Thugs, India

The Strangled Traveler: Colonial Imaginings and the Thugs of India

Anthropology originated as a colonial discipline. Colonialist powers studied the cultures which they colonized for two-fold reasons. The first reason, is the belief that modernization and colonization would cause the extinction of that culture so; therefore, it was important to record their practices and beliefs for the historical record. The second and perhaps most controversial reason for a comprehensive study and analysis of the native culture, is that ethnographic inquiry is vehicle from which colonizers and can subdue and maintain power in different cultures. Implicit in this notion is that an understanding of the culture and social structure of a colonized state can be used by the colonizers as a subversive means to control indigenous people. A prime example of this theory is Nick Dirk's book Castes of Mind in which caste is presented as a colonial construction. The British used caste as a means to divide Indian society against itself, and therefore prevent any unified rebellion against British authority. Martine Van Woekens book lies within the same genre. She asserts that the Thugs were created as a deviant class within India society as a means for the British namely, Sleeman, to consolidate power.

In the initial chapter of the book, Woekens formulates a comparison better the Thuggs and other robber groups of the 19th century and the British colonialists. The British thought that they were conferred power by rational "natural laws" of society and social evolutions. Whereas the Thuggs believed that they were granted the power to kill through divine right and sacred edict of the Goddess Kali. The legitimacy of both groups' claim to power is necessarily called into question. As such, forces place both of these groups in distinct opposition with one another. In order to validate their claim to power through rationality, the British had to defeat those groups who were conferred power by "irrational" or non-Western forces as these groups come into direct conflict with the colonial paradigm.

"The vast territories that the Thugs were supposed to cover were actually those the empire wanted to possess and rule (57)." Thus the Thugs provided a legitimate reason for the colonial powers to suspend civil rights and extend military forces into independent states under the guise of maintaining order and protecting citizens from the evil menace of the Thugs. During the Thug scare, judicial process was suspended in order to promote expediency in removing the menace of the Thugs. This served to consolidate colonial power, as all that was needed to convict a Thug was a denunciation from another Thug. In the case of Thuggery direct evidence became unnecessary (86).

As distasteful as it may be to admit, William Sleeman was a pre-cursor to the modern anthropologist. His "scientific" study of the Thugs parallels the modern anthropologist's objective ethnographic studies. Sleeman felt that his works were totally objective, yet they had an obvious underlying colonial agenda. (218). Sleeman's example presents a distinct warning for the modern anthropologist as he truly believed in his own