and with the assistance of “approvers”, or informers, he picked up many more individuals. It is in fact a matter of surprise how quickly and easily Thugs became informers; cowardice may have played a part but there also seemed to be no sense of group loyalty. Whole gangs were also willing to move into government service, as though they were honourable mercenaries who could serve another cause. They were not murderers; they were soldiers.

The revelation of this previously unknown phenomenon, working silently and invisibly through the sub-continent, provoked a sensation. The public prints, in England and in India, were filled with stories of horrible murder. Sleeman proceeded methodically and thoroughly. He created the first police office in the world that relied upon records, maps, interrogations, and a “filing system” of great sophistication.

Sleeman’s methods worked admirably and he managed to capture some 4,500 of the Thugs, filling the courts and prisons to overflowing. It took ten years to destroy the Thugs, but his department remained in service until the dissolution of the Empire in 1947. His was considered at the time to be the triumph of rationality and order over traditional native practice, a victory for progress over primitivism and superstition. This is, of course, an unpalatable conclusion for many enlightened observers, and in recent years there have been attempts to rewrite the history of the Thugs. Thugee has been considered an English myth. The Thugs were rebelling against imperial rule. They were not part of a sacred cult, but a number of common thieves given the name of Thugs by racist magistrates intent upon imposing a concept of evil upon native customs.

Dash disagrees with this revisionism and restates with great clarity and eloquence the case for the brutality and inhumanity of the Thug gangs. He also leaves the reader in no doubt about the extent of their practice.

One question remains. Was this a religious cult that specialised in murder, or groups of stranglers who used religion to justify their crimes? Dash is good on the broad religious context of the group. He has a very interesting passage on the omens of the Thugs. The cry of a partridge at night was a sign of divine disfavour. The call of a baby owl was prelude to disaster. The Thugs believed themselves to be under the direct care and patronage of Kali and, in early years, they had left the bodies of their victims unburied so that the goddess could more easily feast on them.

But Dash cautions against any religious over-interpretation, particularly because it might cast a false glamour over the activities of these men. You cannot rule out the presence of human greed and cruelty, even if they are lent a ritual appearance. For those interested in the wilder shores of human experience, Thug is an invaluable guide.

Thug: The True Story of India’s Murderous Cult, by Mike Dash (Granta, £20; offer £16 plus £2.25 p&p)

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