The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire

by William Dalrymple

Captain James Stewart was among those killed on 4 January 1779 near Karle, when he shinned up a tree to see where the Maratha army was and was promptly shot dead by a Maratha marksman.Two hundred years later Ishtur Phakda, as he is now known around Karle, has become a local Tantric deity, to whom the local police – among others – offer weekly blood sacrifice. The shrine to his head, which at some point seems to have become detached from his body, is in the local police station, just beyond the cells. If the station chief ignores him, according to the officer on duty, Ishtur Phakda ‘gives him a good slap’. With many thanks to the great historian of the Marathas, Uday S. Kulkarni, who not only told me this story, but took me on a prolonged search for the obelisk marking the spot of his death, a second shrine – covered in goat’s blood – where his body lies, and the third to his head in the local Wadgaon police lockup.