Book Review | Inside the Mind of a Guerrilla-Turned-CM

If you achieve that, you will enter a fascinating journey of identity, passion, single-minded attention to one goal, violence, politics, negotiation and adjustment. Zoramthanga tells his story with almost excruciating detail, so you have to sift those out to reach the kernel, even as you admire an amazing memory.

The birth of the Mizo National Front in 1961 was the result of a movement which started before Independence, as the tribes of Northeast India wanted to break away from what would become India, and create their own nations. Nagaland went one way, Mizoram carved out its own path. The negotiations with the British Empire failed and then began a long road to a land for Mizos.

Zoramthanga entered the movement as a teenager and in his story, you learn about the hardship, poverty, lack of education but still a burning desire for a Mizo nation that filled the minds and hearts of people. He was one of the few educated Mizos, and even that had to be done in Manipur. It is remarkable how this almost ragtag bunch of people fought this battle for years, with foreign powers and the mighty Indian state all involved.

On the principle of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, Pakistan, Burma (now Myanmar) and China were constant sources of help in terms of arms, ammunition and money for the Mizo National Front. Years were spent on the run, crossing borders and hiding in foreign lands to avoid the Indian armed forces. The role of Pakistan in supporting the Mizos and the subsequent problems which the Bangladesh war of Independence caused for them bring us into the 1970s. By then, the Front itself faced its own internal pulls and twists, with leadership battles and internal politics. By the mid-1970s, serious negotiations began with the Indian government, since it became clear that the dream of an independent Mizo nation was not viable.

Here, we learn from Zoramthanga’s perspective, how the Emergency affected their movement, how difficult it was to deal with the Janata government and especially Prime Ministers Morarji Desai and Charan Singh, how they walked an ever-changing path between Indira Gandhi and then on to Rajiv Gandhi, both of whom wanted settlement, with bureaucrats causing their own confusions.

Zoramthanga is honest in an appealingly innocent sort of way — despite being an integral part of a violent armed conflict — and his belief in his goal and his God is constant. These two aspects provide the fuel for his own long arduous and twisting journey to chief minister of Mizoram.

Unfortunately, the book ends before he becomes chief minister. But what we have is a tale of almost single-minded devotion to a cause. With, one must add, several touches of humour, full of the human touch, a bit innocent at times and a somewhat exasperating attention to minutiae.

From Guerrilla Fighter to Chief Minister

Zoramthanga

Penguin

pp. 430; Rs 599/-