Social Change in Lushai Hills
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0019556119863861 |
| Author | Sharmila Purkayastha |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Notes |
Social Change in
Lushai Hills
Sharmila Purkayastha1
The Lushai Hills or the present state of Mizoram has been home to the descend-
ants of Tibeto-Chinese race who migrated from the Chin Hills of Burma, now
Myanmar. The inhabitants, primarily tribal by nature, had been fragmented into
innumerable tribes and sub-tribes and were finally homogenised with the efforts
of the British rulers under the umbrella term or name of ‘Mizo’. The term ‘Mi’
connotes people and ‘Zo’ means cold region; together, the term means people of
the cold region. The fact that Mizos have been the descendants of the Lusei clan,
which, according to historian Rev. Liangkhaia had been misspelt by the British as
Lushai and therefore the derivation as Lushai. Geographically, the erstwhile
Lushai Hills or Mizoram has been a mountainous region located at the southern-
most tip of the north-eastern part of the Indian Union. Mizoram shares a long
international border with Myanmar in the east and Bangladesh in the west; Assam
and Tripura fall to its north-east while Manipur lies to its north-west.
The state had abundant natural resources with the entire area covered by ever-
green rainforests. However, transport and communication remain a grave chal-
lenge, partly due to topography and historical reasons, whereby the protective or
isolationist policies of colonial administration left the region largely disconnected
and aloof from the rest of the country, thus leaving the region underdeveloped and
backward (Lalrintluanga, 2009, pp. 55–58).
It was only after the outbreak of the Second World War that the colonial author-
ities felt it necessary to construct transport and communication network through
proper roads for transporting men and material for the war.
Note
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
65(2) 525–532, 2019
© 2019 IIPA
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0019556119863861
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1 Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College (University of Delhi), New Delhi, India.
Corresponding author:
Sharmila Purkayastha, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College (University of Delhi), Sheikh Sarai Phase
II, New Delhi 110017, India.
E-mail: sharmoitra@gmail.com
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