Current Affairs
Thuggee in British India
Why British India Thuggee in Current Affairs
section now?
·
In
September 2014, The Hindu review of a
book “Thuggee: Banditry and the British
in Early Nineteenth-Century India” by Kim A. Wagner.
Thuggee
in British India
|
Famous Person Vs Thugs
|
|
|
Hiuen
Tsang
|
Bandits
attacked his caravan near Ganges. Wanted to sacrifice him to their goddess.
(7th Cent)
|
|
Jalaluddin
Khilji
|
Expelled
~1000 thugs from Delhi (1920)
|
|
Kabir
|
Used
thugs as metaphors to show God’s deceit.
|
|
Nanak
|
His
Janamsakhi texts also mention thuggary.
|
|
Augrangzeb
|
Ordered
execution of Phansigar.
|
Who were these thugs?
·
Roamed
on highways. Trapped victims with drug-laced laddu, looted their belongings and
murdered.
· Main targets: Company sepoys, merchants and pilgrims.
· Looted horses and weapons given to local rulers for “protection”, and even bribed the city officials.
· Even used the loot, to repay their agriculture debt to Zamindars!
· Thugs came From all strata of society. They were not limited to a single caste or religion.
· Many of them were sepoys in Mughal army, who lost jobs under British Empire.
· Thuggee was a “seasonal occupation”. They left the village after the autumn harvest (Oct-Nov) and returned June-July before the rains.
· Main targets: Company sepoys, merchants and pilgrims.
· Looted horses and weapons given to local rulers for “protection”, and even bribed the city officials.
· Even used the loot, to repay their agriculture debt to Zamindars!
· Thugs came From all strata of society. They were not limited to a single caste or religion.
· Many of them were sepoys in Mughal army, who lost jobs under British Empire.
· Thuggee was a “seasonal occupation”. They left the village after the autumn harvest (Oct-Nov) and returned June-July before the rains.
|
How did British wiped out Thugs?
|
|
|
1810
|
East
India Company passed a regulation. If Zamindar did not inform the company
about thug activities, he’d be punished.
|
|
1830
|
Government
authorised Captain Sleeman to wipe out thugs.
|
|
1839
|
Captain
Sleeman succeeded but jailing and hanging most of the thugs.
|
Maharaja Nandakumar:
1st Whistleblower of British India
·
He
was a revenue officer under the Nawab of Bengal
·
Helped
British during Battle of Plassey (1757)
|
Year 1775
|
|
|
Nandakumar
|
Made
allegations that Governor General Hastings accepted bribes from Nawab and
others.
|
|
Hasting
|
No,
Nandakumar himself paying bribes to others, to malign my image!
|
- · Later, company officials arrange a ‘puppet’ Indian to file a forgery case against Nandakumar.
- · During that era, Indian vs. Indian cases were not to be heard by British judges.
- · But still a British judge presided over Nandakumar forgery case and awarded death sentence. (Curiously that judge was a close friend of Hastings)
- · Maharaja Nandakumar was hanged in full public view at the Hoogly river banks near Kolkata.
- · Edmund Burke, Lord Macaulay and other eminent British described Nandakumar’s hanging as a ‘judicial murder’.
- · Moral of the story: unless there is a whistleblower protection act, you shouldn’t take on your boss.
- · Why in news: His turban will be displayed in Kolkata’s Victoria’s hall.
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