The Thuggee Campaign

Abstract

On 19 November 1830 Smith submitted a ‘Plan for the eventual destruction of the association of Thugs which have of late infested Central India’, which he and Sleeman had worked out.¹ The plan consisted of the following main points:

• 1 An officer should be appointed Superintendent for the Suppression of Thugs whose sole task it was to seize, try and punish the thugs. He should be issued with a warrant valid in all of India under the British Government and authorised to follow and arrest thugs in independent states.

• 2 The Superintendent should commit the thugs for trial before the Agent of the Sagar and Narbada territories ‘without reference to the scene and locality of the outrage’ following the principles of Swinton’s letter of 23 October 1829.

• 3 The Superintendent should make out a list of all suspected thugs and copies of this should be transmitted to all British functionaries north of the Narbada.

• 4 Heavy penalties should be passed on heads of villages that harboured notorious thugs both within the Company’s and in foreign territories. The Superintendent should also be authorised to detain the wife and children of wanted thugs until he was seized.²

• 5 In order to prevent approvers and pardoned thugs helping their friends, they should be given residence in a place surrounded by walls and subject to imprisonment for life if they left these premises without permission.