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Sneak Preview Sneak Preview Confessions of a Thug Edited by Matthew Kaiser Included in this preview: • Copyright Page • Table of Contents • Excerpt of Chapter 1 For additional information on adopting this book for your class, please contact us at 800.200.3908 x71 or via e-mail at [email protected] Sneak Preview PHILIP MEADOWS TAYLOR Edited with an Introduction by Matthew Kaiser Harvard University Copyright © 2010 by Matthew Kaiser. All rights reserved. No part of this publica- tion may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereaft er invented, including photocopying, microfi lming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permission of University Readers, Inc. First published in the United States of America in 2010 by University Readers, Inc. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. Cover design by Monica Hui 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1609279-95-0 ONTENTS C Editor’s Introduction 1 Map of India in 1857 7 Confessions of a Thug 9 Appendix: “On the Th ugs” by Philip Meadows Taylor 543 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION N English, the word “thug” generally refers to a violent person or hardened criminal. Th e conceptual and lexical roots of “thug” can be traced to nineteenth- I century colonial India, to a period of British military and political expansion on the subcontinent. Of the numerous criminal gangs and secret societies that the British suppressed in India in the 1820s and 1830s, one in particular—a religious death cult that claimed the lives, according to some estimates, of 20,000 people an- nually—loomed large in the Indian popular imagination, becoming synonymous with thagi (robbery). Th e very existence of the Th ugs, who strangled and robbed their victims, was proof, to the British, of the incompetence and corruption of native law enforcement. To eradicate Th uggee, as the British called this mysterious sect, and validate the East India Company’s guarantees of economic and political stability, the Company tightened its administrative grip on India, transforming the Th ug into a powerful symbol of a dysfunctional and inscrutable land. Captain Philip Meadows Taylor’s Confessions of a Th ug—which takes the form of a deposition given by a captured Th ug to an unnamed British law enforcement offi cer—stands at the forefront of this reformist campaign to recast British impe- rialism as a political cure to India’s ills. An instant bestseller when it appeared in 1839, Taylor’s imperial “true-crime” novel was inspired by his work as Assistant Superintendent of Police in the southwestern districts in the Nizam’s Dominions. Th e novel alerted the British public to the existence of Th uggee and urged the government to allocate more resources to anti-Th uggee operations, which were underfunded and undermanned. Confessions of a Th ug also introduced “thug” into the English lexicon. Th at the novel was written by an imperial “insider,” a man who had interrogated actual Th ugs, gave it an aura of authenticity. With its alluring blend of Orientalism and documentary realism, Confessions of a Th ug became the most widely read, ideologically infl uential representation of India in English of the nine- teenth century. It sparked a craze in England for all things Th ug-related. While the novel is an unabashedly propagandistic work of British empire writing, presenting India as teeming with con artists and predators, it is also a politically courageous protest, as Taylor’s “Introduction” indicates, against those who have failed to keep the Indian population safe, against those in Britain who view Indians as exploit- able resources rather than people to protect. Th rough the eyes of Ameer Ali, who INTRODUCTION 1 2 INTRODUCTION confesses to strangling over seven hundred people, Taylor re-imagines India, mak- ing the case for a more humane, self-critical imperialism. What made the Th ugs especially dangerous, from a British perspective, was not the brutality with which they killed and robbed wayfarers; nor was it their disrup- tion of trade routes. It was their seductiveness, cunning, and charm: their ability to hide in plain view. From the Sanskrit sthag, “to conceal” or “to veil,” and from the Hindi thagna, “to deceive,” “to trick,” or “to swindle,” the word thag (pronounced tug) not only refers to a deceptive person but a cutthroat or trickster who gains the confi dence of his victims by extending the hand of friendship. Disguised as soldiers or merchants, Th ug inveiglers convinced unsuspecting travelers to join their well- armed caravans for protection against robbers. Once the omens proved propitious, the Th ugs strangled their victims, burying them in remote graves, occasionally dismembering or beheading the corpses. Because so much portable wealth—jewels, bullion, and silks—was transported on foot across India every day, Th ugs managed to steal vast sums of money and property, leaving behind little trace of their crimes. Th ough devotees of the Hindu goddess Kali (who is sometimes called Bhowanee or Devi), to whom their victims were nominally sacrifi ced, many Th ugs were devout Muslims, viewing Kali as an extension of Allah’s will. Th ugs attracted little attention from the British until 1829, when several mass graves were uncovered. Subsequent investigations by Taylor’s colleague and rival, Captain William Henry Sleeman, who, like Taylor, interrogated Th ugs and recorded their confessions, revealed the extent to which Th ugs colluded with native offi cials, or bribed dubious rajahs in exchange for protection. By the mid 1830s, in the wake of Sleeman’s discoveries, Th uggee appeared disturbingly ubiquitous, woven into the fabric of Indian society. As Confessions of a Th ug makes clear, many Th ugs were respectable men. Taylor’s narrator describes Ameer Ali as “more than gentlemanlike.” Some Th ugs were even prominent fi gures in their communities. If the Th ugs threatened to undermine the economic and political stability that the British sought to establish in India, they also presented them with a golden op- portunity to expand and consolidate their control of the country. Th e Th ug became a complex and contradictory symbol. He reminded the British that seductive India was not what it seemed, that friendship was seasonal, allegiances uncertain. He was proof of India’s backwardness and savagery. At the same time, however, the very existence of Th ugs, the ease with which they plied their trade, was a sign of Indian vulnerability, of the deadly threats faced by a country destabilized, in large part, by British interference. Th e decentralized state of the government in India, the di- lapidated condition of country roads and infrastructure, and the political chaos and INTRODUCTION 3 demographic upheaval triggered by British military incursions had contributed, some reformers argued, to the spread of Th uggee in the fi rst place. Th e Th ug was a symptom of a landscape in fl ux, of a country in need of centralized control. If the Th ug was proof of the inadequacy of native constabularies, he shamed the British, too, reminding them of their neglect of their Indian subjects. For decades, Th uggee had sprouted in jungly profusion behind the Company’s back. British representa- tions of Th uggee might be shaped by paranoid fantasies and xenophobic misin- formation about Indian culture; these representations are simultaneously informed by imperial soul-searching, by guilty projections, by debates within British society about one’s moral obligations to the people one subjugates. Th e Th ug is the shadow cast by Empire. Th e British government’s anti-Th uggee campaign, which reached its apex in the 1830s, and which Sleeman, to Taylor’s frustration, spearheaded, functioned in part as a public-relations campaign to convince the Indian and British populations of the benign and intrinsically just nature of the East India Company’s heavy-handed and costly presence in India. In suppressing Th uggee, imperial reformers like Governor- General Lord William Bentinck sought to rescue India, recasting themselves as India’s liberators and protectors, rather than its exploiters. If, as some historians suggest, British expansion had inadvertently accelerated the spread of Th uggee, then Britain would devote its energies, reformers insisted, to protecting its Indian subjects from the consequences of its antiquated model of imperialism. A rallying cry for further intervention, the fi gure of the Th ug had become by the late 1830s an opportunity for imperial redemption. Philip Meadows Taylor’s fascination with Th uggee began in 1829. As a twenty- year-old Assistant Superintendent of Police in the employ of the Nizam, a native prince under the military protection of the British, Taylor was confronted one morning with a gruesome discovery. Near a village in the southwestern district of the Nizam’s territories, hungry jackals or hyenas had succeeded in dragging two decomposing corpses from a newly-made grave. Th ough the bodies were partially eaten, their faces disfi gured, it was clear they had been strangled. Several more bodies were discovered nearby. Taylor began to investigate. His suspicions fell on a band of Muslim merchants who regularly passed through his district. Th ough it seemed unlikely these respectable traders—sellers of copper pots and silver orna- ments—had a hand in the murders, Taylor ordered his men to watch them closely. 4 INTRODUCTION To Taylor’s frustration, however, his investigations ended abruptly when the elderly Nizam died and the new Nizam, in a show of independence, terminated the employ- ment of all Europeans in his civil administration.
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