Thuggee

Thuggee
Group of Thugs around 1894
Foundedunknown, possibly early 1300s[1]
Named afterSanskrit word for concealment
Founding locationCentral India and Bengal
Years activec. 14th century – late 19th century
TerritoryIndian subcontinent
MembershipUnknown
ActivitiesMurder, robbery
RivalsBritish Raj, merchants

Thuggee (UK: /θʌˈɡ/, US: /ˈθʌɡi/) were historical organised gangs of professional robbers and murderers in India. They were said to have travelled in groups across the Indian subcontinent.[2]

They usually murdered their victims by strangling using a handkerchief as a tool.[3] The Thuggee were believed to practice their killings as a form of worship toward the goddess Kali.[4] For centuries the authorities of Indian subcontinent such as the Khalji dynasty,[5] the Mughal Empire,[1] and the British Raj attempted to curtail the criminal activities of the Thuggee during their rules.[6]

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]

  1. ^ a b Wagner 2007, p. 26.
  2. ^ "Tracing India's cult of Thugs". 3 August 2003. Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference David Scott Katsan 2006 141 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Will Sweetman, Aditya Malik was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Martine van Woerkens 2002 110 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Wagner 2007, p. 7.
  7. ^ Gámez-Fernández, Cristina M.; Dwivedi, Om P. (2014). Tabish Khair: Critical Perspectives. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443857888.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference ReferenceA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ S. Shankar (2001). Textual Traffic: Colonialism, Modernity, and the Economy of the Text. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0791449929.

© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search