
India has always been
the enchanted land, a universe in itself with its unique set of customs,
practices and people. Performance magic, whether it is by the juggler,
illusionist or the contortionist, has its earliest roots in the subcontinent
and much of modern magic owes its origins to the jadoowallah from the
East.
Fantastical tales of
men and beast make their way into historical accounts going back 2,300 years.
Native accounts like the Jataka Tales or the Atharva Veda mention the
magician and his tricks. During the British rule the Indian performer
entertained the empire armed with just a small bag of props in contrast to the
big productions of the West. Scores of jugglers, fire walkers, sword-swallowers
were sent to England by East India company officials looking to make a killing.
They were often not paid any wages and left to fend for themselves. The 20th
century saw the organisation of huge expositions or world fairs—human zoos of a
kind—where performers from colonised lands were shipped to Europe as living
exhibits.
Australian author John
Zubrzycki’s Jadoowallahs, Jugglers and Jinns: A Magical History of India (Picador
India, 2018, ₹699) is an enthralling account of ancient magic
traditions, colonialism and performance art and more. Edited excerpts from
an interview:
Can you tell me about your interest in
magic?
I am definitely not a
magician. I’m more of a historian. Spent a lot of my career working as a
journalist and part of that as a foreign correspondent in India. I don’t put my
interest in India ahead of my interest in magic, but these two came together
beautifully because you know, I’ve been going to India for a very long time,
and studied Indian history. A couple of my other books are also based in India.
The thing is that the story of magic is alive to so many different aspects of
Indian culture and society and history.
How do magicians define magic? Is there
a difference between, say, what a juggler thinks of his craft versus somebody
who’s an illusionist?
You should best be
asking a magician that question. I mean for me magic is one of those words that
is used loosely. You can have a magical experience that’s got nothing to do
with magic. In my book I discuss the really simple but all-encompassing
definition of ‘The artful performance of
impossible effect’. So that brings in
the performance aspect of it, and leaves it open-ended enough to include, you
know, all sorts of manner of tricks.
In an Indian context
it’s different. A western magician would not make any pretence to what he or she
is doing as being in anyway supernatural whereas those lines between scientific
rationalism and supernatural magic—the magic that defies laws of nature—those
boundaries are blurred in India, and deliberately so. Would you define snake
charming as magic? I thought if you knew how it was done you would. It is very
much up to the spectator whether he or she believes that what they’re seeing is
magical or just trickery.

Early in the book you speak of the barah
pal, the Brotherhood of Twelve, the ancient collective of strolling
players. The brotherhood in a way transcends their own caste and community
identities. They can share a cooking hearth, for example. Can you speak more
about it?
When I asked a group
of jugglers in Delhi, it took them a little while to come up with all the
different categories of performance. And some of some of those categories
aren’t going to be particularly magical either, like puppeteers.
Look it’s (the
brotherhood) an informal thing and it was something that was relayed to me by
several people. I struggled to find literary or historical references. It is
something the people are aware of. It’s just the reflection of the fact that
magic being a form of popular culture in the way, and nor are these things
written down. It’s more tradition that is shared by communities, and
understood as such.
A western magician would not make any pretence to what he or she is doing as being in anyway supernatural whereas those lines between scientific rationalism and supernatural magic—the magic that defies laws of nature—those boundaries are blurred in India, and deliberately so.
The first couple of chapters have many
references to how the Vedic period was full of charms and spells, how the
Atharva Veda has the fire worshipping Brahmins, etc. How did magic come to the
street performer? Were there jugglers even then or was it just the priestly
class?
There were jugglers
even then. I think that the Arthashastra, which is later of course,
mentions jugglers and other types of performers that were taxed, and yes, were
also used as spies. So that was another indication. Even when you look back at
the Jataka Tales, so many of the stories have tricks mentioned in
those tales. There are mentions of certain communities that do some sort of
necromancy. With all these things it is always going to be an element of actual
sleight of hand employed. Temple religious rituals would employ things that the
worshipper would not know, would think of as being magical because the priest
or the magician or the whatever it is, there’s always going to be an element of
performance.
You talk about how performers from
India, from ancient India in particular, were all over the place. They were in
China. They were in ancient Rome, they were in Baghdad but it was not so much
of a two-way thing. We didn’t have that many performers from these places here.
We had travellers.
Oh, yes look that’s a
good point. It’s you know somewhere in historical records mention of magicians
from other countries coming to India. It’s just that with all these things
often, these records are maybe more occupied with higher matters of state, war
or conquest.
Personally, certainly
you’d have to assume that magicians from these other places would have come to
India as well because you only have to look at something as simple, as
elementary as the ‘cup-ball’ trick. You get the first evidence that was used as
a magic trick in Egypt around 2500 BCE and it is now part of the repertoire of
every jadoowallah in India plus every Western magician. There’s evidence
that it was widely practised in medieval Europe.
So magic is really transnational. It’s something that doesn’t rely on language. It’s all physical. The magician is not explaining as he is doing it, he is simply doing

Accounts of travellers to India, and you cite many of them, beginning from Herodotus in 3BCE, have fantastical descriptions of people. ‘Men with canine heads who bark’, ‘the umbrella foot man’, dragons and what not. Why were they so embellished?
I think they were
embellished because India was this far off the seas land on the edge of the known
world. I wanted to bring them in because I wanted to create this notion of
India as magical, mystical, mysterious land. That picture of India was
something built up over the centuries. Added to it by every traveller that
came from different parts of the world.
Alexander the Great,
Marco Polo. All those people who passed through and added their two cents worth
for this magical lore.
You speak of a period of tension between
the Sufis and sort of Hindu native performers, each trying to prove their magic
was better.
(Laughs) Uh, you know again, that’s something that I
found fascinating.
You talk about Gorakhnath of the Nath
sampradaya and Kabir, they are from 11th century and 16th century respectively,
and the oral tradition that speaks of this magical duel between them.
Yeah, these legends
have made their way into religious folklore and so on but they were there, you
know, in order to prove a point, who’s who, which religion was stronger, so on.
You find this also in Buddhist accounts.
What was the Sufi approach to magic? It
was a way of finding God through magic?
Pretty much, yeah. There are examples of Sufi saints using great sleight of hand in order to enhance their own powers to attract more followers. So there’s always that element of actual magic.
I think they were embellished because India was this far off the seas land on the edge of the known world. I wanted to bring them in because I wanted to create this notion of India as magical, mystical, mysterious land. That picture of India was something built up over the centuries. Added to it by every traveller that came from different parts of the world.
What was the place of women in the
Indian magic tradition?
A troupe of magicians comprises
men and women and, of course, children as well.
There were different roles that the women tended to do more. The
physical act, like the balancing act. Tightrope walking. Walking on the edges
of swords.
I guess it’s mirrored
in Western performance magic as well that that it’s mainly a male domain even
now. There aren’t that many female magicians around, even in India as well.
Maneka Sorcar (the granddaughter of P. C. Sorcar) though, is a performer in her
own right. By and large women were often assistants; sawn in half, made to
disappear or levitate. I guess often
because, you know, they were smaller and more agile for those acts.
Most
performers belong to the various nomadic, marginalised communities. Some
of them had thievery, kidnapping as their professions, and the Criminal Tribes
Act, 1908 made them all outlaws and killed a nomadic way of life. What impact
did it have on that craft per se?
It’s hard to quantify
what impact it had on the craft. They
were definitely sizable in number so, even if they were made to give up their
nomadic way of life they still needed to find a way of making ends meet, and
it’s quite likely a lot of them would have migrated to the bigger cities and
kept on performing there.
What do you think of the British attitude
towards these communities?
As far as the British
attitude, it was, you know, coloured by the whole war against the thugs. There’s quite a bit of academic debate as to
whether this cult of the thugs was created or whether there was this group. The
British suspected them because they were nomadic, and maybe, more difficult to
control. They wanted to do everything in their power to, I guess, on one hand protect
innocent people from the circle of crime. There was also the whole civilising
mission. Right after missionaries started arrived in large numbers in the early
19th century.
One interesting person you mention is
Krishna Raghunathji, the editor of Bombay Government Gazette. His
“Bombay Beggars and Criers (1892)” is a rare matter-of-fact account of street
communities. Can you tell us a little more about him and his writing?
I wish I could. I
looked everywhere I could for more information about him. He wrote quite an
academic work on the devdasis of Bombay who came from Goa. He was obviously
interested in beliefs and unusual customs and practices that were common in
Bombay at the time. That’s a very interesting individual. I wish we could find
out a lot more about him because his Beggars and Criers is really quite
a unique piece of anthropological reportage for the time.
What do you think of the expositions and
world fairs? They were sort of human zoos for the entertainment of colonial
masters. What was the reception in the UK or in France?
The importance of
these expositions can’t be understated. More than 50 million people visited the
Paris Exposition in 1900 and many of them would have seen performances by a
troupe of magicians recruited by none other than Motilal Nehru. There were
international exhibitions every year in some part of the world in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and India and its magicians featured
in most of them.
There was a huge
demand for exotic show people and animals from places like India. The
Hagenbecks, originally from Germany, dominated the trade in people and animals
using Ceylon as their main base. Most of the Indians were Tamils who were
recruited in South India then sent to Ceylon to avoid emigration laws. Some had
done so many trips to Europe they had picked up languages such as German. There
was an exploitative side to the trade of course with hundreds of Indian
entertainers being abandoned on the streets of Britain and Europe unable to
return home.
The success of the Indian performers
sparked a trend in Western magicians, what you call ‘cultural cross-dressing’,
dressing as fakirs, colouring the faces, even copying the acts of Indian
performers. What was the state of Western magic when the Indians first started
show their wares in Europe?
In every sort of
performance genre, originality matters. When Indians first went to England,
magic was in a bit of a transition stage from the fairground, where it was
catering more to the lower classes and doing rudimentary stuff. By the early
19th century magic was increasingly moving to theatrical venues. The middle
class had arrived by the mid 19th century.
Magic moving to theatrical venues—is it
a western innovation?
Very much. Yeah, it
didn’t happen in India where you had a theatrical network once the railways
started expanding around. And then later you had the Indian magicians in a more
English-speaking educated mould.
That followed a movement to India of
prominent Western magicians of the time, who were all keen to pick up tricks
here and at the same time spared no opportunity to show contempt for the local
performers.
Yeah, that’s right.
There are certain rules of magic, one of which is you don’t reveal the tricks
of others. Yet these performers broke
this rule here, exposing the acts of Indian performers. They wouldn’t have done
that to fellow western magicians.

In a lot of these accounts by western magicians, as you have mentioned in the book, descriptions of acts and shows have turned out to be lies.
Look, they wanted the
best way of proving their superiority, and revealing the tricks of native
magicians—a lot of that was being done in the 20th century.
You know let’s go to
India and travel around and come back and tell your audience that you performed
in a Maharaja’s palace. You picked up a secret magic trick from some sadhu
sitting on the banks of the Ganges and pretend to present that to an audience.
It was very potent, a proven formula that the audiences loved.
The Great Indian Rope Trick. Do you
think it exists?
The Rope Trick was the
most controversial feat of magic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. It was based on myths that can be traced back to the Jataka Tales
of the 6th century BCE but was given a new lease of life when the Chicago
Tribune, to boost circulation, published a piece of ‘fake news’ in 1890,
claiming it was the result of hypnosis. This set off a storm of so-called
eyewitness accounts, but the trick was never proven and as a feat of magic can
only be done with sophisticated props. So the trick of legend is not real
though some magicians have come close to replicating it.
But making a rope rise
into the air is one thing, making an assistant disappear is another. Nice story
but no fact.
Modern Western magic, how much of the
Indian or the Eastern influence does it have?
Very much. I don’t mention it in the book but some magician themselves have gone so far as to say that all magic originally came from the Orient. Not just India and China. That the only contribution of Western magic was a card trick. Stickers cards, although they originated in China, in the 8th century. They were incorporated into magic in the late 18th century.
Because magic is such a transnational genre, to say that it all originated from the Orient is probably quite accurate; and a lot of that in India because with many magical traditions and the expertise of its performers would have had a disproportionate impact on the magic of China or Japan.
Would it be accurate to say illusionists
like David Copperfield owe a lot to arts which came from here.
Yeah. They wouldn’t necessarily acknowledge it. But yeah, definitely.
You devote a chapter to P. C. Sorcar,
self-proclaimed “The world’s greatest magician (TW’sGM)”. What do you make of
him?
His story is something that really has never been told properly. Most of the accounts we have of him are very hagiographic. He was, of course, such a self-promoter. Someone who didn’t brook any competition or criticism.

He was successful everywhere. Specially
after the BBC show where he sawed a girl in half.
He was up until then quite a divisive figure. He started calling himself the world’s greatest even when he had never left Bengal. A lot of Western magicians were like, ‘You can’t call yourself that.’
None of us call ourselves the world’s greatest something, that’s the title bestowed by others. After the BBC, he really never looked back. He was very successful and he worked very hard. What his story brings out is the divide between East and West. There were a lot of magicians from the East or India who were looked down upon and he changed that perception.
There was also the competitive nature of magic, and his run-in with Kalanag (the famous German magician) who accused him of stealing his tricks. One of his defence points was that everybody is stealing everybody else’s tricks. That’s just the nature of magic.
How great is his influence on Indian
magic? Most Indian performers are still doing some version of Sorcar’s
‘Indrajaal’.
Yes, it’s there. I mean the number of
people who mimicked him—and I am talking of just during his lifetime—was huge.
The number of Bengali magicians calling themselves the greatest this or the
greatest that, and in their poster and costumes really try to replicate as much
as of Sorcar.
What made him so successful, because
other magicians didn’t think too much of his abilities as a magician.
He was a great publicity machine, and his stagecraft was great. Extravagant stage, numerous costume changes, music, dance, incredible props, it’s just the atmosphere that he was able to create on stage was quite unique, quite extraordinary.
There was a East/West divide, between magicians based around Bombay and the Calcutta group. Even now in Calcutta you will find magicians who admire his skills as a magician. He was a very good illusionist because he utilised all these props and stage techniques to create his show. Take all that away then there were magicians who believed he was quite limited. But then you can’t ignore the fact that he did bring Indian magic to the world stage.
I don’t think we’ve had a performer
after him to do that.
No. And probably never will either.