Over the past three years I have heard the term “Thugs” used countless times in American politics, especially by our leaders:
Like Bush here:
The world changed on a terrible September morning. And since that day we have changed the world. Before September the 11th, Afghanistan served as the home base of al-Qaida, which trained and deployed thousands of killers to set up terror cells around the world, including our country. Today, Afghanistan is a rising democracy. (Applause.) Afghanistan is an ally in the war against these thugs. (Applause.) Many young girls now go to school in Afghanistan for the first time. (Applause.) Afghanistan is becoming free, and America and the world are safer for it. (Applause.)
or here:
At every stage of this process, before and after the transition to Iraqi sovereignty, the enemy is likely to be active and brutal. They know the stakes as well as we do. But our coalition is prepared, our will is strong, and neither Iraq’s new leadership nor the United States will be intimidated by thugs and assassins.
Or like Vice President Cheney here:
“As our opponents see it, the problem isn’t the thugs and murderers that we face, but our attitude,” he said. “Well, the American people know better. . . . Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed.”
The term “Thug” is a very common term now used to describe our enemies. The previous post by Vinod in fact uses it. However, the word “Thug” is just a word. It means nothing to me unless I understand it, just like the words “good” and “evil” have no meaning to me until I understand the proper context in which they are used. For those of you suffering the same lack of understanding as me, I thought I would take the time to investigate Thugs in the Dictionary. The word “Thug,” is derived from the Cult of Thugee:
The Thugee cult was devoted to Kali, the goddess of death and destruction. For hundreds of years the Thugee cult practiced an organized campaign of assassinations. Strangulation was the preferred method of choice. Thugees claimed tens of thousands of victims over a 300 year span. They would worm themselves into the confidence of wayfarers and when a favourable opportunity occurred, strangle them by throwing a handkerchief or noose around their necks. They then plundered and buried them, All this was done according to a certain ancient and rigidly prescribed forms and after the performance of special religious rites, in which the consecration to the pickax and the sacrifice of sugar formed a prominent part. Though sporadic attempts were made to the extinction of the gangs it was not till Lord Bentinck (governor general of India 1833-35) took vigorous steps that the system was seriously attacked. Between 1831-37 the British hanged nearly 4000 Thugees and the cult was presumed eradicated
If I listen to the news literally however, it seems the cult was not eradicated, but continue with their trade all around the world to this day.
The actual story of the Thugs is quite fascinating:
In 1816, an article appeared in the Madras Literary Gazette, authored by Dr. Robert C. Sherwood. Sherwood, like Sleeman, was well-versed in Hinduism, and had gotten wind of a mysterious society of assassins from a gang of suspects who had been arrested and then released by an unbelieving judge in Madras in 1815. SherwoodÂ’s article was the first major testimony confirming the existence of a cult which committed murder in the name of Kali, and it attracted SleemanÂ’s immediate attention. Among other things, Sherwood wrote:
While Europeans have journeyed through the extensive territories subject to the Government of Fort St. George, with a degree of security nowhere surpassed, the path of the native traveller has been beset with perils little known or suspected, into which numbers annually falling, have mysteriously disappeared, the victims of villains as subtle, rapacious and cruel as any who are to be met with in the records of human depravity. The Phansigars, or stranglers, are thus designated from the Hindustani word Phansi a noose. In the more northern parts of India, these murderers are called Thugs, signifying deceivers: in the Tamul language, they are called Ari Tulucar, or Mussulman noosers: in Canarese, Tanti Calleru, implying thieves, who use a wire or cat-gut noose…. Skilled in the arts of deception, Phansigars enter into conversation and insinuate themselves, by obsequious attentions, into the confidence of travellers of all descriptions…. When the Phansigars determine Â… to attack a traveller, they usually propose to him, under the specious plea of mutual safety or for the sake of society, to travel together Â… and on arriving at a convenient place and a fit opportunity presenting Â… one of the gang puts a rope or sash round the neck of the unfortunate persons, while others assist in depriving him of his life.
Thus an account of the Thugs, as they came to be known, and Thugee, their body of secret beliefs and practices, was first made available to outsiders. Perhaps not surprisingly, the account was all but ignored by British officialdom. Who could give credence to such extravagant rumors? And even if there was an element of truth to them, surely this was a matter for the Indians to resolve among themselves.
So the next time you hear the word “Thug,” think of your brown heritage.
Wikipedia has more on the Thugees & the fascinating efforts of a self-styled Elliot Ness –
The Wikipedia folks also assert that the Thuggee crackdown was a contributing cause to the original Sepoy Mutiny.
heh.
i remember way back when one of the first things I googled was “indian thug”. (i listen to a lot of rap).
and, voila:
http://www.sfsite.com/05a/ct80.htm
heh…sounds like a snoop track. In a very real sense, indians were the o.g.’s 🙂
Not all “Thugs are bad”
Some thugs are very nice towards president bush
I agree. Infact those who are interested in knowing more may want to read Radhika Singha’s ‘A Despotism of Law’ where she discusses the Thugee operation of 1830s in great detail. Infact, all these so called ‘definitions’ perpetuate the myth that thugs existed for hundreds of years and killed thousands of people. This is totally bogus. Singha shows that incidents of thugee are not found before the early ninteenth century and that it was not a hereditary ‘profession’. Indeed it was/is a racial invective if you probe deeper into its meaning and context.
i’m writing for a travel magazine about the durga puja festival (kali) i attended in october. the editor wants some info on thugee’s. but the fact that thousands of effigies of kali are drowned in the hooghly river and marauding pyschopaths went on a rampage some years ago is proving difficult to put together coherently. were they dong it in her honour.
Danny,
Let me first give you a background of who Kali is. As per hindu religious texts, KALI is an incarnation of the mother goddess Parvati, also called Durga (another demon slaying incarnation). She is the wife of Lord Shiva who is one of the principle gods of the hindu trinity of Brahma (the creator) Vishnu (the nurturer) and Shiva (the destroyer).
The famous blood thirsty pictures of kali with her tongue hanging out supporting a necklace made of seemingly human heads depicts a story in hindu mythology which talks about how Goddess Parvati assumed that horrific and angry shape to destroy the demons and evil who were tormenting good people in the world. The heads on the necklace you see are those of the demons she slaughtered. Legend has it that by the end of her crusade to root out evil she had become so powerful that the gods started worrying that she might end up destroying creation in her zeal. So Lord Shiva , her husband laid down prostrate in her path as she charged and when she stepped upon him , she was instantly calmed. (apparently for a hindu woman to touch her husband with her feet is not considered nice 🙂
Bengalis – being a matriarchial society, pray to DURGA not Kaali both being different incarnations of the same Goddess Parvati.
As per the hindu religion, there is no basis for treating Kali as a force of darkness. Infact it is totally opposite of what the religion meant it to be. It is likely that somewhere in the course of ancient history, the image of Kaali was hi-jacked from hindu religion by satanist or demonic cults who didn’t know nor care much about the background of the legend of kaali, and this was further excerbated by the British during their rule on India as it satisfied their need to find mysterious evil undercurrents within the indian society.
The submerging of Durga statues (not kaali statues – they look different) after Durga pooja follows the ancient hindu practice of submerging everything they consider holy in rivers which are also considered holy.
hope that helps.
thanks
Vishal
A good resource that tells a little about the Thugee even if it is a little over-dramatized is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I don’t know if the hot pits really happened, but it gives at least an idea of the Thugee cult. The 1979 Edition Guinness Book Of World Records states that Buhram, an Indian Thug strangled 931 victims from 1790 to 1840. Two million Indians were strangled at the hands of the Thugs from 1550 to 1853. The British raj stopped them later. This information in the book was under ‘The Most Prolific Murderers’.
-Paula
There is a song in America called THUG MOTIVATION 101. This is quite insidious. People brag about the “thug life”. There is a black market cult it the U.S. infiltrating the society- where lawlessness is encouraged over civil discourse and deliberation. I live in a city where crack cocaine is becoming a problem. The “Thugees” are reincarnating in a form in, unfortunately for me, as am African American, in my community.
According to the historians belonging to the oriental school. thugee seems to be a british creation. Infact this perception can be overruled, for in our families we have for long heard about their menace and the cruel way of their killings. In fact these men did not have any remorse and felt that they were doing a service to the Godess Bhavani, who had entrusted them with the duty. They were superstitious people and believed in a host of omens. Inspite of the hindu nature of the ceremonial practices, the muslims outnumbered the hindus in this profession and were more ardent in sacrifices and observances of the rules of the community.
They were spread all over the nation and there was a secret language in which they spoke the “Ramasee”, and they used to identify each other with the phrase “Salam Aleikum Ali Bhai”.
Horible as it was, yet the adnentures and the cunning of these people still can raise the hairs of any scholar.
w.h.sleeman done a great job by elimination of thugee in india.we will always remember his good work in our history forever.
anuj bala is also doing a great research work on w.h.sleeman.best of luck.
virendra singh
Way back in 1993 I wrote a series of articles in Crime and Detective, published from New Delhi. My theme was Crime in India through the ages. I researched many books mainly Sleeman’s and other British. There was no one from Indian community who wrote on this topic, of course there is a story set on Thugee by Mahasweta Devi, on which a Hindi Film Sangharsh starred by Dilip Kumar, Balraz Sahni and Sanjeev Kumar was made. I do believe that at a time Thugee was prevalent widely in central, western, and some parts of northern and southern India. Hindu pilgrims while travelling across India, was looted by organised gangs,but there is a doubt that whether it was a religious cult. Many dacoits of Chambal, and other parts of India, worship Shakta gods and goddesses, like Bhavani, Durga, Kali, or even Shiva. As other gods of Hinduism and Jainism Buddhism are non-violent, so they seek blessings from the violent gods in their own capacity. With the destruction of Mughal empire, there was widely prevalent lawlessness in the country. Moreover there was no Thana system of police administration in the country, which the British later established. Rulers, chieftains and kings of India were fighting to hold their sway of fill their pockets, they were financed by hundee bankers, and their loans were repaid from the loot money. So at those times of seventeenth-middle of nineteenth century any one could have organised gangs of thugs, and any one could have become thug. As the socio-economic conditions were bad, with frequent occurrences of famines and wars. There were also certain tribes who were later named at Criminal Tribes by British, who were nomads, and survived on crime as their hereditary profession. There are still a few tribes who still practice crime as their profession. Indian historians and writers never thought it a topic worthy of research, as they saw nothing unusual about it. We still have neo-thugs in new avatars in India. So who ever tours India, or travels India needs to be extra careful. These days a word Zaharkhurani has entered into our lexicon. Unsuspected rail and travellers are first befriended by fellow travellers, who later offer biscuits, chocolates, or any other drink and eatables, the unsuspected traveller gets drowsy of unconscious and his/her newfound takes away all the belongings, many often the traveller finds himself in a hospital. So while tourinb places like Benaras, Lucknow or other parts of India be extra careful.
I am interested in the reference to “Salam Aleikum Ali Bhai” as the thugs password. Salam Aleikum is Arabic for peace be with you. It doesn’t seem to make sense that the thugs would be speaking Arabic….
Just curious – did the thugee system prevail in undivided BENGAL ? I cannot come across any references for the same. It seems there were almost 2 miliion victims !!!
regads
Kali the prehistoric Black Goddess of the night, of darkness, deception and death was the goddess of the Quaraish tribe of Mecca originally, because a black meteorite fell there, an outrider of a clutch of them that struck Southern Arabia in prehistoric times. She has since been admitted to the Indian pantheon as an avatar (other representation) of Durga the Hindu Goddess of destruction. It was Kali who offered her followers who killed fifteen unbelievers seven virgins in the hereafter more than a thousand years before the birth of the Prophet Mohammed. She required her worshipers to lie to, steal from, harm, and best of all kill all unbelievers. In her day the next world was supposed to be the same as this one with just the nasty bits left out. By Mohammed’s day it was of course the soul that was believed to be immortal, and not the genitalia. He regarded himself as in the same tradition as “Nabi Issus” (the Profit Jesus). He was driven from Mecca when he refused to accept the goddess and her Wahabi practices. Wahabi, the sobriquet given the Quraishis by their nrighbouring tribes in prehistoric times is from Wa,fear (from shivering) ha, enjoying (compare hooray), bai (fleshed, in being, lifelong), terror enjoying lifelong, as we would say terrorists. The ka’aba was originally eliptical in shape and had no roof, only a wall to preserve the sacred site. The meteorite was enshrined at its splash down point, recognised as the Black Goddess’s calling card. It was a time when tribal gods were being onverted into One True Gods by their chosen peoples. Years later Mohammed was able to capture Mecca by surprise with an army from Medina, and declared an amnesty for all who would foresake Kali and worship Allah al Lahi, Allah the All Merciful instead. He reconsecrated the black meteoritefor the worship of Allah. After his deeath Meccan eldersw who had only pretended conversion, Kali style, set about introducing Kali’s rubrics into Islam. There has been this thousand year old heresy subtly introduced into Islam so long that “extremist” Imams can now preach Kali’s ways cf treating goys quite unaware they are worshiping Kali and not Allah at all. There can be no surcease of the warfare between East and West until genuine Islamists face up to this ingrained heresy within Islam and weed it out. it can not be done from outside. We can only point out the discrepancies between the Koran and Kali’s teachings. The first Caliphas (Kali’s Joy) carried Islam across North Africa and into Spain at the point of the sword, killing anyone refusing to abandon Egyptian and learn Arabic so the language was lost for a thousand years. Secret Kali worship also moved with Islam from Arabia to North India where in the fourteenth century those indulging in thuggi were expelled and went to Egypt. Expelled thence when they were found out again they went to Eastern Europe where they pretended to be Egyptians, so as not to break Kali’s rue of never telling the truth to goys, whence their name Gypsies. Eastern Europe was at that time under the Ottoman Turks who lumped all Westerners Rumi together as Rumi (Romans!). Whence Romanies. Modern day gypsies are ill-nformed about their past history but they follow Kali’s precepts, and so can not integrate, punishing goys by messing up facilities offered, and enjoying an unequalled reputationm as tealeafs. In Bagdad meanwhile Sunni terrorists have been putting out the eyes of the corpses of the Shias they have killed. This is the original signature of kali’s followers, thuggis in North India, as an oblation to Kali: “they did not see us coming, we deceived them as you commanded”. You can see records of thuggi practices in India spread across five hundred years, collected in the encyclopedia of Anglo Indian language and lore published as “Hobson Jobson” in 1883, republished recently, 1018 pages, by Colonel Yule and Doctor Burnell, ISBN 0-7100-2886-5, available on Amazon, pages 915 to 917, under “thug”.
I don’t know if thats true, Ld. Walsingham (an ironic name, btw), but it certainly has narrative appeal. Certain points I have seen indicated elsewhere, but none brought together so succintly. Perhaps yours is wild suuposition; I would very uch like to see more references, if you have them.