Thugs of Hindustan

"The robbery and murder practiced by the Thugs in accordance with their ritual."

- Definition of thuggee from the Oxford dictionary.

The "thugs" were groups of professional assassins who had specialized themselves in the art of deceiving and killing travelers on the country roads during medieval India. The word thug is derived from the Hindi word "thag", which means thief or swindler, which itself is derived from the Sanskrit word "staghati", which means to conceal or deceive, and was coined to refer to the infamous and secretive cult of assassins in medieval India. The word "thug" was first mentioned in a book written during the reign of Delhi king Firoz Shah Tughlaq in the 13th century.

This cult is estimated to have been responsible for thousands of killings per year for over 4 centuries and continued to remain highly secretive until the 18th century, when the British in India decided to eradicate the thugs.

For the thugs, killing was both a way of life and religious duty. While both Muslims and Hindus were members of the cult, they worshiped goddess Kali, who is considered as the destroyer of demons. The thugs believed they had a religious duty to keep the balance between the good and the bad, and killings were considered to rid the earth of the unwanted humans. 

While the thugs were spread across a large area of the Indian sub-continent, there is evidence, that all Thuggee assassins were united by common superstitions and rituals, which led to the gang being branded a cult or sect. The fraternity possessed a jargon of their own (Ramasi), as well as certain signs by which its members recognized each other in the most remote parts of India. 

The thugs operated in groups, and targeted merchants or pilgrims traveling across country roads. The group's operations involved meticulous planning where scouts would identify potential targets from nearby cities and estimated the wealth being carried by the travelers. The thugs would intermingle with the travelers pretending to be another group of merchants or pilgrims, and would convince the victims to allow them to accompany them. They would often travel together for days and great distances to obtain the trust of their victims. Once they had obtained the trust, the thugs would wait for the right moment to strike, which was usually when the group was encamped, and in the night when the victims had finished their meal and would retire for the night, being at their least guard. 

Depiction of a group of thugs distracting a traveler before proceeding to strangulate him

Each member of the thuggee group was specialized in a skill and was allotted a resonsibility. Operating in groups of three, two members held the victim down while the third would strangle the victim. The stranglers were usually the most senior and experienced in the groups. There were others who had the task of keeping the victims distracted, while others kept guard to ensure no one escaped. The thugs prided themselves in ensuring 100% mortality for their targeted victims.

The thugs had a very strict code of ensuring no bloodshed during the killings and thus had developed the skill in strangulating the victim using a 'Rumal' or a cloth noose, which they carried around their waist. This also enabled them to travel without need to carry any weapons and ensure no suspicion is aroused when they interacted with the travelers. 

While sounding as indiscriminate killers, the thugs had their own code of ethics. The code forbade the killing of fakirs, musicians, dancers, sweepers, oil vendors, carpenters, blacksmiths, maimed or leprous persons, water-carriers, and women. Despite the restriction against the murder of females, however, the presence of wives traveling with their husbands often necessitated the strangling of a woman to protect the secrecy of the society. 

The thuggee profession was hereditary where the son learnt the art of deceit and murder from the father and then passed it to his son. It was a male dominated profession, though some of the female members were believed to have assisted in accompanying the male members to portray themselves as a regular family and gain the trust of the travelers. The female members never took part in the actual killings

The thugs, after the killings ensured that all the victims were buried and all visible evidence of the killings erased. Strict rituals were followed during the burial process. It is the practice of leaving no survivors and the burial of the victims, that the group continued to remain relatively unknown for hundreds of years. 

How the thugs came to be and remain relatively secretive needs some analysis of the events of medieval India. Let's me highlight some of these factors.

• The thugs were found mostly in the plains of northern and central India. This region had become a constant target of foreign invasions starting from the 10th century when the Islamic invasions began into India. The constant battles and mass executions of inhabitants resulted in severe strain on the economy and social life of the period. The practice of burning crops so as not to benefit the enemy (in military terms known as 'Scorched earth policy') also severely impacted the rural economy and resulted in long periods of famine.
• The religious persecution associated with the Afghan and Turkish invasions also had a severe impact of the population, when often entire villages were executed to force other villages to accept the suzerainty of the new king. 

It is believed that thugs originated as groups of people who found looting as a favourable alternative in the wake of the constant struggles suffered by them. Killing of the victims and burial of the bodies became as essential part of this trade to ensure their own secrecy and safety.

The thugs could not have continued such mass killings unless they enjoyed local protection. One of the probable reasons is that the loot from the killings was often shared with the local rulers to ensure that the thugs were not captured and prosecuted for their crimes.

It was only in the early 18th century when the British East India company, which had started consolidating its rule over India, became aware of the practice of thuggee. The finding of mass graves spread across the northern plains of India, and the exact same nature of killings made them realize that there was cult group responsible for these killings. An alternative explanation is that the Thugs had started to target the Indian troops of the East India company. The thugs considered such Indian troops as traitors, for they helped the British in defeating native Indian rulers. Alarmed by the disappearances of bands of company troops, the British had begun investigating the disappearances and that is when they became aware of the Thuggee cult.

The British in 1822 then formed an anti-thuggee police force under Henry Sleeman, an officer of the Bengal army. It was Sleeman who had confirmed the suspicion of growing murders to be the work of the thuggee cult. For Sleeman, the task of eradicating the thugs was complicated by their ability to remain highly secretive. Over the next decade, Sleeman's force developed a large informant network which was able to obtain information, leading to the capture of more than 3000 thugs. Many of these thugs were able to provide further information on other groups of thugs. This sustained action dealt a major blow to the thuggee cult and the cult ceased to exist within the next few decades.

Henry Sleeman of the Bengal Army

Their extreme secrecy combined with their mastery of murder made the Thugs the deadliest secret society in all of history.

Notes of Interest (Aug 2018):
My father, Dr. Rajiv Nigam mentioned some interesting facts after reading this article. I am pleased to add these here:
1) A village in the state of Madhya Pradesh is named as 'Sleemanabad' after Henry Sleeman for his work against Thuggee.
2) It is said the Sleeman's native indian servant belonged to the thuggee society and he was instrumental in providing key information on how the society operated and targeted people.
3) The code Thuggee's used to signal the killing of their targets was "Tambakhu Lao"which translates to get the tobacco. The use of tobacco was very popular in the 1800s and the victims would not suspect anything unusual. Since the thugs never left any survivors, very few knew about how they operated or signaled the attack.

Image and content references:

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/thuggeehttp://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/thuggees-cult-assassins-india-002145
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-thugs-of-india/