Talk:Thuggee

Lead

I tried to restore long term stable lead however, this edit has been reverted. Given how many bold edits have been recently made without discussion across the article,can we maintain WP:STATUSQUO at least for lead? ArvindPalaskar (talk) 15:27, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

I left notice of my plans on the talk page at 07:30 on 16 January and have received two 'thanks' for them from other editors. You haven't offered any rationale other than that you're uncomfortable with the scale of edits that have taken place. If you'd like to revert back to the original while we discuss then that's okay but I don't consider it constructive. I submitted the article for GA review, so I may opt for an RfC to gain consensus on these edits if this discussion takes too long (I don't want to waste the reviewer's time). Other editors are free to weigh in ofcourse. Joko2468 (talk) 15:39, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

The users that 'thanked' were BrechtBro (who responded to my third opinion request above) and Simple non combat (who had previously edited the article). Joko2468 (talk) 16:18, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Please go into specifics of what problems you have with the content I wrote-- ideally we wouldn't completely revert and would work on improving that content. Joko2468 (talk) 15:43, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Just because you wish to make it a GA, it doesnt mean you are allowed to make unilateral edits. The current lead tries to desperately treat it as some ancient phenomenon when it was not one. Zalaraz (talk) 16:26, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Can you explain please? "Purported to have ancient origins" is a summary of what James Law's assistant said, Sleeman actually thought it was medieval in origin-- this was literally the next edit I was going to make. [Actually the sources do explicitly support the colonial portrayal of thuggee as being ancient, I was confusing Sleeman's claims with those of his grandson, who claimed they were medieval in origin.] The lede does not lend credence to the claim and the infobox (cited to three sources) says 17th-18th centuries. Joko2468 (talk) 16:32, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm also confused by this remark, as the new lead reads to me as significantly more neutral, clearly dating (and attributing) the colonial accounts to the 19th century, and is on the whole more clear while also hewing more closely to the scholarship. It's far from perfect, the language especially could be more plain and it would benefit from a copy edit specifically addressing that (I think "crime phenomenon" is unclear on its own, though clarified in subsequent grafs).

I think the criticism of "bold edits made without discussion" is unfair, given both the discussion above and the extensive notes that @Joko2468 has provided both here and in the log. We are all encouraged to be WP:BOLD. These edits seem to be careful and of high quality and have saved the article a trip to the NPOV-land.

It would be helpful if @Zalaraz and @ArvindPalaskar could be specific about what the issues are with the new lead, besides it being new, so that they can be addressed? The previous lead - which was not long-term stable - had significant NPOV problems. —BrechtBro (talk) 17:50, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

It's explicitly presented as the view of British colonialists. I don't understand where you got "unilaterally" from, I've been as transparent and inclusive as possible (16 Jan.: I've posted what I've written so far to my sandbox as I make a start on tackling the colonial era, feel free to comment on it here or in the sandbox talk page.) and just now I mentioned invoking an RfC. I appreciate that it was wrong of me to put pressure on ArvindPalaskar, I just wanted to save a reviewer the trouble (I've just had my time wasted with one of my reviews). Joko2468 (talk) 16:33, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Apologies if I came off a little aggressive, I should have tempered my frustration. Let's work through the lede, it's the part of the article that I've given the least attention to (per WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY) and could maybe do with improving. Joko2468 (talk) 17:42, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Copy-pasting my rationale for the infobox:

• I changed the infobox, Dash is explicit that thuggee couldn't be called "organised crime" and modern historians do not consider it to be an organisation. As I said above, thuggee refers to the crime and therefore the event infobox is more appropriate for the phenomenon-- this also allows us to convey convictions, motives, victims etc. Per MOS:LEADIMAGE, the image of "Thugs" from the late 19th century isn't the most natural or obvious image and neither is it in all likelihood the most accurate to represent the article content (the Thugs pictured very likely have nothing to do with the thugs of the 1830s and they might not have even committed the same type of crime, thus misleading the reader). A period depiction of thuggee being carried out is the most natural image in this case and the one I've selected well-encapsulates the deception they were known for and from which the word is derived.

The relevant context is that (per the article) the legal term "Thug" was instrumentalised in the late 1830s as an umbrella term for crimes unrelated to the original 'thuggee' that scholars and pop culture recognise. As an aside, my to-do list prior to this was (1) better cover the debate on sources (2) better cover Sleeman's claims about the origins done (3) cleanup the lede and amend POV wording as necessary Joko2468 (talk) 17:46, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

In my sandbox is a proposal to reorganise and expand the Historical evaluations section so that it's clearer and better introduces the modern revisionism. Joko2468 (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Neutrality issue on presentation of denialist scholarly POV

At present the article states in the lede Some scholars reject the historicity of the colonial sources and therein hold the thuggee phenomenon to be entirely imagined by or an invention of the colonial regime. and in the main body Some historians hold thuggee to be a myth invented by the colonial regime to extend its control over the itinerant population or to expand its legal jurisdiction (Van Woerkens 2002: p.7; Lloyd, 2006: p.38). In apportioning no historical value to the so-called 'thuggee archive', some scholars hold thuggee as described in Western accounts to be largely imaginary (Wagner 2007: p.6). I authored this content, however the nature of the implicit conclusions of these historians/ literary scholars is contested by historian Tom Lloyd, who shares their views on the quality of the sources. I'll present the relevant passages below, any input on how to present this would be greatly appreciated. I also made a mistake in citing Lloyd to the first sentence of the body, his assertion (p.38) is specifically contesting the colonial authorities' motivations for initiating trials in 1829-1830 and this fails WP:V.

• Lloyd (2006: p.8): Wagner and Dash argue that Chatterjee’s account (and others that they characterise as similar, such as those by P. Roy (1998) and Flathuín (2001, 2004)) denies the existence of ‘thuggee’ while lacking the basis to make such a denial... Of course, Wagner and Dash here try to bind the likes of Chatterjee into their own historical and historiographical projects, which rest on the prospect of reaching The Truth behind things – in this case, the existence of ‘thuggee’ behind the various misrepresentations of it. Yet all Wagner and Dash succeed in doing is highlighting their own discomfort in coming to terms with the accounts of ‘thuggee’ by writers investigating its discursive representation. Wagner assumes that the scholars he criticises intend to prove that the colonial representation is a misrepresentation, rather than—simply—a particular representation specific to supporters of colonialism.31... Chatterjee does not need to disprove the existence of ‘thuggee’ as separate from the colonial mind, for his account is not aiming to prove its non-existence. Rather, as with P. Roy’s account, it engages with ‘thuggee’ on a discursive plane, making a literary critique in which the texts analysed are treated as “representations…neither evaluated on their supposed accuracy, nor assessed on the extent of knowledge of India which they display”. In short, Lloyd rejects the assertions by Wagner and Dash that these scholars implicitly deny the existence of something behind the colonial representation.
• Van Woerkens (2002: p.7): According to some historians, Thuggism (the name given to the phenomenon) is a myth invented by the British in order to extend their control over a mobile population, or to seize criminal jurisdiction in areas that had until then been in the hands of the Moghul rulers, and so forth. She doesn't elaborate on who these historians are, but it's safe to assume that she's referring to Chatterjee, Roy, and Flathuín.
• Wagner (2007: p.6): The more critical approach to the subject of thuggee found in these recent works makes concessions to the problems associated with the use of colonial representations and is thus expressive of the lasting influence of the work of scholars such as Edward Said.20 In its most radical form the literary critical approach has also given rise to several recent studies, occupied only with the deconstruction of the colonial representation of thuggee, as opposed to the historicity of the subject. Denying the sources any historical value, other than being evidence of inherent Orientalist bias, scholars such as Parama Roy, Amal Chatterjee and Maíre ní Fhlathúin have argued that thuggee as described in Western accounts was little more than a figment of the colonial imagination. "so-called 'thuggee archive'" is actually from p.8, this should have been added to the citation.
• Macfie (2008: p.384): I survey the work of a number of historians of thuggee, both western and eastern (Gupta, Gordon, Chatterjee, Roy, van Woerkens, Wagner, Dash), to see what they, explicitly or implicitly, conclude...

Joko2468 (talk) 15:42, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I'm considering submitting this to the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard to get more advice. It's quite a controversial and tricky matter so I wouldn't be completely comfortable making the judgement alone. Joko2468 (talk) 15:48, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

Noticeboard discussion: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Request for support on neutrality judgement at Thuggee. Feel free to engage here or there, ideally whichever is most active. Joko2468 (talk) 19:03, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

No discussion on this has been forthcoming after seven days, so I made the decision to cite these sources directly rather than presenting the disputed implicit conclusions of these scholars. As stated in the edit summary, please see this sentence from the article and the cited quotations for the most concise overview of the issue:

• Literary scholar Amal Chatterjee describes the colonial representation of thuggee as "a fiction that served all the interests of British power in India", wherein it provided conclusive proof of the moral superiority of the 'advanced' European over the 'primitive' Indian and was presented as a triumph of Christian faith over Indian tradition.

References

Joko2468 (talk) 11:20, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Popular culture sourcing

I've had to remove this from the In popular culture section due to there not being a reliable source to support it. The text reads as follows:

• Thuggee gangs play a prominent part in the 2018 Bengali horror fiction novel Ebong Inquisition by Avik Sarkar.

Joko2468 (talk) 11:43, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

This didn't fit in the section I originally had it, leaving it here for now:

• The thuggee campaign also saw the British authorities assert their right to 'paramount authority' in India in territories belonging to independent rulers, who were seen as failing in their duty to protect the local population.

Joko2468 (talk) 20:42, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

In popular culture trivia

I removed superficial entries from the In popular culture section per WP:TRIVIA. I've kept the remaining entries because the literary and film traditions continue to recieve a fair amount of attention from scholars.

Literature

• Ameer Ali thug na peela rumal ni gaanth, a 1970 Gujarati novel in three parts by Harkisan Mehta, is a fictionalised account of the Thug Amir Ali, based on Confessions of a Thug.
• First appearing in 1987, the DC Comics villain Ravan features as a member of the Suicide Squad and is a modern-day member of the Thuggee cult.
• The 2015 Bengali novel Firingi Thagi by Himadri Kishor Dashgupta is a fictionalised rendering of Sleeman's operations against the Thugs.

Film

• In the 1966 film Our Man Flint, the protagonist dons a turban and screams "Kali!" while shooting a gun into the air to empty a club of its patrons.

Television

• In Highlander: The Series season 4 episode 9 (1995), titled "The Wrath of Kali", an immortal Thug hunts for a long-lost statue of Kali, recently sold to an American museum.
• Season 4, episode 6 of Grimm (2014), entitled "Highway of Tears", features a "Phansigar" that engages in human sacrifice.

Videogames

• The strategy game Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties features a "Marathan Thuggee" as a unit available to players.

Joko2468 (talk) 08:00, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Missed one:

• The 1940 and 1963 West German film adaptations of the 1931 play The Case of the Frightened Lady by Edgar Wallace make an indirect reference to thuggee, featuring murders done by strangulation with scarves.

Joko2468 (talk) 08:05, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Removing less notable primary sources from Colonial literature section:

• Sinha, Narenda Krishna; Dasgupta, Arun Kumar, eds. (1964). Selections from Ochterlony Papers (1818–25) in the National Archives of India. Calcutta: University of Calcutta. pp. 243–246. 30 April 1822 letter from David Ochterlony, British Resident at Delhi, to Chief Secretary George Swinton.

References

Joko2468 (talk) 17:19, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

Academia Letters source

It came up in a GA review that the Academia Letters source used to summarise the scholarly consensus is unreliable-- per the linked article, the journal was operational for two years, it had no editorial board, and its publishing model was questionable. Clear generalised statements on the historiography are exceedingly rare (scholars are typically addressed one by one) and there isn't another that I've been able to find that uses the language of 'colonial construct', despite this apparently being accurate. It's possible that Wagner (2009) makes a clear and citable generalisation, but without access to it a normal summary of the Historical evaluations subsection will have to do. I'll keep looking.

• However, there is a general consensus among historians against the cultic portrayal held by the British colonial authorities and popularised in the 19th century.
• Contemporary historians generally view the colonial-era portrayal of thuggee, at least to some extent, as a colonial construct

References

Joko2468 (talk) 09:34, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:Thuggee/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Joko2468 (talk · contribs) 11:35, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Amir Ghandi (talk · contribs) 03:52, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello, @Joko2468: thank you so much for bringing this article to GAN. The topic of the thuggee is particularly special to me because when I was a young boy, who had recently learned to read, I read a World History Encyclopedia in my mother tongue (Persian) and one of the topics that came up in that book was Colonial-era Indian zealots sacrificing people in honour of Kali, with an illustration of the goddess. And this was about 2010s, so even as far as ten years ago, the Kali-worshipping angle was prevalent in global historiography even in my own country. Therefore, I am very happy to see this topic in a such a well-researched shape, and hopefully, one day it would be on the front page as today's featured article.

I already have had a preliminary reading of th whole article. I did find one typo (despatch instead of dispatch). But overall, the quality of the prose was satisfactory. I do have some concerns over the amount of quotes used throughout the article specially in the early parts, but I'll leave that to later. I will begin my review first by reviewing images and sources (including spotchecks) and then we will go onto the prose and manuel of style. Amir Ghandi (talk) 03:52, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much, that means a lot to me-- and thank you for taking this up, I know it's a behemoth of a subject. Unfortunately the Britannica entry is still no better (well-organized confederacy of professional assassins... His chief agent, Captain William Sleeman... succeeded so well in eliminating the evil). I found the article and the wider topic area in an awful state with a few cursory sentences on the revisionism bandaided onto the colonial-era narrative (all of which was quite disengenuously sourced). It's been fascinating to research, looking forward to your feedback.

I'm currently reorganising the In popular culture section from list format into prose, which came up in a previous GA review on Sleeman. Should be done today but you may want to link to the article version you're spotchecking and I'll notify you when I make my changes so it doesn't risk confusing your work. I intend to go back over and verify everything cited to Wagner (2012), Lloyd, and Rawat & Mukherjee-- I've already done this with most of the citations and amended some errors/ overciting. "Despatch" is actually the British spelling of "dispatch", though the American spelling is certainly becoming more popular. Joko2468 (talk) 07:21, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Good call on reorganising 'In Popular culture' section. That was one of the things I wanted to bring it up. And I'll add a Template:Not a typo to despatch if anyone in the future made the same mistake as me. In fact, in the body of the article itself there are several alternate ways of spelling Thugs beside Thags, like T,ugs. Have you considered adding sic to them? Amir Ghandi (talk) 07:30, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Great idea thank you. Joko2468 (talk) 07:32, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

I've finished reorganising the In popular culture section and added an introductory paragraph. I also added the sic template-- I'm not too familiar with this so please let me know if I should amend it. Joko2468 (talk) 09:56, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Very good work on the section and thank you for including the sic templates. I have an slight inclination towards [sic] being placed inside quotation marks (like 't,ugs [sic]'), however, I'll leave that to you if you want to implement it or not.

Also, I need to do some research on Wikipedia policy on images, so expect the image review at worst case scenario by tomorrow. Amir Ghandi (talk) Amir Ghandi (talk) 11:40, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Image review

Images are generally well-licensed, I have listed those that may need some reconsideration, feel free to correct me on my assumptions:

• File:Map of india 1827.jpg and File:India map thuggee.png Published in Locknow, India. I would say needs PD-India
• File:William-Henry-Sleeman.jpg Is it possible that the actual source is from here?
• File:Thuggee strangling.jpg Also PD-India
• File:Group of Thugs (From a Photograph).jpg What's the rationale behind using cc-by-sa-4.0? Also, more alerting, the source link to owlcation led me to nowhere (404 error)
• File:Indiana jones exhibition 03.jpg Visible watermarks are discouraged but not prohibited. Ok for GA

Now, the real dealbreaker is that none of the article's images (at least to the extent that I investigated) have alternative captions.

I'm afraid you'd have to add alt-texts to all images in the article. Jut short sentences would be fine though.

Okay never mind, I had a discussion with some other users and alt capts are not a requirement for GA.

On the gallery section:

• First of all, you should think of mending the cluster from In Popular Culture section images with the gallery that has caused it to bend sideways and leave one side of the section completely empty (at least in my version of wikipedia). See if you can mediate this by either moving the images around a bit or by just removing one of them.
• Now onto the gallery itself. According to the guidelines: " A gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images... galleries should be similarly well-crafted. Gallery images must collectively add to the reader's understanding of the subject without causing unbalance to an article or section within an article." And furthermore, the gallery should be appropriately titled and have a general 'theme of the gallery'.
• This is my problem with the current state of the gallery. It feels like a random collection of images without a certain theme to knit them together or anything independant point to illuster. Four of the images are about Paton's illustrations, and they in fact have a theme about them, namely, the portrayal of the thuggee by the English art. However, other images feel trivial and niche, most eggresiously among them being the Anti-garotte overcoat one (Pickaxe wielding thug and File:Kalee-poojah of the thugs 1858.jpg and File:Group of Thugs (From a Photograph).jpg are also in this category). File:Thuggee alleged burial site.png is another good image that contributes to the whole theme of British thought of the Thugs. Overall, I think you should remove some of these images and cater the remaining to a general overarching theme. Of course, I am open to more discussion. Amir Ghandi (talk) 04:42, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

I see thank you, I've removed the Mola Ram headpiece image and expanded one of the paragraphs slightly. And thanks for explaining Gallery sections (I thought that might need fixing), I've removed File:Kalee-poojah of the thugs 1858.jpg, File:Group of Thugs (From a Photograph).jpg, and File:London garrote panic cartoon.jpg. I've also moved the information on branding to the History section and removed the illustration (it was a bit lackluster). I titled the gallery Colonial-era portrayals of the Thugs-- given that Paton's watercolours were drawn by an Indian artist, I don't know if I can put 'British' in the title. I think 'Pickaxe wielding thug' is relevant to this? I also added a sentence on the School of Industry lithograph to add context to that portrayal and bring it more into the theme. Happy to discuss. Joko2468 (talk) 11:25, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

I amended the copyright tags and I'll get around to doing some alt captions-- I only found out what they were for recently. Joko2468 (talk) 11:30, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the good work, @Joko2468. I am quite satisfied with what you have done with the gallery section now. It clearly narrates a development in the Colonial-era thought on the thugs that otherwise could not have been well-explored by the prose, exactly as the guidelines laid out. I'll move my attention onto the source review and spotchecks, and again, it may take until tomorrow. Cheers. Amir Ghandi (talk) 13:19, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I'll go back over the citations to Wagner (2012), Lloyd, and Rawat & Mukherjee now (from memory there's at least one case of WP:CLOP). This shouldn't take much more than an hour, I'll reply here when it's done so I don't risk confusing your work. Joko2468 (talk) 13:44, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Done, I amended an instance of WP:CLOP, removed something that was misinterpreted as being in Lloyd's voice, and fixed some page numbers (a few other tweaks as well). Since one of the refs was removed, the numbering has changed. Joko2468 (talk) 15:37, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Source Review

As I can see, most of your journal and priodical sources do not have ISSN identifiers. Now, DOI and/or other identifiers are optional, but generally it is good to have them (at least for the sake of consistancy, as in this current state, some sources have them and some do not.) If you are not sure where you can find the identifiers, take a look at Worldcat which also provides the OOCL identifier beside other identifiers.

Also, since you have chosen to include publcation plcaces and publishers for your book sources, you must do the same for your journal sources. Again, worldcat is very helpful in this as it also provides original city names and publishers. Amir Ghandi (talk) 02:32, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

• Ditto for your 'Modern scholarship' subsection in Further Reading.

Thanks, I'll add DOI and ISBN numbers to the sources. However, at WP:HOWCITE Place of publication is present under what to typically include in citations for books but not for journal articles. I'll do the alt captions now as well. Joko2468 (talk) 06:52, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Keep in mind that ISBN is for books and ISSN is explicitly for periodicals like journals. Amir Ghandi (talk) 06:58, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Should I include both DOI and ISSN for articles? Would just the DOI be enough? Joko2468 (talk) 07:11, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

DOI would be completely acceptable. It is just important to have one of these identifiers employed consistently.

• Why is Kumar (2004) doesn't follow the established SFN format?
• Ditto for Sharma (2001), Humes 2010, Lunt 2020, Chakraborty 2019, Chakraborty 2021b, Browning 2025, and even more of this sort as we approach the late parts of the article. I don't mind the website citations or the old book citations, but we need a clear rationale for the break in the format for these secondary sources here. Amir Ghandi (talk) 07:17, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

  I've added source identifiers and alt captions. Habib (1963) doesn't seem to have an identifier-- the same seems to be true of the books pre-1970 (there doesn't seem to be SBNs for these?). For some reason the ISSN for Rawat & Mukherjee isn't parsing.

  I also moved sources to the bibliography-- currently the only utilised source cited in the ref template is the Indian Police Commission (happy to move this to the bibliography, the authorship and title just makes for a clumsy sfn template). The others are signposting primary sources for curious readers (such as Ramaseeana or Kaye (1853)), is that acceptable? The bullet points contain sources that were cited in the main source, except for Sharma (2001) which was only used to establish Shakespeare's first name. Joko2468 (talk) 10:50, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

  And Parkes (1850) is utilised in the ref template as well, given it's a superfluous primary source it didn't feel right to move it to the bibliography. Joko2468 (talk) 10:53, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

  Since Habib (1963) has a direct link to the article itself it's fine to leave it without identifiers. Same for Rawat and Mukherjee. And your current usage of the primary sources does not come into conflicts with the policy at WP:PRIMARY. The source formatting is quite satisfactory as of now, so I'll move to spotchecks. Amir Ghandi (talk) 12:11, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Spotcheck

This table lists 25 random passages with 2+ citations from throughout the article (22.1% of 113 total passages with 2+ citations). These passages contain 55 inline citations (11.8% of 466 in the article). Generated with the Veracity user script. Amir Ghandi (talk) 13:01, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Happy to provide quotations (I currently have almost all of these sources open). Joko2468 (talk) 13:05, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

That would be really fabulous, @Joko2468. Thank you. I'm mostly looking for WP:OVERCITE that's hy I have chosen passages more than two citations. Thanks in advance. Amir Ghandi (talk) 13:45, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Ah I see, there are a number of places where I've used a couple of citations to establish more support for an exceptional claim. Given that revisionist interpretations can differ, I've felt the need to demonstrate some measure of consensus for a lot of the details in the Culture and beliefs and Notable groups sections-- I've put these in magenta, happy to discuss. In red are citations that can be removed outright, in blue ones to be added (this is just so I don't forget).

Quotations for citations spotcheck.

19a and 20a: The earliest generally accepted use of the word dates to 1350 and it was sometimes used in precolonial India, in the same sense as the later British usage, to refer to highway robbers that deceived and murdered their victims.

• Etymology of the word ‘thug’... But a history of the Delhi sultan Firoz Shah II, dating to 1350, which contains the oldest generally accepted use of the word... (Dash, 2005: p.298)
• I believe I have demonstrated that in pre-colonial times the indigenous use of the word thug did sometimes fully correspond with the later British use of that term; that is as meaning a robber, who deceived, murdered and plundered travellers on the roads (Wagner, 2007: p.30)

19d and 26d: According to a 14th-century chronicle by Ziauddin Barani, Sultan Jalal-ud-Din Khalji deported 1,000 arrested 'thags' from Delhi to Bengal sometime between 1290 and 1296, however the chronicle makes no mention of what they were arrested for.

• But a history of the Delhi sultan Firoz Shah II, dating to 1350, which contains the oldest generally accepted use of the word, makes no mention of the crimes of which its ‘thugs’ were accused, noting simply that no fewer than 1,000 of these criminals were betrayed to the authorities by one of their own number, and that at some point between 1290 and 1296 the entire group was rounded up and deported down the Jumna to Bengal. (Dash, 2005: p.298)
• Similar claims have been made for the biography of the Muslim emperor Firoz Shah Tughlaq, which mentions how the Sultan of Delhi, Jalal uddin Firz Khilji, in 1290 expelled a 1000 ‘thags’ from Delhi.10 The lack of detail in this brief description makes it impossible to say whether the ‘thags’ in question were murderers and robbers or perhaps just harmless cheats and swindlers. (Wagner, 2007: p.26)

55 and 56: At the trial in Mainpuri in November, he demonstrated for the court how the gang strangled their victims, though the trial descended into a farce as Hussain repeatedly revised his testimony regarding the extent of his involvement with the gang.

• as the first thug trial with Hussain as the prime witness came under way in Mainpuri... On 9 November 1810, the four prisoners, Udjbah, Dundhar, Ramzanee and Dhondhee, were brought before Judge Brooke at the Session of Circuit, accused of various murders as thugs – a charge they all denied.14 Ghulam Hussain was the key witness in the trial... he even demonstrated how the thugs strangled, using a person at the court as a model victim... Hussain then addressed the judge and said that since the thugs were now arguing with him, he would disclose the details of a further 14 murders they had committed. From then on the trial turned into a farce as Hussain continued to change his testimony over the course of the five days the trial lasted... In between changing his deposition as regards the degree of his own involvement with the thugs... (Wagner 2007: pp.52-54)
• Furthermore, Ghulam successively increased the number of killings he had been involved in each time he was cross-examined by Perry. (Lloyd, 2005: p.5) This could probably be removed, it was only there to demonstrate that the core facts were neutral between Wagner and Lloyd, who hold divergent views on the revisionism.

84 and 85: Up until this point, efforts to combat thuggee had been led by local authorities and the case marked the first time the central government intervened to ensure that the Thugs were convicted and to develop a judicial argument that saw Thugs treated in the same vein as pirates.

• The Government’s reply is significant and really mark the beginning of a much more centralised and directed campaign against thuggee.14 The operations against the thugs were no longer to be localised... "it appears to His Lordship in Council that they may be considered like Pirates"... the Governor General ordered that the leaders and stranglers of the gang were to be executed, while the remainder, though equally guilty, should be handed lesser sentences... This was a remarkable instance of the Government actively getting involved in the details of the committal and conviction of prisoners (Wagner 2007: pp.199-200)
• Borthwick argued that no additional proof was required to pass sentence on the entire gang... Government accepted the adequacy of the sentence... "it appears that they may be considered like Pirates, to be placed outside the pale of social law" (Singha, 1993: pp.119-120)

98 and 99: Agent for the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories Francis Curwen Smith submitted a plan in November that he had written with Sleeman and which called for an officer to be appointed Superintendent for the Suppression of Thugs, who would send Thugs to be tried in the Saugor and Nerbudda courts.

• But Sleeman’s superior F. C. Smith, the Agent of Sagar and Narbada... 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... " An officer should be appointed Superintendent for the Suppression of Thugs whose sole task it was to seize, try and punish the thugs... The Superintendent should commit the thugs for trial before the Agent of the Sagar and Narbada territories (Wagner, 2007: pp.203, 209)
• Francis Curwen Smith, the Governor General’s new agent in the central provinces... (Dash, 2005: p.143)

105 and 106a: From 1830 onwards, the Government ordered Thugs sentenced to imprisonment to be branded with the Godna on a part of the body exposed to view, typically the forehead.

• Subsequently the Government ordered thugs sentenced to imprisonment to be branded with the ‘goodna’ (an Indian type of tattoo) on part of the body exposed to view... The Government ordered that: ‘their name and the words “Convicted Thug” may be stamped on the back or shoulders of all sentenced to seven years imprisonment and upwards, a deviation from the Regulations fully warranted by the enormity of the crime of Thuggism which justly places those who practise it beyond the pale of social law.’ Swinton to F. C. Smith, 4 Aug. 1830, BC, F/4/1251/50480(2), APAC. (Wagner, 2007: pp.204, 263)
• Convicted Thugs were tattooed with the details of their crimes... Tattoos were generally applied to prisoners’ foreheads (Dash, 2005: pp.168–169) This is a non-paginated interleaf composed of illustrations.

115b and 116: Dacoity was added to Sleeman's responsibilities in 1838 as thuggee activity had been effectively suppressed and, in 1839, he coined the term Megpunnaism to refer to the murder of impoverished parents to attain their children for sale, portraying it as a new form of thuggee.

• The discovery of river-thugs led to the passing of the act, but soon dathura-thugs, Megpunna-thugs and jogis attracted the attention of Sleeman and his officers. By 1836 the organised thug gangs that could be traced back to Sindouse had practically ceased to exist... In 1838 the task of putting down dacoity was added to Sleeman’s responsibilities... (Wagner, 2007: p.215)
• W.H. Sleeman, Commissioner for Thuggee and Dacoity, arrived at the ‘discovery’ of yet another form of thuggee, for which he coined the term Megpunnaism, the murder of poor parents to acquire their children for sale... Report on the system of Megpunnaism, 1839... In 1838 dacoity operations were added to the Thuggee Department (Singha, 1998: pp.161, 220) In some sources the addition of dacoity to his responsibilities is presented as being 1839 because this is when a formal decree merged the two positions.

132 and 133: The archives of the Thuggee and Dacoity Department were repeatedly cited to evidence the existence of 'criminal tribes' and the department was a key player in the presentation of a crime plague perpetrated by itinerant and semi-nomadic communities.

• The archives of his Thuggee and Dacoity Department were later repeatedly cited as prima facie evidence for the existence of criminal tribes... (Piliavsky, 2015: p.339)
• ... petition the Government of India for a national law to deal with what was by then being represented (particularly by the Department of Thagi and Dakaiti) as a crime plague perpetrated by itinerant and semi-nomadic communities... (Brown, 2003: p.211)

142 and 143a: Beginning in the 1950s, the colonial-era representation of thuggee as a pan-Indian fraternity of ritual stranglers has come under sustained and diverse scholarly criticism.

• Indeed, the conventional British representation that held sway for more than a century has come under such sustained and diverse scholarly criticism in recent decades... (Humes, 2010: pp.1294–1295)
• Whether those who killed and plundered travellers can appropriately be described as a pan-Indian fraternity of ritual stranglers is obviously doubtful, but we do not have to accept the colonial representation of Thuggee... (Wagner, 2012: p.145)
• I've missed out a citation to Dash (2005: p.xi): But, beginning in the 1950s, historians began to reassess the portrayal of the Thugs...

148b, 175, and 176: her work has received criticism from scholars that view it as being "old-fashioned and inconsistent".

• Reviewing an old-fashioned and inconsistent work on thugs by Martine van Woerkens, Satadru Sen wrote... (Subrahmanyam, 2009).
• Lloyd (2006: p.6) is used to signpost to this review, which says: In spite of its many strengths, there are serious analytical problems with van Woerkens's study... and a search for essential difference and cultural peculiarity that should have ended with the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism (Vintage, 1979)... Her awareness that Sleeman was constructing the thug as a pan-Indian criminal does not stop her from accepting the criminal identity of "pan-Indian communities living on the margins of society" (39) or from speculating that an old woman engaged in the tattooing of convicted thugs was herself "a Thug elder" (86).
• Furthermore, I will discuss Martine van Woerkens's The Strangled Traveler: Colonial Imaginings and the Thugs of India from 2002, which is the most recent contribution to the study of thuggee and which stands for a resurrection of the colonial tradition... The Strangled Traveler, however, is also a very confusing book in which the argumentation is contradictory and the different chapters appear to subvert each other, and thus many good points are lost if not actually negated. (Wagner, 2004: pp.934, 945)

185a and 186a: Though thugs would sometimes murder for modest sums, they preferred wealthy victims and surveilled travellers to ascertain their wealth.

• It has been noticed that the thugs would murder ‘even for small pickings’, but it must be obvious that robbers preferred wealthy victims... (Wagner, 2007: p.114)
• Scouts or spies (tilha, from thilna, to advance, penetrate; bykureea, from bekar, without work, idle) checked to see if the road was free and brought back information about travelers... (van Woerkens, 2002: p.120)

196 and 197: There were no eyewitnesses since every member of the party was murdered and little circumstantial evidence as the act was done by stealth, while items such as a rumāl, scarf, dhoti, wrap, cord, or even a knife and sword were likely to be found on innocent travellers.

• There were no eyewitness, for everyone in the party was murdered... Circumstantial evidence was elusive because the deed was done by stealth... But the basic problem was that of finding the means to distinguish the thug from the ordinary traveller. Items like a rumal, scarf, dhoti, a wrap, a cord, or even a knife or a sword were likely to be found on the most innocuous travellers... (Singha, 1993: pp.109, 116)
• Wagner (2007, pp.159–160) can be removed.

211 and 212: According to Cynthia Ann Humes, Thug testimony only rarely referred to Bhavani, mostly in response to Sleeman's leading questions, and the Islamic concept of fate was invoked most often.

• In the responses of men said to be Thugs, the Islamic concept of fate, iqbal, is invoked the most often. The Hindu goddess Bhava¯nı¯ is only rarely referred to, and almost always in response to Sleeman’s leading questions. (Humes, 2003: p.159)
• Perris (2025: p.212) can be removed-- I added this recently, thinking from memory that I'd plagiarised his analysis of Humes. Perris also mistakes Bhavani with Kali.

209b and 210b: Some Muslim approvers disowned Bhavani upon turning King's evidence, having identified her with Fatima or as an instrument of Allah, and therein maintained their belief in monotheism.

• Paton’s Muslim approvers also discussed their worship of ‘Bhowanee’, whom they had disowned after being captured and becoming approvers. The Muslim thugs had constructed a religious universe in which the Hindu goddess had been assimilated as no more than a spirit subservient to the one true god (Allah)... On a similar note, some of Sleeman’s Muslim approvers identified ‘Bhowanee’ with Fatima, Mohammed’s daughter... To Paton’s Muslim approvers, the worship of ‘Bhowanee’ was exclusively associated with the practice of thuggee and thus very much functionalised, while they retained their Muslim faith in a single god... (Wagner, 2007: p.141)
• Van Woerkens (2002: p.150) can be removed, the material is descriptive of the interviews and doesn't need further support as an interpretation.

186b, 246, and 247: The thugs were also commonly and interchangeably referred to by themselves and fellow villagers as sepoys (meaning 'soldier' or 'retainer') and borrowed military terminology in their use of jemadar to mean gang leader and subedar for when several bands joined together.

• In order to be able to gather a gang of Thugs, the leader had to be an accomplished strangler... all these things enable a man to get around him a few who will consent to give him the fees and title of Jemadar’”... At times several bands could join together under the leadership of a great chief, who was then given the title of subehdar... Jamadar and subehdar are words borrowed from native military terminology. (Van Woerkens, 2002: p.120)
• Although the term ‘thug’ was used by the inhabitants of Parihara, a number of other designations applied to the thugs imply a military connection. The word most commonly used was sepoy, which literally means ‘soldier’ but which was also used in the meaning of ‘retainer’ or ‘subaltern’... The use of the military denominations of jemadar and subedar, and the reference to certain thugs as ‘privates’, again implies a military connection in the organisation of the gangs. (Wagner, 2007: pp.89, 110)
• The Thugs themselves believed that their methods set them apart from other robbers and made them special — an opinion apparently shared by their fellow villagers, who sometimes referred to them by the honourable term sipahee (soldier)... Each of the 200 or more gangs scattered across India was organized along broadly similar lines, being recruited and commanded by leaders known as subadars and jemadars — titles that aped those awarded to native officers in the Company's armies... The title of subadar was the grandest to which a Thug could aspire. It seems to have been awarded by general acclamation, and was only bestowed upon the most respected and experienced Thugs — men capable of leading and coordinating the actions of several gangs. A jemadar, on the other hand, was simply the self-appointed leader of a single band... (Dash, 2005: pp.35, 66–67)

248b and 250b: Girls were married off to the sons or relatives of their adoptee, thus avoiding the costs of a dowry, while boys tended to go to childless parents in the context of high infant mortality rates.

• Girls were inevitably married to the sons or relatives of the thug who adopted them, who thus saved a great deal of money that would otherwise have been spent on dowry. A boy on the other hand was an object of pride and adoption thus provided a solution for childless parents during a period of time when the mortality rate of infants was high (Wagner, 2007: p.107)
• The boys were made to serve their adoptive fathers until they were old enough to be inducted into the Thug gangs; initiation made them eligible to receive a share of the loot, which added to the wealth of their adoptive family. Girls stayed at home, assisting the Thugs’ women with domestic work until they could make a profitable marriage. (Dash, 2005: p.86)

268 and 269: During the 1830s, British officials propagated a representation of Thugs as hereditary cult-oriented criminals, which allowed them to win the case for special procedures, and thuggee as an all-India conspiracy.

• reminiscent of the notion of the thugs as ‘hereditary criminals’ reiterated time and again during the 1830s... Thuggee had not yet become the all-India conspiracy propagated in the 1830s... (Wagner, 2007: pp.28, 196) I shoehorned in a mention of thuggee as an all-India conspiracy here, ideally I'd like to find a better way of mentioning this.
• But the extensive recording of thug beliefs, slang, and superstition, seemed to authenticate the difference between the hereditary cult-oriented criminal and the casual offender; and this won the case for special procedures. (Singha, 1998: p.174)

232b, 274, and 275: The colonial-era portrayal saw thuggee as an ancient practice, with Sleeman arguing that the Sagartii of the 5th century BCE were ancestors of the stranglers described by Thévenot.

• ... all the elements that were attributed to thuggee, and which today would be considered as colonial constructions, were actually derived from the approvers themselves; the ancient origin of thuggee being one example... (Wagner, 2007: p.152)
• ... alternative explanations for ‘thuggee’ to those repeatedly offered by the colonial administration and especially William Sleeman: that ‘thugs’ belonged to an ancient and widespread ‘organisation’ of religiously motivated, hereditary murderers... (Lloyd, 2006: p.6). I think this could be removed?
• In Rambles Sleeman declares his passionate interest in history... He argues that the Sagartii (a body of horsemen mentioned by Herodotus as accompanying Xerxes’ armies in the fifth century B.c.) were the ancestors of the thieves described by Thévenot... (van Woerkens, 2002: pp.221–222)

287 and 288: Laljee, the head zamindar of Sindouse who had protected the gangs and given them financial advances, was arrested in December 1812 amid a Rs 5,000 reward for his capture and sentenced to life in prison with hard labour.

• ... Laljee as the head zamindar of Sindouse... Asked about details of the thugs Laljee said: ‘I cannot precisely state – but they go on excursions and return with money, cloths, arms and tattoos and maintain themselves in this manner … I used to receive 25 or 50% on the money which I advanced to them... Laljee and several others accused of having taken part in the murder of Lieut. Maunsell, were arrested... In the end, then, Tejun succeeded to get his rival apprehended and for that he received the reward of Rps 5000... The Nizamat Adalat eventually sentenced Laljee and four others to imprisonment with hard labour for life. (Wagner, 2007: pp.82, 87–88, 177)
• ... the Thugs decided to move to another part of Sindouse and seek the protection of another zamindar called Laljee.... a reward of 5,000 rupees was offered for the capture of Laljee himself... swiftly found guilty of complicity in Maunsell’s murder — Laljee found himself imprisoned for life in the British jail at Roy Barelly, east of Delhi... Laljee had certainly financed the Sindouse Thugs, advancing capital that the gangs used to pay their way through India in return for interest at the exorbitant rate of 25 or even 50 per cent, and making what amounted to personal loans to members of the gangs in exchange for loot. (Dash, 2005: pp.44, 48–49, 65)

112e and 298: Discovered by the British authorities in 1836, [the River Thugs] were largely suppressed by 1840.

• In 1836 a new type of thuggee was discovered, namely river-thugs... (Wagner, 2007: p.214)
• In 1840 the Court of Directors... "the formidable confederacy of River Thugs has been almost entirely suppressed." (Van Woerkens, 2002: pp.103–104)

293c, 301, and 296c: Tashma-baz Thugs: thimble-riggers found on the outskirts of Cawnpore in 1848 that were legally classified as Thugs due to their having murdered and robbed a few travellers that they had met on the roads.

• The Tashma-baz thugs, for example, were simply thimble-riggers who had apparently learned their tricks from an Irish soldier and who poisoned some of the gamblers they tricked. (Wagner, 2007: p.128)
• The so-called “Tusma-Baz Thugs’, for example, found living on the outskirts of Cawnpore in 1848, were little more than Hindu thimble-riggers... They were really professional gamblers, who were bracketed with the Thugs solely because they had, as a sort of speculation, murdered and robbed a few travellers whom they met upon the roads. (Dash, 2005: pp.251–252)
• Van Woerkens (2002: p.103) can be removed, it's actually a quote from Fanny Parkes.

315a and 316: They were later taught to make tents and carpets, and by 1847 produced 130 tents and 3,300 yards of carpet yearly.

• Sleeman’s successors decided to turn the School into a tent- and carpet-making factory... Tent-making was taught by artisans from the Doab town of Futtehpore, and the art of carpet-weaving by men from Mirzapore, the great centre of that trade; by 1847 the men and women of the Thug village were turning out more than 130 tents and 3,300 yards of Kidderminster carpet a year. (Dash, 2005: p.274) Kidderminster carpet should probably be specified.
• Rawat & Mukherjee (2025: p.15) goes into more detail but isn't necessary to support the material.

154b, 329, and 330: The historical Sayyid Ameer Ali gave a deposition before Sleeman at Saugor in 1832, which, according to Wagner, only bears a "very slight resemblance" to Taylor's account.

• Comparing the content of the depositions of, for instance, Ghulam Hussain given in 1810 at Mainpuri before the local Magistrate and that of Ameer Alee given in 1832 at Sagar before Sleeman... (Wagner, 2007: p.23)
• See ‘Deposition of Ameer Alee’... The original confession bears only a very slight resemblance to that of Taylor’s protagonist. (Wagner, 2012: p.159)
• Sayyid Amir Ali did give an official deposition in Sagar in 1832... (van Woerkens, 2002: p.237)

126d and 343: The 1939 film Gunga Din marks the first portrayal of thuggee in film and sees three British soldiers and a waterbearer (Gunga Din) come into conflict with a resurgent sect of Thuggee cultists. The film is partly based on Rudyard Kipling's poem of the same name, as well as Soldiers Three, and ends with Kipling penning the first words of the poem after being saved by the three protagonists.

• ... the classic black-and-white movie Gunga Din (1939) starring Cary Grant was only the first of many to deal with thuggee... (Wagner, 2007: p.2)
• In Gunga Din, a film based in part at least on Rudyard Kipling’s Soldiers Three and Other Stories (1888) and on his poem ‘Gunga Din’... three British army sergeants... before almost single-handedly taking on the (completely anonymous) massed ranks of the thug worshippers of Kali, whose fanatical leader wants to raise a (sort of nationalist) rebellion and drive the British out of India... ably assisted by the eponymous Gunga Din, the despised water-carrier and true hero of the story, they succeed in saving the British army from defeat and by implication the British raj in India from extinction. In the closing scene of the film we, the audience, see ‘Rudyard Kipling’, who is accompanying the British army, saved by our three valiant heroes from defeat, sitting down at a table in a military camp and penning the first words of his famous poem. (Macfie, 2008: p.386)

3b and 5: Thornton's work copied extensively from Ramaseeana and served to popularise thuggee among Victorian audiences.

• E. Thornton unscrupulously copied Sleeman’s work in his own Illustrations of the history and practices of the Thugs and Notices of Some of the Proceedings of the Government of India for the Suppression of the Crime of Thuggee (London, W. H. Allen, 1837, reprint New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 2000) (Wagner, 2007: p.232)
• ... at least one or two copies made their way to London, where Edward Thornton's Illustrations of the History and Practices of the Thugs appeared in 1837. A reorganization and popularization of the material contained in Ramaseeana... (Fhlathúin, 2001: pp.34–35)

Joko2468 (talk) 23:25, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Reference #	Letter	Source	Archive	Status	Notes
The earliest generally accepted use of the word dates to 1350 and it was sometimes used in precolonial India, in the same sense as the later British usage, to refer to highway robbers that deceived and murdered their victims.
19	a	Dash 2005, p. 298.
20	a	Wagner 2007, p. 30.
According to a 14th-century chronicle by Ziauddin Barani, Sultan Jalal-ud-Din Khalji deported 1,000 arrested 'thags' from Delhi to Bengal sometime between 1290 and 1296, however the chronicle makes no mention of what they were arrested for.
19	d	Dash 2005, p. 298.
26	d	Wagner 2007, p. 26.
At the trial in Mainpuri in November, he demonstrated for the court how the gang strangled their victims, though the trial descended into a farce as Hussain repeatedly revised his testimony regarding the extent of his involvement with the gang.
55		Wagner 2007, pp. 52–54.
56		Lloyd 2006, p. 5.
Up until this point, efforts to combat thuggee had been led by local authorities and the case marked the first time the central government intervened to ensure that the Thugs were convicted and to develop a judicial argument that saw Thugs treated in the same vein as pirates.
84		Wagner 2007, pp. 199–200.
85		Singha 1993, pp. 119–120.
Agent for the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories Francis Curwen Smith submitted a plan in November that he had written with Sleeman and which called for an officer to be appointed Superintendent for the Suppression of Thugs, who would send Thugs to be tried in the Saugor and Nerbudda courts.
98		Wagner 2007, pp. 203, 209.
99		Dash 2005, p. 143.
From 1830 onwards, the Government ordered Thugs sentenced to imprisonment to be branded with the Godna on a part of the body exposed to view, typically the forehead.
105		Wagner 2007, pp. 204, 263.
106	a	Dash 2005, pp. 168–169.
Dacoity was added to Sleeman's responsibilities in 1838 as thuggee activity had been effectively suppressed and, in 1839, he coined the term Megpunnaism to refer to the murder of impoverished parents to attain their children for sale, portraying it as a new form of thuggee.
115	b	Wagner 2007, p. 215.
116		Singha 1998, pp. 161, 220.
The archives of the Thuggee and Dacoity Department were repeatedly cited to evidence the existence of 'criminal tribes' and the department was a key player in the presentation of a crime plague perpetrated by itinerant and semi-nomadic communities.
132		Piliavsky 2015, p. 339.
133		Brown 2003, p. 211.
Beginning in the 1950s, the colonial-era representation of thuggee as a pan-Indian fraternity of ritual stranglers has come under sustained and diverse scholarly criticism.
142		Humes 2010, pp. 1294–1295.
143	a	Wagner 2012, p. 145.
her work has received criticism from scholars that view it as being "old-fashioned and inconsistent".
148	b	lrb.co.uk
175		academic.oup.com
176		Wagner 2004, pp. 934, 945: "Furthermore, I will discuss Martine van Woerkens's The Strangled Travel…
Though thugs would sometimes murder for modest sums, they preferred wealthy victims and surveilled travellers to ascertain their wealth.
185	a	Wagner 2007, p. 114.
186	a	Van Woerkens 2002, p. 120.
There were no eyewitnesses since every member of the party was murdered and little circumstantial evidence as the act was done by stealth, while items such as a rumāl, scarf, dhoti, wrap, cord, or even a knife and sword were likely to be found on innocent travellers.
197		Singha 1993, pp. 109, 116.
198		Wagner 2007, pp. 159–160.
According to Cynthia Ann Humes, Thug testimony only rarely referred to Bhavani, mostly in response to Sleeman's leading questions, and the Islamic concept of fate was invoked most often.
211		Humes 2003, p. 159.
212		Perris 2025, p. 212.
Some Muslim approvers disowned Bhavani upon turning King's evidence, having identified her with Fatima or as an instrument of Allah, and therein maintained their belief in monotheism.
209	b	Wagner 2007, p. 141.
210	b	Van Woerkens 2002, p. 150.
The thugs were also commonly and interchangeably referred to by themselves and fellow villagers as sepoys (meaning 'soldier' or 'retainer') and borrowed military terminology in their use of jemadar to mean gang leader and subedar for when several bands joined together.
186	b	Van Woerkens 2002, p. 120.
246		Wagner 2007, pp. 89, 110.
247		Dash 2005, pp. 35, 66–67.
Girls were married off to the sons or relatives of their adoptee, thus avoiding the costs of a dowry, while boys tended to go to childless parents in the context of high infant mortality rates.
248	b	Wagner 2007, p. 107.
250	b	Dash 2005, p. 86.
During the 1830s, British officials propagated a representation of Thugs as hereditary cult-oriented criminals, which allowed them to win the case for special procedures, and thuggee as an all-India conspiracy.
268		Wagner 2007, pp. 28, 196.
269		Singha 1998, p. 174.
The colonial-era portrayal saw thuggee as an ancient practice, with Sleeman arguing that the Sagartii of the 5th century BCE were ancestors of the stranglers described by Thévenot.
232	b	Wagner 2007, p. 152.
274		Lloyd 2006, p. 6.
275		Van Woerkens 2002, pp. 221–222.
Laljee, the head zamindar of Sindouse who had protected the gangs and given them financial advances, was arrested in December 1812 amid a Rs 5,000 reward for his capture and sentenced to life in prison with hard labour.
287		Wagner 2007, pp. 82, 87–88, 177.
288		Dash 2005, pp. 44, 48–49, 65.
Discovered by the British authorities in 1836, they were largely suppressed by 1840.
112	e	Wagner 2007, p. 214.
298		Van Woerkens 2002, pp. 103–104.
Tashma-baz Thugs: thimble-riggers found on the outskirts of Cawnpore in 1848 that were legally classified as Thugs due to their having murdered and robbed a few travellers that they had met on the roads.
293	c	Wagner 2007, p. 128.
301		Dash 2005, pp. 251–252.
296	c	Van Woerkens 2002, p. 103.
They were later taught to make tents and carpets, and by 1847 produced 130 tents and 3,300 yards of carpet yearly.
315	a	Dash 2005, p. 274.
316		Rawat & Mukherjee 2025, p. 15.
The historical Sayyid Ameer Ali gave a deposition before Sleeman at Saugor in 1832, which, according to Wagner, only bears a "very slight resemblance" to Taylor's account.
154	b	Wagner 2007, p. 23.
329		Wagner 2012, p. 159.
330		Van Woerkens 2002, p. 237.
The 1939 film Gunga Din marks the first portrayal of thuggee in film and sees three British soldiers and a waterbearer (Gunga Din) come into conflict with a resurgent sect of Thuggee cultists. The film is partly based on Rudyard Kipling's poem of the same name, as well as Soldiers Three, and ends with Kipling penning the first words of the poem after being saved by the three protagonists.
126	d	Wagner 2007, p. 2.
343		Macfie 2008, p. 386.
Thornton, Edward (1837). Illustrations Of The History And Practices Of The Thugs And Notices Of Some Of The Proceedings Of The Government Of India For The Suppression Of The Crime Of Thuggee. London: W. H. Allen. 2000 reprint. Thornton's work copied extensively from Ramaseeana and served to popularise thuggee among Victorian audiences.
3	b	Wagner 2007, p. 232.
5		Fhlathúin 2001, pp. 34–35.

Thank you for providing the passages, @Joko2468:; here's my response. I may come off as pedantic in some of my points, in which case feel free to push back against them. First of all, agreed on removing all of the red redundant citations.

Now, my points for the others:

• 19d and 26d. Dash, 2005: p.298 seems to distinguish between the '1000 of these criminals' and 'the entire group' which were rounded up between 1290 and 1296. Is Wagner, 2007: p.26 used here to reconciliate the two?

• 55 and 56. Agreed on removing Lloyd, 2005: p.5.

• 185a and 186a. How does van Woerkens, 2002: p.120 validate the last part about 'surveilled travellers to ascertain their wealth'? I think it is quite a loose interpretation to connect wealth to the original 'brought back information about travelers'. I suggest rephrasing the sentence. "Thugs preferred wealthy victims and used scouts (tilha) to gather information on travellers and road conditions." Cite Wagner for preference + van Woerkens for scouts.

• 209b and 210b. Agreed on removing Van Woerkens (2002: p.150)

• 3b and 5. Another pedantic note, but Fhlathúin, 2001: pp.34–35 doesn't precisely validate 'among Victorian audiences'. Add a stronger popularization cite or soften to "popularised thuggee in Britain."

• 268 and 269. there is a clear WP:SYNTH (and partial misrepresentation) problem here, especially with the Wagner citation. Wagner (p. 196) explicitly says the opposite of what the sentence implies. The article uses Wagner to support the idea that British officials propagated it as an all-India conspiracy (which is true in a general sense) but the specific phrasing attaches the phrase directly to Wagner's citation in a way that implies he supports the propagation as fact, while he is actually noting that it had not yet become that in the earlier period. Recommended fix: "During the 1830s, British officials propagated an image of Thugs as hereditary, cult-oriented criminals. This representation, reinforced by detailed recording of their beliefs, slang, and superstitions, helped justify special legal procedures. Thuggee was also portrayed as an all-India conspiracy." (Cite Singha for the first two sentences, and find a stronger source for the conspiracy part)

Bottom line for GA: This is a high-quality nomination with thoughtful sourcing. With the flagged fixes (especially 268/269 and 185a/186a), plus removing redundancies, it should pass Verifiability and No Original Research. Amir Ghandi (talk) 08:44, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Excellent thank you, I've added and removed those citations.

• The 14th-century chronicle has often been cited as conclusive evidence that thuggee stretched back to the medieval era (which is what the article said previously, misrepresenting Wagner), so I judged the fact that it doesn't even mention a specific crime to be an exceptional claim that could benefit from another citation (thus helping to stabilise the article). I see what you mean, the 1,000 arrested 'thags' merely relates to 1290 and then there were further deportations as late as 1296-- I'll rephrase sometime between 1290 and 1296 to in 1290.
• I've adopted your rephrasing for the scouts, though I amended it to ... and whether the roads were clear and left out the Ramasee word since these aren't generally covered elsewhere in the article.
• Changed to in Britain.
• I've adopted your rephrasing of the hereditary and pan-Indian portrayal, that's much clearer thank you.

Joko2468 (talk) 09:48, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

THank you for swift fixes, @Joko2468. Spot-checked 20 references across the article, with particular attention to passages using multiple citations. All checked sources support the text after the recent improvements. No copyright or close-paraphrasing issues found. Moving on now to the prose. Amir Ghandi (talk) 10:17, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

@Amir Ghandi, I've finished this first batch. Let me know if any changes I made need further attention. Thanks. Joko2468 (talk) 13:47, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Prose review

Already reviewed

Lead

• "...a policing campaign against thuggee that saw the Thuggee Department formally established in 1835 and legal developments that facilitated convictions" 'Saw' cannot act as the verb for the second element of the sentence. I think you should rephrase to 'with the legal developments'.

Tentatively changed to ", alongside"-- I'm going to have another look at this later.

• "Historians' reinterpretations vary as to the actual nature of the phenomenon." Why not 'about' or other simpler synonyms?

I agree this is a bit stilted, though I'm not keen on "about". There aren't many synonyms for 'vis-a-vis', I'll think about rephrasing.

• Link 'approver' at the first mention in the main body of the article (it is not currently linked)

Added link.

• "...thuggee became a Victorian sensation" In view of the recent change, how is this sentence supported in the main body of the article?

It's supported by "Thuggee thereafter became a Victorian sensation" in the Aftermath and legacy section, cited to Perris (2025: p.208). I also corrected the citations for the rest of that sentence.

Etymology and nomenclature

• "The English word thug is from the same roots" The phrase is a little unclear. Is it a direct borrowing or is it a cognate of the same Indo-European origin?

Amended to "is a loanword from the same roots". The history of this is covered in the In popular culture section, I'm unsure as to whether it should also be covered here.

Leave the brief factual sentence here and delegat all the explanations to the In Popular culture section.

Possible precolonial accounts

• "On another occasion, and while he was journeying to Pataliputra, Hsüen Tsang was told while passing a temple that no foreigner who entered it ever came out again" Two 'while' clauses back-to-back, needs rephrasing

Removed first clause.

• "The 15th–16th century poet Surdas wrote illustratively of a 'thag' luring a pilgrim with sweets and wine and then murdering and robbing them" "Illustratively" is slightly editorial and unnecessary. Just say "wrote of" or "described".

Removed "illustratively".

• "The 19th century archaeologist Alexander Cunningham claimed to have identified the temple and that this was an early account of thuggee" Awkward and vague. The second half ("and that this was an early account of thuggee") feels tacked on.

Amended this to "The 19th century archaeologist Alexander Cunningham claimed to have identified the temple and presented this as an early account of thuggee." Let me know if you think it can be further improved.

It's much better now.

• "A November 1797 tax list prepared for Maharaja Daulat Rao Sindhia, and obtained by a British official, covering 20 villages across the parganas of Parihara and Sursae lists 318 houses as belonging to thugs, who were subjected to a soldier tax" Too long and convoluted. It needs to be split or streamlined.

I've reorganised this into two sentences and signposted to the primary source.

Etawah crisis (1809–1811)

• "Amid the failure of Law's inquiries and the discovery of four strangled native soldiers in a jungle within his jurisdiction in July, the two magistrates of the neighbouring Aligarh and Farrukhabad districts were assigned to the matter." Long and convoluted. Suggestion: After Law’s inquiries proved unsuccessful, and following the discovery of four strangled native soldiers in July, the magistrates of neighbouring Aligarh and Farrukhabad districts were brought in to assist.

Adopted your suggestion.

• "Following the discovery of two strangled travellers in December and the initiation of a more thorough investigation, Law wrote: 'It is presumed that the murdered persons were travellers and fell victims to that detestable race of monsters called T,ugs [sic]... The T,ugs have infested the whole of the Doab, and this district in particular, from time immemorial, and they are so strongly leagued together, that scarcely an instance has ever been known of their having betrayed each others secrets.'" Very long sentence. Split or lighten it (keep the quote but consider trimming it slightly if possible).

I've removed the repitition of "from time immemorial", I think the cementing of this portrayal is better told elsewhere.

• "...a total 67" Minor grammar issue: a total of 67

Done.

• "Hussain stated that he had been adopted by the gang as a child after they had murdered his father and uncle, while the remaining prisoners initially admitted to murdering travellers over many years." The two different subjects make for a meandering sentence. Suggestion: Hussain stated that the gang had adopted him as a child after murdering his father and uncle. The other prisoners initially confessed to murdering travellers over many years.

Done, although both Wagner and Lloyd use the term "admitted"-- I think I'd be more comfortable retaining that.

• "He ultimately testified to having been on five expeditions and witnessing 95 murders, though this was rejected by the court for repeated perjury and later deemed inadmissible to try him for the murders he confessed to participating in." Quite long and complex, suggestion: He ultimately claimed to have participated in five expeditions and witnessed 95 murders. However, the court rejected his testimony due to repeated perjury and ruled it inadmissible.

Rephrased to: "He ultimately claimed to have been on five expeditions, witnessing 95 murders. However, the court rejected his testimony due to repeated perjury and it was later deemed inadmissible to try him for the murders he had confessed to participating in." Key to this part is that Hussain was then put on trial himself on account of his testimony, which was thrown out.

1810s and 1820s

• "Though many individuals were convicted and sentenced to death by the circuit courts in the early attempts to combat thuggee, all the cases were ultimately dismissed by the Nizamat Adalat due to them being based solely on suspected Thugs' confessions." Awkward phrasing in 'due to them being', suggestion: Though many individuals were convicted and sentenced to death by circuit courts, the Nizamat Adalat ultimately dismissed all such cases because they relied solely on the confessions of suspected Thugs

Excellent thank you, I've adopted your suggestion though to my grammatical sensibilities "the" is appropriate here? My formal understanding of grammar is pretty awful but it appears to me to fall under the cases outlined in this first sentence.

• "...where Thugs were allegedly retained by local zamindars" Is 'retained' providing some contexual meaning here? Because the sentence could be lightened to an area where local zamindars were allegedly protecting Thugs

Done. "Retained" is referring to the feudal phenomenon of retainers but I don't think readers will generally interpret it that way. I've linked to retinue in the Place in society and customs section where that sort of technical detail is more appropriate.

• "After ordering the surrounding villages to disarm, Halhed's party was ambushed by the villagers and a British officer killed, for which the village of Murnae was razed the following month." The sentence runs on, needs to be split. After Halhed ordered the surrounding villages to disarm, his party was ambushed and a British officer was killed. In response, the village of Murnae was razed the following month

Adopted your suggestion, though I think "by the villagers" is necessary as much as it's a bit clumsy-- I think people would ordinarily assume it was some sort of military/ mercenary force.

• "In a December report on the state of the pargana, Halhed objected to characterisations of the Thugs as a 'secret society similar to the Illuminati', stating: [long quote]" Major issue: The quote is far too long. Most of it is unnecessary. Suggestion: In a December report, Halhed rejected portrayals of the Thugs as a secret society similar to the Illuminati, writing that they were 'no more than a species of robber' who murdered their victims and felt no dishonour in their profession

Adopted as: "In a December report, Halhed rejected portrayals of the Thugs as a "secret society similar to the Illuminati", asserting that they were "no more than a species of robber" who murdered their victims and felt no dishonour in their profession." I've kept the quotes around the first part to make clear this is Halhed's words and changed the verb to avoid confusion. I had emphasised this quote because it's a key finding of Wagner's study but your rephrasing is much more proportionate.

• "T'hegs" needs [sic]

Done.

• "In the 1820s the colonial authorities began to adopt a new strategy of" 'The' is not needed here and 'to adopt a new strategy of' seems redundant. Suggestion: In the 1820s, colonial authorities began handing captured Thugs over to...

Done, although I retained "the"-- this might possibly be a minor difference between dialects, for me simply "colonial authorities" would refer to the concept broadly instead of specifically the East India Company on the Indian subcontinent.

• "This was possible due to Saugor and Nerbudda being established in 1818 as 'Non-Regulation Territories'," awkward phrasing, suggestion: This was possible because Saugor and Nerbudda had been designated as Non-Regulation Territories in 1818,

Adopted, thank you.

Centralised campaign (1829–1839)

• "Up until this point, efforts to combat thuggee had been led by local authorities and the case marked the first time the central government intervened to ensure that the Thugs were convicted and to develop a judicial argument that saw Thugs treated in the same vein as pirates." Very long and tries to do too many things at once, suggestion: Up until this point, efforts against thuggee had been led by local authorities. This case marked the first major intervention by the central government, which sought both to secure convictions and to establish a judicial argument that treated Thugs in the same manner as pirates

Adopted, though I've retained "the case".

• "In an October 1829 letter, the Government stated that this was because the murders had taken place in territories belonging to various Native Chiefs, meaning that there wasn't one particular authority that could try them." Akward phrasing, maybe: In an October 1829 letter, the Government explained that the murders had occurred across territories belonging to different Native Chiefs, so no single authority was in a position to try the perpetrators.

Adopted, though I think I prefer "meaning that". I'll have another look at all these again with fresh eyes.

• "Agent for the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories Francis Curwen Smith submitted a plan in November that he had written with Sleeman and which called for an officer to be appointed Superintendent for the Suppression of Thugs..." Maybe simplify to: In November, Francis Curwen Smith, Agent for the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, submitted a plan co-authored with Sleeman. It called for the appointment of a Superintendent for the Suppression of Thugs...

Adopted, though with "that he had co-authored..." as a personal preference.

• "The Godna" maybe a short note explaining the Godna?

Is there material that you feel is missing that isn't present at Godna? Dash and Wagner merely cover it as a type of tattoo.

We generally try to help the reader get all their information without them needing to click on blue links, so even just saying 'a type of traditional tatto' in parenthesis or commas would do very well here

Ah I see what you mean, I added "(a traditional tattoo)" summarising Singha.

• "...whose methods of throwing their victims overboard meant that there was very little circumstantial evidence with which to convict them" split from the previous sentence, suggestion: Because they disposed of victims by throwing them overboard, there was almost no circumstantial evidence available for conviction.

Rephrased to "They disposed of their victims by throwing them overboard, leaving very little circumstantial evidence to convict them with" (not chuffed with this). Wagner uses "even less circumstantial evidence" but I think this phrasing would be WP:EDITORIAL? I don't think there's quite enough in the source to support "almost no".

Aftermath and legacy

• "The Anti-Thuggee Campaign of the 1830s provided a model for the later shift to a centralised police bureaucracy and established an all-India framework for policing and surveillance." 'Later' is vague here, can we get an aproximate date? Also, 'all-India' is slightly imprecise (is this pertaining to the British Raj?)

Agreed, I've rephrased to "The Anti-Thuggee Campaign of the 1830s served as a precursor to the centralised police bureaucracy that emerged under the British Raj in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. It also established a limited pan-Indian framework for policing and surveillance, and marked one of the first times..." (still cited to Singha). The material at Indian Police Service#Indian Imperial Police is probably more relevant to the development of policing though.

• "...witnessing the birth of a literary tradition" maybe to helping lunch a literary tradition

I've changed to "launching a literary tradition" since the source says that Taylor's book was the cause of this.

• "The later policing campaigns it pursued criminalised communities connected to" a bit wordy, suggestion: Later campaigns criminalised communities involved in

I agree this is wordy but I think it probably has to be linked to the department to establish it as a legacy of the campaign. I think "involved in" might overstate the complicity/ guilt of the Moghias, Piliavsky cites reports of a lack of violent crime.

Okay, how about The department later campaigned against criminalised communities connected to...?

Hmmmm, I'm not sure I like campaigned as a verb-- what's there doesn't seem too problematic to me?

• "...cited to evidence the..." awkward phrasing, perhaps: cited as evidence for the...

Done.

• The rest of the section is of very good quality

Thanks!

Sources and historicity

• "...meaning that..." seeing as the phrase is repeated just a few lines above, can it be changed here to therefore, hence or other synonyms?

Changed to "leaving historians with".

• "Historian Parama Roy asserts that the colonial discourse on thuggee was highly self-referential, discrepancies between approver accounts were smoothed over, and approvers were driven to authenticate the official knowledge of thuggee" In this sentence the comma after "self-referential" creates a brief misreading where it sounds like "self-referential discrepancies". It might be clearer if split into two sentences, or rephrased slightly. For example: Historian Parama Roy argues that the colonial discourse on thuggee was highly self-referential. Discrepancies between approver accounts were smoothed over, and approvers were pressured into authenticating the official version of thuggee

The thing is the second sentence here states her WP:OPINION in Wikivoice, as much as Lloyd repeats these points and I don't think this is contested. I've added "that" to the start of the points-- does this just exchange the issue for another? It's hard for me to tell.

It's much clearer now, thank you.

• "Wagner argues that, though the colonial representation cannot be taken at face value, it was not invented from nothing, and historians can clearly identify and evaluate the biases that permeate the texts due to them also including the questions asked by the British officials." Second sentence reads a bit clunky, I think it should be separated. Suggestion: Wagner argues that while the colonial representation cannot be taken at face value, it was not entirely invented. Because the records include the questions asked by British officials, historians can identify and evaluate the biases they contain.

Rephrased to "Wagner argues that while the colonial representation cannot be taken at face value, it was not invented from nothing. He contends that because the records include the questions asked by British officials, historians can identify and evaluate the biases they contain." I think we have to make clear that the second part is also his opinion.

• "To evidence that the sources point to some sort of social reality, Wagner and Dash cite consistencies across the first reports of thuggee that they judge to have been made without knowledge of the others." 'To evidence' is a bit stiff. Suggestion: Wagner and Dash point to consistencies across the earliest independent reports of thuggee as evidence that the phenomenon had some basis in social reality

Adopted, though Wagner refers to "a social reality" in his writing.

Taking a detour to Centralised campaign (1829–1839)

• I noticed that "same manner as pirates" is linked to Hostis humani generis. While the wording itself is very clear and I personally find it informative, it unfortunately violates WP:EASTEREGG: Keep piped links as transparent as possible and follow the principle of least astonishment. Do not use piped links to create "Easter egg" links that require the reader to open them (or, at least, to hover their mouse pointer on those links to get page previews in the form of navigation popups) before understanding where they lead. If, and only if, the sources support the term Hostis humani generis, you should put that into the article and add a note explaining it, and that is only if you want to keep the link.

That makes sense, I've removed the link and clarified what this means from the source.

Historical revisionism

• "Following a theory first posited by Gupta in 1959, Wagner, Singha, and Dash view the thugs as being composed of soldiers out of work due to a contraction in the military labour market caused by the expansion of British rule and subsidiary alliances that entailed the disbandment of native standing armies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries." Very long and overloaded. Suggestion: Following a theory first posited by Gupta in 1959, historians such as Wagner, Singha, and Dash argue that many Thugs were former soldiers who became unemployed due to the contraction of the military labour market under British rule and the disbandment of native armies through subsidiary alliances

Excellent thank you, I've amended to "Following a theory first posited by Gupta in 1959, historians such as Wagner, Singha, and Dash argue that many Thugs were former soldiers who became unemployed due to a contraction in the military labour market as a result of British expansion and the disbandment of native armies through subsidiary alliances." The decline of the military labour market extended beyond the territories under British rule (according to Dash, Gupta's theory invoked the Pax Britannica-- his original article is copyrighted and unfortunately not digitised).

• "Wagner posits that the disbanded soldiers, who were often paid with loot, merely continued their predatory lifestyle while Singha surmises that highway robbery was probably practised by mercenary bands moving between employers and may have become permanent as the market contracted." Split the sentence between the two scholars. Suggestion: Wagner argues that these disbanded soldiers, who were often paid in loot, simply continued their predatory lifestyle. Singha, by contrast, suggests that highway robbery was practised by mercenary bands who moved between employers and became more permanent as military opportunities contracted

Split up the sentence and adopted some of this wording-- these weren't intended to be read in contrast to one another. Singha and Wagner seem to largely agree on this, it's just that they highlight different areas for analysis.

• "He places the number of individuals deriving a living of some sort from thuggee at as many as three thousand, further describing thuggee techniques as 'a system of murder without parallel'." Slightly awkward phrasing ('driving a living of some sort') suggestion: Dash estimates that as many as three thousand people derived some form of livelihood from thuggee, describing its techniques as 'a system of murder without parallel

Adopted.

• "Bayly posited that the initial reaction of the British authorities to thuggee arose out of an 'information panic' whereby the nascent colonial administration feared their lack of knowledge about the local population and that the locals were conspiring to deny it information." Long and slightly repetitive at the end. Suggestion: Bayly argues that the British reaction stemmed from an 'information panic' — the new colonial administration feared both its lack of knowledge about the Indian population and the possibility that locals were deliberately withholding information

Adopted, though his theory seems to have been accepted by other historians so I retained "posited". Bayly's just talking about Etawah so I retained "initial", and also "whereby" as a personal preference.

Methods

• Why is Brahmins written in capital?

It's capitalised in the sources-- would you use the lowercase for individual members?

Only if the sources permit it. It does feel a bit jarring to see one class capitalised among all these other occupations, but it would also be misrepresentating the sources if we wrote brahmin.

• "Thugs would quite often also" maybe change to also frequently?

Much better, thank you.

• "The popular conception of thugs cemented in the latter half of the 19th century saw them as being devoted to murdering solely by strangulation, without shedding blood." A bit wordy. Suggestion: By the second half of the 19th century, the popular image of Thugs was that they murdered exclusively by strangulation, never shedding blood

Adopted.

• "Dash notes that thugs had no objection to shedding blood after their victims were dead and links the method of strangulation to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence favoured in Mughal India that held that murder could only merit capital punishment if it was done with a weapon, usually associated with the shedding of blood." Very long and complex. Suggestion: Dash notes that Thugs had no objection to shedding blood once their victims were dead. He links the preference for strangulation to the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence prevalent in Mughal India, which treated murder by weapon (typically associated with bloodshed) more severely

Adopted but with "with a weapon".

• "There were no eyewitnesses since every member of the party was murdered and little circumstantial evidence as the act was done by stealth, while items such as a rumāl, scarf, dhoti, wrap, cord, or even a knife and sword were likely to be found on innocent travellers." Long run-on sentence, suggestion: There were no eyewitnesses, as the Thugs murdered entire parties. Circumstantial evidence was scarce because the killings were carried out by stealth, and common items such as a rumāl, scarf, dhoti, or cord could easily be found on innocent travellers

Adopted.

• "It was also a recorded practice among thugs to stab their victims in the face or belly to prevent them from being recognised or to ensure they were dead" isn't this contradictory to the earlier sentence about Islamic jurisprudence and bloodshed? Or after-death no longer counts as severe murder? If so, maybe explain it a bit more?

Based on the recorded testimonies, stabbing to ensure they were dead was a later development in certain gangs after one victim woke up and ran off. I added a note on this.

Religious Beliefes

• "specifically honed in on the thugs' religious orientations", note the lowercase 'thugs' versus capitalised 'Thugs' elsewhere. Ensure capitalization consistency throughout the article

This is something I've wanted a second opinion on, I'm not sure if I'm clutching at straws. I'd tried to distinguish between the legal classification of "Thug" that was instrumentalised i.e. "Thug testimony" and the original bandits that revisionists are interested in (Wagner does it very sparingly in his book). Is this just confusing?

Yeah, unfortunately in its corrent form its just confusing. It feels inconsistent rather than intentional. If you want to keep the distinction, it would need to be clearly explained early in the article (e.g. in the lead or a footnote), but I think that would be more distracting than helpful. Most readers won't pick up on the subtle legal vs. revisionist distinction without it being explicitly explained. Even if explained, it creates a cognitive burden throughout a long article. I suggest you use Thugs with capital T consistently when referring to the historical phenomenon, the colonial category, or the people as described in the sources

The clear problem is that the distinction between 'thug' and 'Thug' is vague. For exemple, why are' Hindu and Muslim thugs' and 'datura-thugs' written in lowercase while 'River-Thugs' is in capital?

Agreed, thank you. I've gone through the article and capitalised 'thug' (leaving quotes as they are). I've possibly missed a few.

• "in what composed a variety of traditions" slightly clunky. Suggestion: participating in a variety of traditions

Changed to "reflecting" since the source says: "Given the various different goddesses named by the thugs, it must also be obvious that we are not talking about one specific religious tradition".

• "The thugs also held a myth of divine origins… strangulation" this sentence is quite long. Consider splitting after 'Matrikas.'

Done.

• "definitive 1836 book" is a bit subjective/promotional. Is it backed up by sources?

Wagner (2004: p.953) describes it as "the canon of the colonial discourse on thuggee"-- I think "definitive" was a poor choice, I've amended to "seminal".

• "Wagner states that 'robbers' who did not worship a tutelary deity, perform pujas or entertain certain beliefs…'": Grammar problem. The quote 'perform pujas' shifts tense from 'worship' (past). Consider using performed

I think that's correct isn't it? "Did not" governs the tense of all three ("worship", "perform", and "entertain") despite them being conjugated in the present tense-- that's my reading of the quote at least.

Ah, apologies. I thought the second and third verbs were separated and about a new subject

• "Wagner holds van Woerkens to have deconstructed the colonial representation of thuggee only to use Sleeman’s account to resurrect it" a bit dense and long, suggestion: Wagner criticises van Woerkens for deconstructing the colonial representation of thuggee only to ultimately resurrect it using Sleeman’s own accounts

Adopted, though with "account".

Place in society and customes

• "Thugs were retained by local zamindars and rajas in return for a portion of the loot or as mercenaries, which was part of a broader institutionalised phenomenon that also saw kazaks, dacoits, and other marauders retained by landholders." Quite long. Suggestion: Local zamindars and rajas often retained Thugs in return for a share of the loot or as mercenaries. This practice was part of a wider institutionalised system that also included kazaks, dacoits, and other marauders.

Adopted but retaining "phenomenon" (also added a note).

• 'Adoptee' usually refers to the person being adopted. If the children were adopted by the thugs, the parents are the adopters.

Fixed, thank you.

• "The thugs used a criminal argot called Ramasee, which was compiled by Sleeman from interviews with more than a dozen Thugs in his 1836 seminal work on thuggee Ramaseeana" The sentence structure is slightly repetitive with 'thuggee' and 'Ramaseeana.' Suggestion: The thugs used a criminal argot called Ramasee, which Sleeman compiled from interviews with more than a dozen Thugs for his 1836 work, Ramaseeana

Adopted.

• "Interviews with long-term thugs, such as Buhram, evidence that they saw themselves as being above common thieves." 'Evidence' should be show or indicate

Adopted "indicate".

Hereditary nature

• Is 'phanisigars' a typoe here? Because perviously you have spelled it 'phansigars'

Yes it was, thank you.

• "At this point, according to the legend, they didn't commit any crimes but were forced to flee after murdering one of their associates, giving rise to seven nomadic Muslim clans" 'didn't' is slightly informal. Suggestion: According to the legend, this group initially committed no crimes but was forced to flee after murdering one of their own, eventually forming seven nomadic Muslim clans

Adopted, though I retained "giving rise to".

• "and that neither were the individuals" clunky phrasing, suggestion: and that the individuals who practised it were not a uniform group either or and that there was no uniformity among the individuals who practised it

Adopted the second suggestion.

• "Singha considers the vast amount of material generated by the Thuggee and Dacoity Department on the hereditary nature of Thugs and Dacoits to, in reality, disguise the failure of the colonial regime to set up mechanisms of policing and prosecution capable of tying the specific offense to the individual offender" this is the longest and most convoluted sentence in the section. Suggestion: Singha argues that the extensive material produced by the Thuggee and Dacoity Department on the hereditary nature of Thugs and Dacoits actually masked the colonial regime’s failure to develop effective policing and prosecution systems capable of linking specific crimes to individual offenders

Adopted, thank you.

Notable groups This section is generally well-organised and clear. Just a few minor suggestions:

• "The biggest thuggee haul..." feel slightly informal

Changed to "largest thuggee spoils".

• THe Megpunna Thugs is the longest bullet and feels a bit dense. Suggestion for the last part: They murdered parents in order to sell their children, typically strangling them with reins. They were officially classified as Thugs in 1839. According to Dash, the group originated in 1826, never numbered more than 200 people, and operated mostly in the Delhi and Rajputana regions

I appreciate that but they're also the most notable besides the Sindouse Thugs, even if that's only for how they were used by the authorities. I've chosen not to split the first sentence but adopted the second one.

• The Tashma-baz Thugs is a bit wordy. Can be lightened to: Tashma-baz Thugs were thimble-riggers based on the outskirts of Cawnpore. They were legally classified as Thugs in 1848 after murdering and robbing several travellers

Split up the sentence. I think the first part gets away from the source a bit and I've retained "they had met on the roads" since it gets across how spurious this classification was-- even commentators at the time pointed this out.

Approvers

• "Wagner notes that, for the initial confession to be believed and accepted, the thugs had to comply with any preconceived notions that the interrogator had about the case in question." Perhaps lighten it to: Wagner notes that, in order for their initial confession to be accepted, Thugs had to align with the interrogator’s preconceived notions about the case

Adopted.

• "Feringheea was returned to jail in 1832, though other approvers remained on the roads with their nujeeb escorts (mounted militiamen), hunting thuggee gangs they had personal knowledge of" Mostly fine but could flow better: Feringheea was returned to jail in 1832, while other approvers continued to travel the roads with their nujeeb escorts (mounted militiamen), hunting gangs they personally knew

Adopted but retained "had personal knowledge of"-- I'd rather use Dash's language on this since it could conceivably be gangs they'd merely heard of.

Jubbulpore School of Industry

• "...that the approvers couldn't be reformed" Minor contraction ('couldn't'), should be could not

Done.

• "They were generally only allowed to meet their families at mealtimes and were given allowances in return for their work that, after deducting food and clothing, went to their families." Maybe They were generally allowed to meet their families only at mealtimes. In return for their work, they received allowances (after deductions for food and clothing) that were given to their families.

Rephrased to "They were generally allowed to meet their families only at mealtimes. In return for their work they received allowances that, after deductions for food and clothing, went to their families."

• Otherwise, this is a strong, well-written section and we can move on to the last section of the prose

Excellent, thank you for taking the time to go through all of this.

In Popular culture

• "By the 1860s and 1870s, thuggee had become a fixture of Indian colonial lore and it inspired one of the most potent and longest lasting Orientalist tropes in literature and film." The verbs can be merged, suggestion: By the 1860s and 1870s, thuggee had become a fixture of colonial Indian lore and one of the most enduring Orientalist tropes in literature and film

I think this rephrasing implies that it was "most enduring" by the 1860s and 1870s, when this material actually relates to the present day/ near past.

I see what you mean. Keep it this way then.

• "The later representations of this stereotype in film ensured its popularity well into the postcolonial era" a bit vague ('later representations'), maybe add some specifications like Twentieth-century film adaptations?

Amended to "Later depictions of this stereotype in 20th-century films ensured its popularity well into the postcolonial era."

• "By the 1860s, the word 'thug' had made its way into everyday use in the English language, and today merely refers to a violent person." This feels rather abrupt as the very last sentence of the article. Suggestion: Merge it with the previous paragraph or give it a smoother transition, e.g.: The word 'thug' entered everyday English by the 1860s and today simply means a violent or criminal person.

Done, but kept the comma-- to my reading the latter clause is a bit of an aside.

• "In it, the 'T,hugs [sic]' are portrayed as cunning bandits and spare the lives of the protagonist and his companions." Replace 'and' with 'who' for a smoother sentence

Done.

• The paragraphs covering Eugène Sue, Goedsche, Gomes, Pont-Jest, Verne, Allen & Cotes, Conan Doyle, and Stoker are generally clear but have a repetitive structure ("X novel sees..."). This is common in "in popular culture" sections, but varying the verbs would improve flow. Example improvements: Instead of repeating "sees", use "features", "depicts", "centres on", "portrays", etc.

I had a go at improving this but I struggled to vary the starts of the sentences more than they currently are.

• "I misteri della jungla nera (The Mystery of the Black Jungle; 1895) sees the protagonist, a Bengali hunter, battle the Thugs to rescue a love interest..." long sentence, suggestion: I misteri della jungla nera (The Mystery of the Black Jungle, 1895) follows a Bengali hunter battling the Thugs to rescue his love interest

Adopted.

• "Le due tigri (The Two Tigers; 1904) is set against the backdrop of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and sees Sandokan rescue his daughter from the Thugs, who have joined forces with the mutineers to fight the British colonisers." ditto, suggestion: Le due tigri (The Two Tigers, 1904) is set during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. In it, Sandokan rescues his daughter from the Thugs, who have allied with the mutineers against the British

Adopted.

• "The 1952 John Masters novel The Deceivers sees a British officer go undercover in a thuggee cult and participate in acts of thuggee." Suggestion: John Masters’ 1952 novel The Deceivers follows a British officer who goes undercover in a thuggee cult and participates in its rituals

Adopted, though "participates in its rituals" unfortunately gets away from the source-- Macfie explicitly mentions murder.

• "In the film, the 'Thuggees' [sic] have stolen a lingam and use kidnapped children for slave labour in their mines, aiming to 'massacre the British imperialists, crush the Muslims, and then cause the god of the Christians to crumble into dust'." Very long sentence wit a long quote: In the film, the 'Thuggees' [sic] have stolen a sacred lingam and force kidnapped children to work as slaves in their mines. They seek to 'massacre the British imperialists, crush the Muslims, and then cause the god of the Christians to crumble into dust

Adopted.

And that's it for the prose review. Amir Ghandi (talk) 10:26, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for all of your hardwork, @Joko2468:, passing the article now. Congratulations, here's hoping we see the article shortly at FAC Amir Ghandi (talk) 14:29, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notes for FA reviewers on historiography

Historians started to re-evaluate the colonial account of thuggee in 1959 with Gupta's article, and—besides Gordon's 1969 article—this was generally addressed as a part of broader studies. In the 1990s, thuggee became the subject of postcolonial literary criticism (Chatterjee, Roy, Fhlathúin). Whether or not these scholars implicitly denied the existence of anything behind the colonial portrayal is disputed by Wagner and Dash on one side and Lloyd on the other. There have been three scholarly monagraphs on thuggee: van Woerkens (1995 in French; 2002 in English), Dash (2005), and Wagner (2007). Lloyd (2006) strongly criticised the methods of the reinterpretations, but since he's the only historian to do so, and in light of the rest of the revisionists, I judged this to be largely WP:FRINGE.

Wagner's work has received the most support from other scholars (most notably Dash and Humes) and he was commissioned to write the introduction for the 2024 Oxford World's Classics edition of Confessions of a Thug. Dash's book is popular history so generally hasn't been used for narrative details. Van Woerkens's work has been criticised, but since it's one of three monographs on the subject and held as well-researched I thought it best to cover this rather than exclude it as WP:FRINGE. Thanks.

Notes

References

Joko2468 (talk) 09:05, 23 June 2026 (UTC)