Summary

It is said they murdered more than one million travellers, never spilling a drop of blood. They were inspired by religious fanaticism, yet came from many faiths. Their weapon was treachery, their sacrament sugar, and their goddess Kali. They were the thugs and in the 1830s they suddenly became 'the enemy within' for a burgeoning British Empire. The colonial reaction still haunts India today and in his new book Rushby investigates the dark and mysterious world of Indian crime past and present.
The journey takes him to the prisons and gangster hideouts of this country, probing the nature of crime and punishment in a land where the distinctions between good and evil can be as murky as the Ganges. Rulers with underworld connections, politicians without scruples, bandits as social workers and heroes - this is an India turned upside down and one that can have a devastating effect on the traveller. In the jungles of Carnatica, Rushby searches for Veerappan Muruswamy, a bandit responsible for many murders, supposedly assisted by magical powers. Further north, he meets the ex-rajahs whose memories reach back to colonial days and a thug cult created by imperialistic and orientalist needs (Queen Victoria took a keen interest).