Thug Life

The distant past, unencumbered by the existence of the media, almost completely free from any kind of mass dissemination of information - was particularly suitable for the long-term existence of original associations of citizens known as cults, one of which is particularly fascinating.

The Thugs sect, with its activity over half a millennium and a number of victims greater than that of all the cults in history taken together, the original Thugs, the terror of India - stand out from the average homicidal sect in terms of its duration, its evolution into a club of hired killers and its boundless loyalty to the goddess Kali. And she is only one of the millions of deities, demigods and aspects of deities in the chaotic religious system known as Hinduism. Sometimes good, kind, fruitful and constructive, sometimes evil, disgusting and destructive, in this case her power depended on a regular supply of human blood and appropriate rituals over the sacrificed. Like all supernatural nonsense, this one is open to all kinds of interpretations, and in the case of the Thug sect - the thirst for blood that Kali supposedly needed to survive in this reality is nothing more than another theological dilemma in honor of the irrational.

The etymology of the popular English term Thug (which means a brute, a criminal, a `gorilla`) refers precisely to the members of this sect, who during the British Raj were the subject of numerous legends and myths, as well as a deadly reality and great efforts by the British colonial authorities to put an end to the danger.

Organized as early as the thirteenth century, the Thugs have lurked on roads and crossroads for centuries, straying travelers and freight cars, messengers and convoys disappearing from the face of the world with the help of the silent weapons of the Thugs, who despised bloodshed for fear of offending Kali. Therefore, they used special fabrics with which to strangle their victims. The blood of the victims was not allowed to spill on the ground because it would become impure and unfit for Kali's appetite, hence the natural turn of the Tagas to drowning as a modus operandi. For centuries, members of this sect had perfected the art of practical ``acting'' in order to camouflage themselves as harmless travelers who inspire confidence, in a word, they were something like a retarded version of the Japanese Ninjas.

Unlike other cults, among the Tagas membership was hereditary, strictly from father to son, with rare cases of recruiting bright children with quick fingers from the ranks of potential victims, whom a ``strangler'' would take pity on. The initiation ritual was particularly convenient, and began at the age of ten when the future Tag had to witness a ritual murder! Later, participation in robberies followed as `logistics`, so that after several years of `training`, the first murder was approached, with which the young Tag entered the world of adults...The number of victims of this sect is impossible to determine, primarily due to the incredible period of time in which this organization existed in total secrecy, everything is left to estimates and speculations, where the figure of 30,000 victims is taken as the absolute lowest and the highest goes up to two million. As in many other situations, perhaps here too the truth is somewhere in the middle, which still leaves room for the sect members to have killed hundreds of thousands of people, which separates them from the world of destructive sects and enters the category of social disasters, since more people have suffered at their hands than in many wars and epidemics.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the British colonial authorities still refused to believe in the existence of such a thing, their skepticism was also strengthened by the fact that there were no reports of British casualties and the local raja was already a bizarre ``consumable commodity''. What later prompted them to take action was the trade that began to suffer from the constant attacks of the sectarians and the fanatical persistence of one man, Sir William Henry Slimane, deputy governor of several areas of the subcontinent and a military veteran of numerous conflicts in those areas. Slimane had serious trouble getting the authorities to take action because few people believed that the Thugs were still active, but after the self-initiated capture of several sectarians and the provision of serious evidence - the British Raj gave him a free hand in dealing with the sect.

A special paramilitary unit (Thuggee and Dacoity Department) was formed, which was tasked with eliminating the sect without much ceremony. From 1835 to 1850, there was a ruthless hunt for sectarians, which included everything from the use of what would later be known as counter-insurgency tactics to entire battles and operations against the organization, numerous trials and investigations, during which at least 1,500 members of the sect were sentenced to death and even more were imprisoned or exiled. The most significant moment was the capture of the legend of the Tages, a certain Tag Behram, who during half a century of "ordination" single-handedly liquidated 931 victims, which places him in a new, previously unknown category of serial killers, an unusual character who would be feared by maniacs like Jeffrey Dahmer or Richard Kuklinski. Naturally, Behram was sentenced to death and hanged at the height of the campaign in 1840.

The beheaded cult, deprived of its legendary sectarians and most active members, began to wither and in the following decades reports of their atrocities ceased altogether. It is difficult to imagine that a secret organization with a huge membership forged through the experiences of five hundred years of hiding from the authorities would disappear completely in such a short time. If nothing else, the myth has survived to this day and it is assumed that on the deserted roads of Hindustan, a stray traveler is still sometimes strangled and robbed by the Tagis even in the 21st century...

This cult has received scant literary and media coverage in the Western world, with the exception of one of the films in the ``Indiana Jones`` series (Temple of the Damned) where the archaeologist-adventurer and his friends try to escape the clutches of the Tagis. The scene remains in my memory when the Magi rip out hearts with their bare hands that slowly stop beating outside the victim, a fate that almost befell Harrison Ford himself in the movie. Naturally, it is a cinematic distortion of reality in which Callie would be heartbroken if she saw ripped out hearts that spray blood everywhere and thus pollute the "fuel" that powered her...

(Roger Mortis, 095)