Kitabı oku: «Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official», sayfa 42
He who can suppose that men so inadequately paid, who have no promotion to look forward to, and feel no security in their tenure of office, and consequently no hope of a provision for old age, will be zealous and honest in the discharge of their duties, must be very imperfectly acquainted with human nature—with the motives by which men are influenced all over the world. Indeed, no man does in reality suppose so; on the contrary, every man knows that the same motives actuate public servants in India as elsewhere. We have acted successfully upon this knowledge in all other branches of the public service, and shall, I trust, at no distant period act upon the same in that of the police; and then, and not till then, can it prove to the people what we must all wish it to be, a blessing.
The European magistrate of a district has, perhaps, a million of people to look after.1140 The native officers next under him are the Thānadārs of the different subdivisions of the district, containing each many towns and villages, with a population of perhaps one hundred thousand people. These officers have no grade to look forward to, and get a salary of twenty-five rupees a month each.1141
They cannot possibly do their duties unless they keep each a couple of horses or ponies, with servants to attend to them; indeed, they are told so by every magistrate who cares about the peace of his district. The people, seeing how much we expect from the Thānadār, and how little we give him, submit to his demands for contribution without a murmur, and consider almost any demand venial from a man so employed and paid. They are confounded at our inconsistency, and say, where they dare to speak their minds, 'We see you giving high salaries and high prospects of advancement to men who have nothing on earth to do but to collect your revenues and to decide our disputes about pounds, shillings, and pence, which we used to decide much better among ourselves when we had no other court but that of our elders to appeal to; while those who are to protect life and property, to keep peace over the land, and enable the industrious to work in security, maintain their families and pay the government revenue, are left without any prospect of rising, and almost without any pay at all.'
There is really nothing in our rule in India which strikes the people so much as this glaring inconsistency, the evil effects of which are so great and so manifest. The only way to remedy the evil is to give the police what the other branches of the public service already enjoy—a feeling of security in the tenure of office, a higher rate of salary, and, above all, a gradation of rank which shall afford a prospect of rising to those who discharge their duties ably and honestly. For this purpose all that is required is the interposition of an officer between the Thānadār and the magistrate, in the same way as the Sadr Amīn is now interposed between the Munsif and the Judge.1142 On an average there are, perhaps, twelve Thānas, or police subdivisions, in each district, and one such officer to every four Thānas would be sufficient for all purposes. The Governor-General who shall confer this boon on the people of India will assuredly be hailed as one of their greatest benefactors.1143 I should, I believe, speak within bounds when I say that the Thānadārs throughout the country give at present more than all the money which they receive in avowed salaries from government as a share of indirect perquisites to the native officers of the magistrate's court, who have to send their reports to them, and communicate their orders, and prepare the cases of the prisoners they may send in for commitment to the Sessions courts.1144 The intermediate officers here proposed would obviate all this; they would be to the magistrate at once the tapis of Prince Husain and the telescope of Prince Ali—media that would enable them to be everywhere and see everything.
I may here seem to be 'travelling beyond the record', but it is not so. In treating on the spirit of military discipline in our native army I advocate, as much as in me lies, the great general principle upon which rests, I think, not only our power in India, but what is more, the justification of that power. It is our wish, as it is our interest, to give to the Hindoos and Muhammadans a liberal share in all the duties of administration, in all offices, civil and military, and to show the people in general the incalculable advantages of a strong and settled government, which can secure life, property, and character, and the free enjoyment of all their blessings throughout the land; and give to those who perform duties as public servants ably and honestly a sure prospect of rising by gradation, a feeling of security in their tenure of office, a liberal salary while they serve, and a respectable provision for old age.
It is by a steady adherence to these principles that the Indian Civil Service has been raised to its present high character for integrity and ability; and the native army made what it really is, faithful and devoted to its rulers, and ready to serve them in any quarter of the world.1145 I deprecate any innovation upon these principles in the branches of the public service to which they have already been applied with such eminent success; and I advocate their extension to all other branches as the surest means of making them what they ought and what we must all most fervently wish them to be.
The native officers of our judicial and revenue establishments, or of our native army, are everywhere a bond of union between the governing and the governed.1146 Discharging everywhere honestly and ably their duties to their employers, they tend everywhere to secure to them the respect and affection of the people. His Highness Muhammad S'aīd Khān, the reigning Nawāb of Rāmpur, still talks with pride of the days when he was one of our Deputy Collectors in the adjoining district of Badāon, and of the useful knowledge he acquired in that office.1147 He has still one brother a Sadr Amīn in the district of Mainpurī, and another a Deputy Collector in the Hamīrpur District; and neither would resign his situation under the Honourable Company to take office in Rāmpur at three times the rate of salary, when invited to do so on the accession of the eldest brother to the 'masnad'. What they now enjoy they owe to their own industry and integrity; and they are proud to serve a government which supplies them with so many motives for honest exertion, and leaves them nothing to fear, as long as they exert themselves honestly. To be in a situation which it is generally understood that none but honest and able men can fill1148 is of itself a source of pride, and the sons of native princes and men of rank, both Hindoo and Muhammadan, everywhere prefer taking office in our judicial and revenue establishments to serving under native rulers, where everything depends entirely upon the favour or frown of men in power, and ability, industry, and integrity can secure nothing.1149
APPENDIX
THUGGEE, AND THE PART TAKEN IN ITS SUPPRESSION BY GENERAL SIR W. H. SLEEMAN, K.C.B
NOTE BY CAPTAIN J. L. SLEEMAN, ROYAL SUSSEX REGIMENT
The religion of murder known as 'Thuggee' was established in India some centuries before the British Government first became aware of its existence, It is remarkable that, after an intercourse with India of nearly two centuries, and the exercise of sovereignty over a large part of the country for no inconsiderable period, the English should have been so ignorant of the existence and habits of a body so dangerous to the public peace. The name 'Thug' signifies a 'Deceiver', and it will be generally admitted that this term was well earned.1150 There is reason to believe that between 1799 and 1808 the practice of 'Thuggee' (Thagī) reached its height and that thousands of persons were annually destroyed by its disciples. It is interesting to note the legendary origin of this strange and horrible religion: In remote ages a demon infested the earth and devoured mankind as soon as created. The world was thus left unpeopled, until the goddess of the Thugs (Dēvī or Kālī) came to the rescue. She attacked the demon, and cut him down; but from every drop of his blood another demon arose; and though the goddess continued to cut down these rising demons, fresh broods of demons sprang from their blood, as from that of their progenitors; and the diabolical race consequently multiplied with fearful rapidity. At length, fatigued and disheartened, the goddess found it necessary to change her tactics. Accordingly, relinquishing all personal efforts for their suppression, she formed two men from perspiration brushed from her arms. To each of these men she gave a handkerchief, and with these the two assistants of the goddess were commanded to put all the demons to death without shedding a drop of blood. Her commands were immediately obeyed; and the demons were all strangled. Having strangled all the demons, the two men offered to return the handkerchiefs; but the goddess desired that they should retain them, not merely as memorials of their heroism, but as the implements of a lucrative trade in which their descendants were to labour and thrive. They were in fact commanded to strangle men as they had strangled demons.
Several generations passed before Thuggee became practised as a profession—probably for the same reason that a sportsman allows game to accumulate—but in due time it was abundantly exercised. Thus, according to the creed of the Thug, did their order arise, and thus originated their mode of operation.
The profession of a Thug, like almost everything in India, became hereditary, the fraternity, however, receiving occasional reinforcements from strangers, but these were admitted with great caution, and seldom after they had attained mature age. The Thugs were usually men seemingly occupied in most respectable and often in most responsible positions. Annually these outwardly respectable citizens and tradesmen would take the road, and sacrifice a multitude of victims for the sake of their religion and pecuniary gain. The Thug bands would assemble at fixed places of rendezvous, and before commencing their expeditions much strange ceremony had to be gone through. A sacred pickaxe was the emblem of their faith: its fashioning was wrought with quaint rites and its custody was a matter of great moment. Its point was supposed to indicate the line of route propitious to the disciples of the goddess, and it was credited with other powers equally marvellous. The brute creation afforded a vast fund of instruction upon every proceeding. The ass, jackal, wolf, deer, hare, dog, cat, owl, kite, crow, partridge, jay, and lizard, all served to furnish good or bad omens to a Thug on the war-path. For the first week of the expedition fasting and general discomfort were insisted on, unless the first murder took place within that period. Women were never murdered unless their slaughter was unavoidable (i.e. when they were thought to suspect the cause of the disappearance of their men-folk). Children of the murdered were often adopted by the Thugs, and the boys were initiated in due course in the horrid rites of Thuggee. Men skilled in the practice of digging and concealing graves were always attached to each Thug gang. These were able to prepare graves in anticipation of a murder, and to effectually conceal all trace of the crime after they were occupied. To assist the grave-diggers in this duty all roads used by Thugs had selected places upon them at which murders were always carried out if possible. The Thugs would speak of such places with the same affection and enthusiasm as other men would of the most delightful scenes of their early life.
It was these people, versed in deceit and surrounded by a thousand obstacles to conviction, that General Sir W. H. Sleeman so nobly set out to exterminate. Within seven years of his first commencing the suppression of Thuggee it had practically ceased to exist as a religion; and he had the privilege of seeing it entirely suppressed as such before giving up this work for the Residentship at Lucknow.
He was described when taking over the latter appointment as follows: 'He had served in India nearly forty years. His work had been of the best. He had done more than any one to suppress 'Thuggee' finally, and had a knowledge of the Indian character and language possessed by very few. He was personally popular with all classes of Indians, and respected, feared, and trusted by all.'
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES BY THE EDITOR
Captain J. L. Sleeman, who had intended to contribute an account in some detail of his grandfather's operations for the suppression of Thuggee, has been ordered on active service, and consequently has been unable to write more than the short note printed above.
The editor thinks it desirable to supplement Captain Sleeman's observations by certain additional remarks.
The earliest historical notice of Thuggee appears to be the statement in the History of Fīrōz Shāh Tughlak (1351-88) by a contemporary author that at some time or other in the reign of that sovereign about one thousand Thugs were arrested in Delhi, on the denunciation of an informer. The Sultan, with misplaced clemency, refused to sanction the execution of any of the prisoners, whom he shipped off to Lakhnauti or Gaur in Bengal, where they were let loose. (Elliot and Dowson, Hist. of India, iii. 141.) That absurd proceeding may well have been the origin of the system of river Thuggee in Bengal, which possibly may be still practised.
The next mention of Thugs refers to the reign of Akbar (1556- 1605). Both Meadows Taylor and Balfour affirm that many Thugs were then executed, and according to Balfour, they numbered five hundred and belonged to the Etawah District, I have not succeeded in finding any mention of the fact in the histories of Akbar—the memory of the event may be preserved only by oral tradition. Etawah, between the Ganges and Jumna, in the province of Agra, has always been notorious for Thuggee and cognate crime.
In the year 1666, towards the close of Shahjahān's reign, the traveller de Thevenot noted that the road between Delhi and Agra was infested by Thugs. His words are:
'The cunningest Robbers in the World are in that Countrey. They use a certain slip with a running-noose, which they can cast with so much slight about a Man's Neck, when they are within reach of him, that they never fail; so that they strangle him in a trice.' (English transl., 1686, Part III, p. 41.)
After the capture of Seringapatam in 1799 the attention of the Company's government was drawn to the prevalence of Thuggee. In 1810 the bodies of thirty victims were found in wells between the Ganges and Jumna, and in 1816 Dr. Sherwood published a paper entitled 'On the Murderers called Phānsigars', sc. 'stranglers', in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, which was reprinted in Asiatic Researches, vol. xiii (1820). Various officers then made unsystematic efforts to suppress the stranglers, but effectual operations were deferred until 1829. During the years 1881 and 1832 the existence of the Thug organization became generally known, and intense excitement was aroused throughout India. The Konkan, or narrow strip of lowlands between the Western Ghāts and the sea, was the only region in the empire not infested by the Thugs. (See H. H. Wilson in supplement to Mill, Hist. of British India, ed. 1858, vol. ix, p. 213; Balfour, Cyclopaedia of India, 3rd ed., 1885, s.v. Thug; and Crooke, Things Indian, Murray, 1906, s.v. Thuggee.)
The records summarized above prove that the Thug organization existed continuously on a large scale from the early part of the fourteenth century until Sir William Sleeman's time, that is to say, for more than five centuries. In all probability its origin was much more ancient, but records are lacking. It is said that a sculpture representing a Thug strangulation exists among the sculptures at Ellora executed in the eighth century. No such sculpture, however, is mentioned in the detailed account of the Ellora caves by Dr. Burgess.
The magnitude of the organization with which Sleeman grappled is indicated by the following figures.
During the years 1831-7 3,266 Thugs were disposed of one way or another, of whom 412 were hanged, and 483 were admitted as approvers. Amīr Alī, whose confessions are recorded in Meadows Taylor's fascinating book, The Confessions of a Thug, written in 1837 and first published in 1839, proudly admitted having taken part in the murders of 719 persons, and regretted that an interruption of his career by twelve years' imprisonment in Oudh had prevented him from completing a full thousand of victims. He regarded his profession as affording sport of the most exciting kind possible.
V. A. S.
MAPS SHOWING AUTHOR'S ROUTE
Transcriber's Note: Only a small part or the printed map is reproduced here to keep the file size small, and maintain good legibility, while still showing the route taken.
Route Sagar to Sardhana: Chapters 15 to 75.
Route Jabalpur to Sagar: Chapters 1 to 15.
