Indian gangs of robbers and murderers (14th–19th centuries)
Thuggee
Group of Thugs around 1894
Founded
unknown, possibly early 1300s[1]
Named after
Sanskrit word for concealment
Founding location
Central India and Bengal
Years active
c. 14th century – late 19th century
Territory
Indian subcontinent
Membership
Unknown
Activities
Murder, robbery
Rivals
British Raj, merchants
Thuggee (UK: /θʌˈɡiː/, US: /ˈθʌɡi/) are actions and crimes carried out by Thugs, historically, organised gangs of professional robbers and murderers in India. The English word thug traces its roots to the Hindi ठग (ṭhag), which means 'swindler' or 'deceiver'. Related words are the verb thugna ('to deceive'), from the Sanskrit स्थग (sthaga 'cunning, sly, fraudulent') and स्थगति (sthagati, 'he conceals').[2] This term, describing the murder and robbery of travellers, was popular in the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent, especially the northern and eastern regions of India.[3]
Thugs were said to have travelled in groups across the Indian subcontinent,[3] and are said to have operated as gangs of highway robbers, tricking and later strangling their victims. To take advantage of their victims, the thugs would join travellers and gain their confidence, which would allow them to surprise and strangle the travellers with a handkerchief or noose.[4] They would then rob and bury their victims.[5] This led to the thugs being called Phansigar ("using a noose"), a term more commonly used in southern India.[6] During the 1830s, the thugs were targeted for eradication by the Governor-General of India, Lord William Bentinck, and his chief captain, William Henry Sleeman.
Contemporary scholarship is increasingly skeptical of the thuggee concept, and has questioned the existence of such a phenomenon,[7][8] which has led many historians to describe thuggee as the invention of the British colonial regime.[9]
^K. Wagner (2007). Thuggee: Banditry and the British in Early Nineteenth-Century India. Springer. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-230-59020-5.
^"Thugs". 1902encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
^ ab"Tracing India's cult of Thugs". 3 August 2003. Los Angeles Times.
^David Scott Katsan (2006). The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature, Volume 1. Oxford University Press. p. 141. ISBN 9780195169218.
^Rost 1911.
^R. V. Russell; R. B. H. Lai (1995). The tribes and castes of the central provinces of India. Asian Educational Services. p. 559. ISBN 978-81-206-0833-7. Retrieved 19 April 2011.
^Gámez-Fernández, Cristina M.; Dwivedi, Om P. (2014). Tabish Khair: Critical Perspectives. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443857888.
^Cite error: The named reference ReferenceA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^S. Shankar (2001). Textual Traffic: Colonialism, Modernity, and the Economy of the Text. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0791449929.
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