Epilogue

Abstract

When Merchant Ivory in 1988 filmed John Masters’ novel The Deceivers, an opening sequence not found in the novel was inserted. The new first scene was George Bruce’s account of the murder of Lieut. Maunsell, here shown mysteriously assassinated in the middle of the night along with his two orderlies. The subsequent discovery of Maunsell’s hidden body by the Sleeman-esque William Savage (played by Pierce Brosnan) heralds the initiation of a passionate personal campaign to unravel the secrets of the thugs as Savage dons a turban and goes native by joining the thugs — getting perilously close to loosing his identity as a good (white) Christian in the process. The fact that Bruce made up the entire incident is, of course, lost as the event is immortalised by Merchant Ivory — the epitome of the romanticised memory of the Raj. Bruce settled for the bare fact of Lieut. Maunsell’s murder and turned it into a story of how it was hushed up and even lied about by an East India Company that refused to accept its moral responsibilities towards its Indian subjects and ignored the existence of thuggee. A narrative sleight of hand that later allows Bruce to introduce his hero, Sleeman, as the honest and zealous official who revealed the hidden horrors of thuggee, thereby forcing a complacent British administration to take action (as Savage does in the novel and movie).