Re: [world-vedic] Did the British Save India?

03-21-2003, 02:25 PM

Dear guruji
You are highlighting only one side of ancient India but there are good things
also. It is better to forget the worst and remember the best.
a meber
Pl. read this story
There is an amusing story concerning Alexander, the Great. When hecame to India,
he found that the Indians were a race of brave,fearless people. He made friends
with them.When he was about to return to his country, he remembered that
hispeople had asked him to bring to them an Indian yogi. They had hearda lot
about yogis and were very desirous of seeing one, meeting him,hearing him speak
and receiving his blessings. Alexander was toldthat the yogis dwelt in the
forest.In quest of a yogi he went to a forest. Sure enough, he found onesitting
underneath a tree, in deep meditation. He waited patientlyuntil the yogi opened
his eyes.Reverently, Alexander requested the yogi to accompany him to
Greece,saying. "I will give you everything you need or ask for. But, pray,do
come with me. My people would love to meet you!"The yogi quietly answered, "I
need nothing, I am happy where I am!"This was the first time that anyone had
turned down Alexander'srequest. He could not control himself. He flew into a
rage.And unsheathing his sword, he thundered, "Do you know who is speakingto
you? I am the great king Alexander. If you will not listen to me.I shall kill
you- cut you into pieces!"Unperturbed, the yogi answered. "You cannot kill me!
You can onlykill my body. And I am not the body. I am that which dwells
within thebody!The yogi continued, "You say you are a king. May I tell you, who
youare? You are a slave of my slave!"Stunned. Alexander asked. "How am I a
slave of your slave?"In a voice tender with compassion, the yogi explained. "I
havemastered anger. Anger is my slave. See, how easily you gave way toanger.
You are a slave of anger, and, therefore, a slave of myslave!"Know ye not that
ye are the temple of God,And that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.Just as God
fills the whole world, so the soul fills the body.Just as God sees, but is not
seen, so the soul sees, but is not itself seen.Just as God feeds the whole
world, so the soul feeds the whole body.Just as God is pure, so the soul is
pure.Just as God dwells in the innermost precincts [of the Temple],So also the
soul dwells in the innermost part of the body.
----- Original Message -----
From: vrnparker
To: vediculture (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 8:27 AM
Subject: [world-vedic] Did the British Save India?
I AM POSTED THIS FOR INTEREST AND FEEDBACK. NOT THAT I BELIEVE IN THE VIEWS
EXPRESSED.VRN William Sleeman dedicated his life to the destruction of the Evil
Thugees and organized Dacoitry. One wonders if the Indians themselves would or
could have done the same.Conspiracy Unmasked!by Steve BontaOn a hot spring
morning in 1831, a strange company was encamped just outside the village of
Selohda, in northern India. Several large tents, a number of horses, and some
bullock carts contained the provisions for an English officer, a blue-eyed,
resolute gentleman in his early 40s, and his young French wife. Attending them
were more than a dozen Indian soldiers, or nujeebs, who kept careful watch over
a tall, well-built young Indian man with the bearing of nobility, who wore heavy
ankle shackles. A small crowd of curious villagers was also gathering.As the
morning sun began to heat the dusty tropical air, mynahs and parakeets
chattered in the mango trees growing around the camp. Insects busied themselves
around the crimson flame-of-the-forest blossoms. From one of the tents came the
sounds of breakfast being prepared.Yet the attention of the English officer was
distracted by none of these things. Instead he was quietly interrogating the
handsome young prisoner in fluent Hindi. After a few moments of discussion, the
prisoner pointed toward a patch of ground near where the horses were tethered.
At a command from the Englishman, the nujeebs began digging in the ground near
the horses.Within a few minutes, they made a grisly discovery: a human skeleton
with a few strips of tattered cloth clinging to otherwise bare bones. After a
few more spadefuls of earth were tossed aside, a second skeleton was uncovered,
lying beside the first. As the sun rose higher, the grim work continued, until
five skeletons had been exhumed from the shallow grave.The skeletons were, the
young prisoner revealed, the remains of five minor local police officials who
had been killed there seven years previously.Nor was this all. At a signal from
the prisoner, the nujeebs began digging at a new spot, near where several of the
ropes of the Englishman's tent had been staked into the powdery soil. Here seven
more skeletons were unearthed and laid out in the sun. These unfortunates, a
pundit and six attendants, had been murdered there more than a dozen years
before.By this time, the lovely young wife of the Englishman in command had
emerged from the tent where she had been preparing breakfast, drawn by the
gasps and horrified murmurs of the onlookers. She gazed on the macabre scene
without reaction, for this grim pageant had become for her all too familiar in
recent months.Now the tent itself was taken down, and the ground on which the
Englishman and his wife had slept the night before was turned over. Before
long, five more skeletons were exhumed, the remains of four Brahmins and a
woman, who had met their fate at about the same time as the pundit and his
attendants.By this time, the temperature in the mango grove had reached 105°
Fahrenheit, and the nujeebs were exhausted and dehydrated. Having done his best
to establish the identities of the 17 murder victims, which he carefully
recorded in his notebook, the English official ordered the nujeebs to rebury
the skeletons and break camp. By midday the party had moved on to a similar
grove a few miles down the road, where the gruesome labor resumed.The above
episode was typical of a remarkable and dramatic campaign, carried out in the
1820s and 1830s, to stamp out a terrifyingly ruthless and efficient secret
society of murderers whose depredations had made roads in India unsafe for
generations, yet whose very existence had gone unsuspected by most Indians and
British alike for centuries. The story of their detection and eventual
suppression by the British is a textbook case of the routing of an ancient,
entrenched conspiratorial enemy, and an instructive example for those who would
oppose conspiratorial forces at work today.India at the turn of the 19th century
was not much different from India in previous ages: a vast amalgam of castes,
religions, races, tongues, and tribes, overlain by a constantly shifting
checkerboard of principalities, feifdoms, enclaves, and territories controlled
by foreign interests. The British in particular had been gradually expanding
their colonial interests from trading ports originally established in the 17th
century — the great cities of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Like most outsiders
coming to India, the British were baffled by the vastness and complexity of this
strange country, coupled with the peculiar impenetrability for outsiders that
the Hindu caste system and associated social and religious practices conferred.
For the most part, India epitomized the exotic and mysterious East; those
Europeans who lived there for any length of time generally preferred to accept
the incomprehensibility of Indian society and remain aloof.There were a few
exceptions, however. Late in the 18th century, a brilliant young Englishman,
Sir William Jones, was appointed judge in Calcutta. Trained in classical
languages at Oxford as well as in the law, Jones became the first Western
scholar to recognize the relationship of Sanskrit, the classical language of
India, to Latin and Greek in Europe, and to suggest a common linguistic
ancestor. As a result of this discovery, the attention of many European
scholars was drawn to the vast literature in the Sanskrit language, and much of
the recondite lore of the Vedas, the Upanishads, and other ancient Hindu
writings became objects of study in the West. Yet a veil of secrecy and
exclusion still hung over much of India. For example, the fact had passed
almost unnoticed that, every year, for as long as anyone could remember, tens
of thousands of travelers disappeared without a trace on highways and waterways
throughout India.Rumors of a secret society of murderers in India were not
entirely a novelty, but given the impenetrability of Indian society, as well as
the activities of large groups of highwaymen and bandits (known as Dacoits and
Pindari), these rumors were not deemed worthy of official concern, and were
dismissed by the British. Even when a British officer named John Maunsell
vanished while en route to Agra in October 1812, no cry was raised. Yet this
indifference was about to change, and the agent of this change was an earnest,
sober-minded young English soldier named William Sleeman.William Henry Sleeman
was born in 1788 in Stratton, Cornwall. From a young age William wished to
serve abroad in the Army. He had studied both Arabic and Hindustani for three
years in England before reaching the minimum age for direct entry, and so was
already quite proficient in two difficult Oriental languages when he arrived in
Calcutta in October 1809. In the ensuing years, he learned several other
Oriental languages, including Persian and Gurkha. He also dedicated himself to
the task of mastering the complexities of the many sects and cults that made up
the confusing patchwork of Hinduism. In a few years, Sleeman had achieved a
unique perspective on India and her culture, a perspective he gained through
disciplined scholarship and a strong affection for the Indian people.Sleeman,
it should be noted, evinced no tendency to "go native," despite his sincere
love and respect for the Indians and their alien ways. He was noted, even as a
young man, for his avoidance of the vices that typically beset British soldiers
abroad: He drank very little, eventually abstaining completely, and had nothing
to do with the women of easy virtue who abounded in British Calcutta. He was by
all accounts an upright, principled, and dedicated soldier, qualities that would
serve him well in the trials that lay ahead.Even in his early years in India,
Sleeman must have wondered at the peculiar practices of those Hindus who
worshiped the goddess Kali, the dark consort of Shiva who is said to feed on
the blood of mortals and to haunt the burning-grounds (or ghats) where Hindus
are cremated. Her hideous image is to be seen in temples throughout India. She
is typically represented as black (one of her epithets, Kali Ma, means "black
mother"), many-armed, and garlanded with human skulls with a long red tongue
protruding from a screaming mouth. In temples dedicated to Kali, human
sacrifices were once carried out, though by Sleeman's time they had been
discontinued in favor of goats. Worshipers invoked her with the words:
"Terrific-faced Kali, holding a drawn sword and a noose and a club, wreathed
with human skulls, lean, emaciated, and terrible, wide-mouthed, tongue
dreadfully protruded, maddened, blood red-eyed, and filling the four quarters
of the globe with hideous cries...."Many devotees allowed themselves to be
suspended by hooks inserted into the muscles of their backs, a procedure that
is still practiced today. Indeed, the very name "Calcutta" is a shortened
version of "Kali Ghat," meaning "burning-ground of Kali."In association with
his study of Hinduism, Sleeman began to hear rumors of a terrible secret
society of Kali worshipers, old as India itself, who practiced ritual murder
and the spoliation of travelers. Already in the 17th century, one Thévenot, a
French traveler, had observed: "Though the road I have been speaking of from
Delhi to Agra be tolerable, yet hath it many inconveniences … one had best not
to suffer any body to come near one on the road. The cunningest robbers in the
world are in that country. They use a certain slip with a running noose, which
they can cast with so much sleight about a man's neck, when they are within
reach of him, that they never fail, so that they strangle him in a trice."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. Sherwood's article was the first major testimony confirming the existence
of a cult which committed murder in the name of Kali, and it attracted Sleeman'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 … 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 … and on arriving at a convenient place and
a fit opportunity presenting … 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.Sleeman, however, decided to dedicate his attention
to the detection and eradication of Thugee, all obstacles notwithstanding.
Before he could tackle the Thugs themselves, though, he faced a stone wall of
official indifference, disbelief, and outright opposition. He resolved to alter
his circumstances so as to have enough clout to make the system work in his
favor. Accordingly, he applied for a transfer from the Army to the Civil
Service, and was appointed in 1820 as junior assistant magistrate in the
northern territories of Saugor and Maratha.After two years, Sleeman was
appointed magistrate in charge of the Narsinghpur district. At last, equipped
with the authority of a magistrate, and backed by a force of more than a dozen
thanadars, or Indian policemen, William Sleeman had the authority and the
resources to enable him to pursue his long-anticipated campaign against the
Thugs. As he rode from town to town within his district to hear cases, he
gathered information on reports of bodies found in well shafts, ravines, and
dried-up riverbeds, all possessing the same types of cuts on the neck and
torso. For the most part, the corpses were quietly buried and grieving friends
and relatives maintained frightened silence.At first, natives were reluctant to
give information, suspecting the existence of a dreadful secret evil that would
silence any who tried to expose it. Years later, when Sleeman began to
appreciate the true scope of Thugee, he found out that, even as he traveled
about building his files and gathering information, the cunning killers were
plying their ghastly trade literally within yards of his own residence in
Narsinghpur. Emboldened by long immunity and a devilishly clever method of
killing without leaving evidence, the Thugs doubtless assumed that the upstart
foreigner would be easily thwarted.Bit by bit, Sleeman began to assemble a
detailed picture of Thugee and its practitioners. Thugee was primarily a
hereditary system associated with Hindus and Muslims that transcended both
religion and caste. As mentioned, it revolved around the fanatical worship of
the goddess Kali. While not all Kali devotees were Thugs, Sleeman estimated
that there were at least 5,000 Thugs in India. The cult was obviously ancient,
and Sleeman suggested that a cryptic mention in Herodotus of a people (the
Sagartians) in central Asia proficient in strangling with a cord might possibly
refer to a source of Thugee more than two millenia earlier. The Thugs themselves
believed that their activities were depicted in the eighth-century cave temple
carvings at Ellora, but such carvings have not been found. It is established,
however, that during the reign of Jalal-ud-din Khilji, the Sultan of Delhi,
towards the end of the 13th century, around a thousand Thugs were arrested and
deported from Delhi to Bengal. Early in the next century, a leading Thug named
Nizam-ud-din assisted in the repulsion of invaders in Delhi. Evidently by this
time Thugee was already a powerful, pervasive organization.The Thug method of
killing was strangulation, usually from behind the victim with a skillfully
handled yellow silk cloth called a rumal. The name "Thug" came from the Hindi
verb thaglana, "to deceive," and reflected the uncanny ability of Thugs to
befriend their intended victims and to lure them into a state of complacency
and vulnerability. As Sherwood had discovered, they usually did this by posing
as traveling merchants in search of security in numbers. Since roads in India
were perilous enough owing to bandits like the Pindari, most travelers were
only too eager to accept offers of respectable-looking companies to travel
together.Once a group of Thugs had insinuated itself into a company of
merchants, religious pilgrims, or even police officials, they would often
travel with them for days, earning trust and friendship. Should their intended
victims become suspicious of their intentions, and refuse to travel with them,
the Thugs often had backup groups who would conveniently meet the company of
travelers further on. One way or the other, once an individual had been marked
for murder, seldom did he escape the murderous hands of the Thugs.Thugs
typically chose the spot for murder ahead of time, and used certain groves,
called beles, repeatedly. When the location chosen for the killing was reached,
the Thugs waited until a predetermined moment, when every Thug was conveniently
positioned beside or behind his pre-appointed victim. A secret command, such as
"Bring tobacco!" was uttered, and, with practiced efficiency, the Thugs sprang
into action, casting their rumals around their victims' necks and garroting
them, swiftly and silently, from behind. Where victims were strong enough to
put up a struggle, three Thugs were typically employed, one to use the rumal,
and the other two to throw the victim on the ground, kicking him in the
genitalia to nullify resistance. Sometimes Thugs would assault a traveler
riding on horseback, yanking him from the saddle with uncommon skill, and then
dispatching him on the road. Whatever the individual circumstances of Thug
activities, the result was nearly always the same: a group of unsuspecting
travelers engaged one moment in pleasant, innocent conversation with charming
fellow travelers, and dead by strangulation and a broken neck the
next.Immediately after the murders had been carried out, the Thugs robbed the
bodies of their possessions and placed them in graves, which often had been dug
in advance. They characteristically cut deep gashes in the bodies to hasten
decomposition and thereby reduce the likelihood that jackals or other
carrion-eaters would find and uncover the evidence. Then they carried out the
tuponee, a sacrificial rite involving the consecration of a type of sugar and
the blessing of the sacred pickax or kussee, a totemic object that all Thug
gangs carried with them on their forays.What possible motivation could drive
such a horrific organization? Thug lore, as recounted by Sleeman, offered the
following rationale:Once on a time the world was infested with a monstrous
demon named Rukt Bij-dana, who devoured mankind as fast as they were created.
So gigantic was his stature, that the deepest pools of the ocean reached no
higher than his waist. This horrid prodigy Kali cut in twain with her sword,
but from every drop of blood that fell to the ground there sprang a new demon.
For some reason she went on destroying them, till the hellish brood multiplied
so fast that she waxed hot and weary with her endless task. She paused for a
while, and, from the sweat brushed off one of her arms, she created two men, to
whom she gave a rumal, or handkerchief, and commanded them to strangle the
demons. When they had slain them all, they offered to return the rumal, but the
goddess bade them keep it and transmit it to their posterity, with the
injunction to destroy all men who were not of their kindred.A tradition is
current among Thugs, that about the period of the commencement of the Kali Yug
[the 19th century], Kali co-operated with them so far as to relieve them of the
trouble of interring the dead bodies, by devouring them herself. On one
occasion, after destroying a traveller, the body, as usual, was left unburied;
and a novice, unguardedly looking behind him, saw the naked goddess in the act
of feasting upon it, half of it hanging out of her mouth. She, upon this,
declared that she would no longer devour those whom the Thugs slaughtered, but
she condescended to present them with one of her teeth for a pickaxe, a rib for
a knife, and the hem of her lower garment for a noose, and ordered them, for the
future, to cut and bury the bodies of whom they destroyed.A more hideous
mythology to justify the monstrous evil of Thugee can scarcely be
imagined.While he had learned a great deal about Thugee, Sleeman was for some
time unable to make much progress in bringing the Thugs to justice. The Thugs,
smugly secure in the belief that their dark benefactress would protect them,
continued to exact a terrible toll on India. It is now estimated that a few
thousand Thugs, a tiny minority by Indian standards, accounted for 30,000 to
40,000 deaths per year in India.But in the late 1820s, two pivotal events
changed the course of Sleeman's lonely crusade as well as his personal life.
The first, in 1828, was the appointment of Lord William Cavendish Bentinck as
governor-general of British India. Under Bentinck, proselytizing by Christian
missionaries in India, long opposed by a colonial regime studiously committed
to non-interference in cultural matters, was legalized. There followed an
official prohibition on the practice of suttee — the self-immolation of widows
on their husbands' funeral pyres — which had always been regarded as an
abomination by the British in India. With Bentinck in office, Sleeman at last
found a sympathetic ear for his plans for a concerted anti-Thug campaign.The
second significant event occurred in 1829, when, at the age of 41, Sleeman
married Amélie de Fontenne, the daughter of a French nobleman whom he had met
in Mauritius. Their marriage was by all accounts a devoted relationship. Amélie
came to share her husband's zeal for eradicating Thugee, and accompanied him on
many of his expeditions. Aside from the obvious dangers posed by the Thugs
themselves, these journeys would have tried the mettle of any human being, let
alone a young French woman accustomed to the comforts and sea breezes of
Mauritius. No one who has not experienced India firsthand can fully imagine the
snakes, leeches, mosquitoes, torrential rains, dust clouds, and, above all, the
searing heat that afflict all who live on the Subcontinent. Over time such
extremes bring disease, debilitation, demoralization, and death to foreigners
from gentler climes. By the time he was in his 40s, Sleeman had already been in
India 20 years, and had suffered from malaria and rheumatism. Yet despite all
this, by 1830 the Sleemans were aggressively pursuing the Thugs, rounding them
up in large groups and assembling mountains of new information on their
practices, beliefs, and genealogy.The plan Sleeman formulated was simple in
concept. Backed by the authority of the colonial government, he sent forth his
sepoys and nujeebs (both names for Indian soldiers) to arrest Thugs and
transport them to a prison facility in Saugor for eventual trial. He used
certain captured Thugs, termed "approvers," as informants to identify not only
other Thugs, but also the locations of the bodies of murdered victims. Knowing
that a death sentence was a likely alternative, more than a few leaders of Thug
gangs were willing to turn informer on their partners in crime. In this way,
what began as a trickle of arrests turned into a flood. Sleeman learned the
names of entire families who had practiced Thugee for generations. His work
expanded across India as Thug networks were arrested and imprisoned, from the
steamy jungles of the south to the borders of the Himalaya in the north.As he
questioned his Thug approvers, Sleeman discovered the name of the man said to
be the Prince of Thugee, one Feringeea, who lived in the independent state of
Gwalior, to the northeast of Narsinghpur. Having determined that Feringeea must
be apprehended, Sleeman sent an expedition to Gwalior. Feringeea, hearing that
he was pursued, fled his home scant hours before Sleeman's men closed in.
Frustrated, the sepoys arrested Feringeea's mother, wife, and child, whereupon
the Prince of Thugs gave up the game and allowed himself to be captured.Having
taken one of the leading figures in the Thug hierarchy, Sleeman had at last
turned the corner. Feringeea immediately offered to become an approver, and
cooperated thoroughly with Sleeman's efforts. He was by all accounts an
arresting figure: an aristocratic young man, tall, well-built, and charming. To
prove his good faith, he directed Sleeman to the mass graves outside Selohda,
mentioned at the beginning of this account. He was also, along with several
other captured Thugs, astonishingly candid, and responded willingly to all of
Sleeman's questions about Thugee. From Sleeman's interviews with Feringeea and
other Thug leaders, documented in his copious personal papers, there emerged a
remarkable, if shocking, picture of the dark, amoral existence of the Thugs.The
Thugs had developed a secret language, which they called Ramasee, enabling them
to converse amongst themselves and discuss their plans even in the presence of
outsiders. While some of the morphology, such as auxiliary verbs and infinitive
endings, were clearly Hindi, many of the words were of obscure origin. For
example, an adhoreea was someone who had escaped being murdered by the Thugs; a
bhurtote was a Thug who was a strangler per se, as Thugs were not permitted to
strangle until they had participated in many expeditions and had acquired the
requisite skill with the rumal; dhurdalna meant "to strangle"; a tonkal was a
party of people larger than a gang of Thugs could destroy; and thibana meant
"to cause travelers to sit down on some pretense, so they could be
murdered."Thugee completely transcended both religion and caste, normally
insurmountable barriers in Indian society. The following remarkable exchange,
which took place between Sleeman and a Muslim Thug named Sahib Khan, is
revealing in this connection:Sleeman: You are a Musulman?Khan: Yes, most of the
Thugs of the south are Musulmans.S: And you still marry; inherit; pray; eat and
drink according to the Koran; and your paradise is to be the paradise promised
by Mahommud?K: Yes, all, all.S: Has Bhowanee [Kali] been anywhere named in the
Koran?K: Nowhere.S: Then has Bhowanee anything to do with your paradise?K:
Nothing.S: She has no influence upon your future state?K: None.S: Does
Mahommud, your prophet, anywhere sanction crimes like yours; the murder in cold
blood of your fellow creatures for the sake of money?K: No.S: Does he not say
that such crimes will be punished by God in the next world?K: Yes.S: Then do
you never feel any dread of punishment hereafter?K: Never; we never murder
unless the omens are favourable; we consider favourable omens as the mandates
of the deity.S: What deity?K: Bhowanee.S: But Bhowanee, you say, has no
influence upon the welfare or otherwise of your soul hereafter?K: None, we
believe; but she influences our fates in this world and what she orders in this
world, we believe that God will not punish in the next.The omens mentioned by
the Muslim Thug are indicative of the world of meticulously observed rituals
and superstitions in which the Thugs lived. Every Thug expedition was planned
in careful consultation with omens and signs. The call of a crane betokened
good fortune, while owl calls were inauspicious. A wolf crossing the road from
left to right was a bad omen, but crossing from right to left was good. The
bark of a jackal was also a very bad sign.During the first week of an
expedition, Thugs were not allowed to bathe, shave, clean their teeth, have
sexual intercourse, wash their clothes, eat any animal food besides fish, or
dress any food in ghee (clarified butter). Throughout the course of their
travels, a company of Thugs kept a close eye on the signs and omens, certain of
which were considered so severe that they could cause the Thugs to instantly
leave an area or discontinue an expedition altogether.While Thugee was in part
a perverse expression of religious faith mingled with primitive superstition,
Thugs also were undoubtedly motivated by the immense potential for enrichment.
Thugs often targeted large caravans of merchants transporting gold, silver, and
jewels from one commercial center to another. Because of the secretive and
hereditary character of Thugee, most Thugs did not spend their ill-gotten gains
lavishly, but hoarded immense treasures that grew larger with each succeeding
generation. Most led double lives, their wives usually unaware of the purpose
of their frequent long forays away from home. (All Thugs were men, although
Sleeman did document a few cases of wives participating in Thug murders.) They
typically held occupations and even political offices that earned them respect
in their communities, and were as loyal and compassionate towards family and
friends as only upstanding citizens could be.This macabre masquerade had been
perpetuated across generations, as Thug fathers inducted their sons, by small
steps, into the mysteries of Thugee in their early teens. Typically sons were
first taken on a Thug safari, without being told anything as to its purpose. On
a subsequent outing, they were given to know that robbery was the objective.
Next they were allowed to view a strangulation. Finally, they were allowed to
participate in Thug activities in some limited degree, eventually acquiring the
rank of bhurtote, when they themselves became stranglers.Not all Thugs were born
into the brotherhood, however. Ample provision was made in the code of Thugee
for the recruitment and induction of outsiders. This was especially the case in
areas where the local political leadership was sympathetic to Thugs'
activities.Perhaps the most extraordinary trait shown by the Thugs captured by
Sleeman was the rank callousness they displayed as they candidly discussed the
details of their appalling crimes and then defended their conduct with the most
tortured reasoning imaginable. One Thug named Buhram gave this account of the
fruits of 40 years of Thugee as Sleeman questioned him:"Nine hundred and
thirty-one murders? Surely you can never have been guilty of such a
number?""Sahib," replied this courtly Thug, "there were many more, but I was so
intrigued in luring them to destruction that I ceased counting when certain of
my thousand victims.""Do you never feel remorse for murdering in cold blood,
and after the pretence of friendship, those whom you have beguiled into a false
sense of security?""Certainly not! Are you yourself not a shikari (big-game
hunter) and do you not enjoy the thrill of stalking, pitting your cunning
against that of an animal, and are you not pleased at seeing it dead at your
feet? So with the Thug, who regards the stalking of men as a higher form of
sport."For you, sahib, have but the instincts of the wild beasts to overcome,
whereas the Thug has to subdue the suspicions and fears of intelligent men and
women, often heavily armed and guarded, knowing that the roads are dangerous.
In other words, game for our hunting is defended from all points save those of
flattery and cunning."Can you not imagine the pleasure of overcoming such
protection during days of travel in their company, the joy of seeing suspicion
change to friendship, until that wonderful moment when the ruhmal completes the
shikar [hunt] — this soft ruhmal, which has ended the life of hundreds. Remorse,
sahib? Never! Joy and elation, often!"Judge Curwen Smith, who oversaw hundreds
of Thug trials at Saugor, reported in a letter to Lord William Bentinck an
almost overwhelming revulsion: "In all my experience in the judicial line for
upwards of twenty years I have never heard of such atrocities or presided over
such trials, such cold-blooded murder, such heart-rending scenes of distress
and misery, such base ingratitude, such total abandonment of every principle
which binds man to man, which softens the heart and elevates mankind above the
brute creation."A major impediment to Sleeman's efforts was the sympathy and
outright protection that Thugs often enjoyed from local political figures,
especially in territories not under British jurisdiction. Many nabobs saw in
the Thugs a way to acquire spoils indirectly, and shielded them from arrest and
persecution in return for ample remuneration. In the historical climate of
extreme corruption that plagues India even to this day, many Thug bands had
apparently enjoyed alliances with political powers for many generations. On
several occasions, when confronted with outright defiance from local officials
at his request to surrender known Thugs, Sleeman resorted to direct and
forceful response. In June 1831, the Raja of Jhansi, who occupied a
well-fortified castle on a hilltop defended by two cannons and at least a
thousand men, refused to surrender to Sleeman Thugs. In response, Sleeman
called on the resources of the Army, and the castle was attacked with artillery
and infantry. In the smoke and confusion, the Thugs managed to slip away, but
this erstwhile Thug sanctuary was leveled.More curious still were the shadowy
ties that existed between the Thug fraternity and certain prominent members of
the Indian banking community. One particularly wealthy and influential banker,
Dhunraj Seth, was relieved of a large shipment of gold and silver by Thug
marauders. Through his own agents, he quickly discovered the identity of the
Thugs responsible, and recovered much of his stolen wealth with the help of
Indian authorities. However, Sleeman discovered that this man actually had
close ties to the Thugs himself, and was attempting to become (or had succeeded
in becoming) a major financial backer of the Thugs. Sleeman wrote:It is
essentially necessary for the success of this or any other plan for the
suppression of Thugee that we should prevent Dhunraj Seth, the great banker of
Omrautee, or any of his partners or numerous agents from having communication
with the Thugs seized; or any attempts to indemnify themselves, to profit by
their murders, to effect their release by bribery, corruption, intrigue or
solicitation from all the native chiefs in whose dominions they have found them
imprisoned; and to send them again upon the roads with advances of money or
subsistence till fresh murders have brought them fresh treasure for
division.Had their attempts not been providentially checked by our operations I
declare before God that I believe that this House would have become the great
capitalists and patrons of murder from Lahore to Cape Comorin; and that the
price of blood would have flowed into their coffers from every road throughout
this enormous empire.Comments George Bruce, a modern authority on Thugee: "It
is tempting to wonder to what extent the Thug secret societies were dependent
on a central banking source for their working funds. Then, as now, bankers
worked in concert. It is possible therefore that Dhunraj Seth sought to get a
bigger share of Thug profits." Fortunately, Seth's major agent, Bearee Lal, was
arrested and imprisoned for collaborating with the Thugs.Throughout the 1830s,
hundreds of Thugs were imprisoned, dozens of gangs broken up, and the roads of
India were gradually becoming safe for travelers. Sleeman's method of using
Thug approvers yielded spectacular results. By 1838, Sleeman had captured and
tried a total of 3,266 Thugs, while several hundred more were in prison
awaiting trial. Many had been executed, while many more were serving life
sentences. By no means had all Thugs been brought to justice. Yet Sleeman had
effectively broken the back of Thugee by aggressively pursuing the leadership
and developing such a successful system of getting Thugs to finger other Thugs
that those who avoided capture were completely demoralized. The rigid,
fatalistic system of idolatry and superstition that had so sustained them over
the centuries now turned to their disadvantage, as droves of Thugs became
convinced that Kali no longer approved of their devotion, and surrendered in
many cases without a struggle.But the "river Thugs" posed a much greater
challenge. These particularly violent and ruthless Thugs, who plied their dark
trade on the Ganges River among the riverboat passengers, were probably the
direct descendants of the Thugs deported from Delhi by Sultan Jalal ud-din
Khilji in the 12th century. Unlike their land-bound brethren, they typically
strangled from the front and mutilated the sexual organs of their victims
before throwing their bodies into the river. Not only was the evidence of their
crimes usually washed away, but river Thugs were more reluctant to betray one
another. They were much more scrupulous in observing proscriptions in the
Thugee code of behavior, such as the prohibition on the murder of women. Their
devotion to Kali and to Thugee was absolute and unshakable.In spite of these
difficulties, however, Sleeman and his agents eventually cracked the river Thug
network, bringing to an end the last redoubt of the Thug conspiracy. During the
course of 1840 and 1841, a series of letters from magistrates across India
revealed that, for the first time anyone could remember, no bodies of strangled
travelers had been found in any of their districts. Thugee as an active force
had become extinct.Throughout the 1840s Sleeman worked on the suppression of
various gangs of Dacoits, though with less successful results. After four
decades in India devoted to stamping out an ancient evil against seemingly
impossible odds, Sleeman must have begun to long for the cool sea breezes and
the quiet cottages and gardens of his long-ago boyhood home in Cornwall.
Finally, in 1856, he and his wife Amélie set sail for England, where Sleeman
doubtless anticipated a well-deserved retirement. But it was not to be. After
nine days at sea, Sleeman died of heart failure and was buried at sea off the
coast of Ceylon.William Sleeman's life was an odyssey of tremendous sacrifice
and determination, sustained by sound scholarship, an irreproachable character,
and a love for the people he served. More importantly for today, his life and
methods provide instructive examples for modern patriots who would fight the
conspiratorial evils that threaten us.The history of secret societies and
conspiratorial organizations seldom offers much cause for optimism as to the
likelihood of their exposure and defeat. Their existence and influence are
generally marginalized or denied outright by "responsible" scholarship. Yet in
Thugee there is solid documentation of an immensely powerful and widespread
secret society that lasted for at least 600 years, with possible evidence for
much greater antiquity. This in itself is quite significant, inasmuch as the
Western view of conspiratorial organizations, when their existence is
acknowledged at all, is that they are typically of brief duration and
negligible influence.Moreover, on those rare occasions when conspiracies and
combinations have been exposed, they have all too often succeeded in merely
going underground, metamorphosing and emerging anew after a "decent" interval,
to resume their subversive, murderous activities. This apparently was the case
with the Cathars, the Templars, the Bavarian Illuminati, and, of course, with
the American communists and their sponsors following the McCarthy era.Yet the
history of the successful British detection and suppression of the Thugs is a
significant exception to a generally disappointing record. It is in fact, as
has been demonstrated, largely the tale of a single courageous, principled man,
who literally gave his life to exposing and wiping out this extraordinarily
successful secret society, whose very existence was unknown to the British for
the first two centuries of their commercial and colonial relationship with
India.Sleeman's example illustrates the proper way to fight a conspiracy.
First, gather evidence to educate the people, especially those wielding legal
and political authority, and so expose it. Then, enlist the aid of good men and
women to uproot and destroy the conspiratorial organization. It is doubtful that
Sleeman could have achieved his aims without the support of his wife Amélie,
Governor-General Bentinck, and, most especially, the valiant sepoys and nujeebs
in his employ, whose courage Sleeman frequently praised.The methods Sleeman used
sometimes caused him misgivings, since they relied on granting leniency to
hardened killers in order to expose the Thug network. Sleeman struggled often
with the inadequacy of human justice in this regard. Yet human justice
frequently falls short of the mark. In a struggle against a combined enemy, the
most important priority is to expose and capture the leadership in order to
disrupt the organizational structure and sow demoralization in the ranks of its
membership.Sleeman's example also teaches us the value of character in such a
struggle. In addition to the evidences of good character previously mentioned,
he was a religious man, though, excepting his righteous indignation at Thugee
abominations, he was unusually tolerant of native customs and beliefs. We
suppose that his extraordinary perseverance in the face of great adversity and
personal danger was a direct outgrowth of his upright, moral, and religious
disposition.We, therefore, must also strive to be men and women of character
and dedication as we confront a modern conspiracy that has assumed far greater
scope and power than the Thugs of long ago. We must seek to better educate
ourselves, to arm ourselves with the truth about the enemy that confronts us.
Above all, we must be willing to persevere and endure ridicule and harassment,
and to make whatever sacrifices necessary to bring the Insiders outside and
expose their secret crimes and devious designs. This is an information resource
and discussion group for people interested in the World's Ancient Vedic Culture,
with a focus on its historical, archeological and scientific aspects. Also
topics about India, Hinduism, God, and other aspects of World Culture are
welcome.Remember, Vedic Culture is not an artificial imposition, but is the
natural state of a society that is in harmony with God and the environment.Om
Shantih, Harih OmYour use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
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