Indian thugs — British India — Thugs — 02
The Indian Thuggee in the 19th century carried on their killing spree with a well-defined Modes Operandi and, in a way, in terms of secrecy, use of code language, etc their decoity operations were more or less similar to those notorious American Mafiosi. The Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts 1836–48 were introduced in British India under the East India Company rule to put an end to the thuggee problem.
Above image: Al Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947)and the rise of the American Mafia; man for the people and a “Robin Hood” type figure, but he was far from it. Rather, he was responsible for the rise of a new culture of crime in the USA in the 1930s and 194os. He gained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. Quite famous for the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in which he killed 7 of his rivals on the same day….
Calling the ancient Indian thugs or thuggee of British colonial era as ancient Indian mafiosi may be a misnomer. However, in terms of extreme violence, and brutal savagery perpetrated by them, their modus operandi, family hereditary, criminal legacy etc, one can see a semblance of similarity between them and the modern day “American thuggee” who trace their ancestors to Palermo, a small town in Sicily, known for hardcore criminals. Almost all of them were hereditary thugs whose criminal activities were passed on from generations after generations. Old-era Indian thugs were sort of an old version of American hoodlums or syndicate groups or underworld mobs. Though the criminal activities of these ancient Indian families of thugs were altogether different, poorly organized and badly coordinated, one can find their close modern day representatives in Sicilian mafiosi from Palermo, Sicily or the “Mob” or the American mafia which is a secret American-Italian criminal society.
As already pointed out in the recent article on thugs, the word was coined during the British colonial time. Roughly 600 to 700 years ago they, it is believed, they moved across India in groups mainly indulging in criminal activities which were their main source of income. Rather than a group of petty thieves, they were a fraternity or a band of professional assassins with no scruples and no sympathy whatsoever. Murder, cheating, looting ,etc were part of their lives and they were good at them. There was no room for remorse or compassion when they are on duty. The victims were mostly travelers on a long journey in a caravan. Once a victim was chosen, looted and murdered,the thuggee would sometime dispose of the body in an abandoned well after stabbing the eyes of the murdered man. This was to get rid of identity.
The criminal activities, particularly in mid-west and on the north eastern parts of the USA were so overwhelming after 1930’s, the American press coined the name “National Crime Syndicate” to refer to the entire network of U.S. organized crime — mafia operations just the way the British first coined the word “thug” to refer to groups or tribes of hardcore Indian criminals of 1600’s and 1700s who were scattered in many remote places across India.Centuries ago, the wandering families of Indian thugs in the subcontinent did not have specific hereditary family names as American crime families of Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese, Bonanno and Colombo that function under their respective “Boss” or Boss of Bosses. Unlike American mafiosi, colonial Indian criminal tribes were migratory — thousands of people in groups changing places or regions, perhaps for new adventure and to stay at large! I wish some body like Mario Puzo (1920 -1999), the late American author and screen writer had written a book on the bloody Indian thugs of yore, their operations and how the British East India company officials tried to tackle them during their colonial period.
The Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts, 1836–48 were introduced in British India under East India Company rule. They were a series of legal acts that outlawed thuggee — a practice in North and Central India involving robbery and ritualized murder and mutilation of victims, especially travelers on highways — and dacoity, a form of banditry prevalent in the same region, and prescribed punishment for the same. Unfortunately, the British officials were in a fix as marking out the criminal tribes among other docile tribes was absolutely difficult because of ethnicity, similar culture and customs.On account of lack of discernible differences among the Good, the Bad and the Ugly tribes, the baffled British bosses came up with a quick fix solution by clubbing real criminals along with numerous innocent, law-abiding tribes and hilly people together under “THUG.”
During the time of Indian independence in 1947, there were 13 million people in 127 communities who faced constant surveillance, scrutiny, search and arrest without warrant, if any member of the group was loitering outside the prescribed areas. Through change of Acts in August, 1949, former “criminal tribes” were reclassified in 1952, when the Act was replaced with the Habitual Offenders Act, 1952 of Government of India, and in 1961 state government released lists of such tribes. Among a few hundred Indian tribes including nomadic groups, 198 were reclassified, however, the Habitual Offenders Act (an obsolete one) even today causes nightmares for 60 million plus people who come under tribal groups. These unfortunate people still carry the stigma and face economic hardships and alienation in the largest democratic country in the world, because both the police and the Indian media have a biased opinion about them, simply based on the past act first introduced by the British that wrongly lumped the law abiding tribes with the tribes of criminal thugs.
The innocent people, now carry slightly new altered tag -” Vimukta jaatis “ or the Ex-Criminal Tribes. “What a way for a group of innocent, illiterate Indian people to be classified as thugs ‘with out being thugs.”
Ref:
Dash, Mike Thug: the true story of India’s murderous cult ISBN 1–86207–604–9, 2005″
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee_and_Dacoity_Suppression_Acts,_1836%E2%80%9348
Tracing India’s cult of Thugs”. 3 August 2003. Los Angeles Times.
Originally published at http://navrangindia.wordpress.com on April 16, 2015: (modified June 20, 2020)
