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| SHELL SHOCK JV Hluna,a history teacher in Aizawl, says it used to be a crime to be a Mizo in those days |
Here's Jaideep Mazumdar's report.
(THE CREST SELECTION )
Muammar in MIZORAM Jaideep Mazumdar TNN
Times of India, 25 April 2011
Before Gaddafi bombed his own people, Indian Air Force (IAF) fighters in March 1966 dropped incendiary bombs on Aizawl, now Mizoram's capital, to crush the Mizo insurgency.The bombing, which marked the beginning of atrocities by the IAF, was never reported in the media and isn't acknowledged by New Delhi. But the wounds still fester.
New Delhi's first reaction to insurgency breaking out in Mizoram on the night of February 28,1966, was stupefying. Even as the Mizo National Front (MNF) rebels started attacking Army and para-military posts all over the Lushai Hills, which was then a district in Assam and is now the state of Mizoram, Indian Air Force (IAF) fighters were dispatched to bomb civilian areas in Aizawl (the then district headquarters) and nine other major villages. On March 5 and 6,1966, hundreds of incendiary bombs reduced houses, schools, churches and even hospitals to ashes. Miraculously, just 15 people died in Aizawl, but that was because most of the 10,000-odd residents of the hill town had fled when fighting between the rebels and Indian security forces broke out. The IAF fighters Toofanis and Hunters flew low over Aizawl and strafed many areas before bombing and devastating the town.The bombings continued with greater vengeance the next day.
Forty-five years hasn't been long enough to dim the memories of those who witnessed the nation deploying fighter aircraft against its own people. We were numbed with shock. Even in our wildest dreams we couldn't imagine that fighter aircraft would be sent to bomb Aizawl. It was a scary sight, those planes buzzing overhead and dropping bombs that would explode in huge balls of fire and devastate every cluster of houses, recalls Zosiami, who was 21 then. Zosiami left her house in Aizawl's Khatla area with her parents, four siblings and grandparents once the Mizo rebels launched their attacks, witnessed the bombings from a forest in the nearby Lawipu hill where many had taken shelter. We returned on March 11 to find our houses totally gutted, she told TOI Crest.
Being a Mizo was a crime in those days. We were all suspects, says JV Hluna, who teaches history at Aizawl's Pachhunga University College and has extensively researched and documented the bombings. Hluna was a high school student in Aizawl in 1966. On the night of February 28, MNF rebels attacked the district treasury at Aizawl and camps of police and security forces at Lunglei and Champhai. These two places were captured by the MNF. The rebels ambushed the Assam Rifles (a para-military force commanded by Indian Army officers) battalion headquarters at Aizawl and an Assam Rifles patrol was ambushed at Chanmari area (of Aizawl) on the night of March 3 where five jawans were killed. And then the bombings started on March 5 and 6. We fled Aizawl on March 4 and took shelter at Zokhawsang village five kilometres away. I saw the fighter planes flying in at about 10 am on March 5 and bombing Aizawl. The fighters made about eight sorties that day and many more the next day. From Zokhawsang, we heard huge explosions and saw huge plumes of smoke rising. We knew that Aizawl was being destroyed. The feeling was terrible and we were paralysed by fear and shock.
Many government installations, including the Circuit House, were destroyed in the attack. Apart from Aizawl, IAF fighters bombed Khawzawl on March 6, Hnahlan the next day, Sangau on March 8, Tlabung on March 9, Pukpui village on March 13, Bunghmun on March 23, Mualthuam and Tuipui (the native village of Laldenga) on September 6 and Hmuntlang village on January 31,1967.
New Delhi denied the bombings. All news of the bombing was blacked out, that is why the rest of the country and the world never got to know of the atrocities, Denghnuna, who was the governments information and public relations officer at Aizawl then, says. But word of this war crime did leak out and was raised in the Assam Assembly. The Assam government deputed two MLAs, Stanley DD Nichols Roy and Hoover H Hynniewta, both from Assams then Khasi Hills district, and Lok Sabha MP from Shillong GG Swell on a fact-finding mission to Aizawl on March 30. This team collected a lot of evidence about the bombings and their report is part of Assam Assembly proceedings. Swell, responding to (Prime Minister) Indira Gandhi's statement that only rations were airdropped for besieged Assam Rifles soldiers in Aizawl, produced shell casings in the Lok Sabha, says Hluna. He claims that Rajesh Pilot and Suresh Kalmadi were among the IAF pilots who dropped the bombs, a claim endorsed by Denghnuna,who was nominated to the IAS and retired a senior bureaucrat.
Apart from innumerable witness accounts of the bombings and reports submitted by the Assam Assembly team, a large body of evidence of the bombings also exists. Many families have preserved the brass and copper shell casings they recovered after their return to Aizawl.
Many wonder why New Delhi responded so harshly to the Mizo uprising. After Lunglei and Champai fell to the MNF and the Assam Rifles camp in Aizawl was attacked, the government must have panicked and wanted to nip the insurgency in the bud. It must have wanted to inflict exemplary punishment, says Hluna. New Delhi had little knowledge, or sympathy, for the North East and as home minister Gulzarilal Nanda had said, India wanted to crush the Mizos. Hence excessive force was applied and the civilian population punished, says Denghnuna, who also fled Aizawl on March 4 and witnessed the bombings. He returned on March 8 to find his house, located near the Assam Rifles camp, intact but its walls pockmarked by bullets.
R.Zamawia, who joined the MNF while in college in 1963 and was the commander of the MNF Volunteer Force in March 1966, says the bombings were followed by largescale entry of Indian troops into the Lushai Hills. They ordered evacuation of hundreds of villages which they burnt down. The villagers were resettled in new areas. Thousands were arrested arbitrarily and unspeakable atrocities were committed by them, says Zamawia, who rose to become the defence minister of the MNF. C Zama, who has penned 14 books on the Mizo insurgency, including one on the bombing of Aizawl, says the demand for an apology from New Delhi for the bombings is gaining ground in Mizoram. I saw the bombings since I was in the Mizo National Army (the MNFs fighting force) and was fighting in Aizawl. Nothing similar has occured anywhere in India, he says.
The wounds suffered by the Mizos are yet to heal. They're festering even though Mizoram is the most peaceful state in the North East today.The government of India has done nothing for the emotional rehabilitation of the Mizos. This bothers me a lot. The process of reconciliation has to start with an acknowledgement of the atrocities that were committed, says Denghnuna.
Hluna points out that while PM Manmohan Singh has apologised for Operation Bluestar, that magnanimity has been lacking when it comes to the Mizos. Since 2007, March 5 is observed as Zoram Ni (or Zoram Day) by the powerful Mizo Zirlai Pawl, a civil society group. Prayers are held all over the state and the people are urged to forgive the perpetrators of the crimes committed on them during the two decades of Mizo insurgency from 1966.The Mizos are willing to forgive, but India has to ask for it first. jaideep.mazumdar@timesgroup.com
For more Crest articles visit www.timescrest.com
THE UPRISING
A terrible famine in the Mizo Hills was the trigger for the insurgency that wracked Mizo Hills for two decades. In 1959, bamboo started flowering in Mizoram (it does so every 40 to 50 years). The flowers draw rodents, who feed on it and multiply in huge numbers. The rats then started feeding on standing crops,causing acute food shortages and a famine. The Assam governments handling of the famine (called Mautam in Mizo) and providing relief was extremely poor and hundreds died of starvation. The Mizo Cultural Society, formed with Pu Laldenga as its secretary in 1955, converted itself into Mautam Front to provide relief to the starving rural population in March 1960 and renamed itself Mizo National Famine Front that September.
A year later, it became the MNF when, capitalizing on the immense goodwill it had earned for its relief works, it started taking up political issues like integrating Mizo-inhabited areas of Manipur, Tripura and the Cachar Hills of Assam contiguous with the Mizo Hills into one administrative unit. A series of ill-advised moves,like making Assamese the official language in the Mizo Hills and the Assam governments consistent refusal to grant more autonomy to the Mizo Hills Autonomous District Council or grant statehood to the Mizo Hills district led to the outbreak of insurgency.Laldenga established contact with East Pakistan sometime in 1961 and was promised material and moral support.
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| A former MNF rebel shows a shell recovered from the bombing |
The MNF started raising the Mizo National Army (MNA) and sending recruits to East Pakistan for training.When the MNAs strength rose to eight battalions, a secret plan codemaned Operation Jericho was launched to take control of the Mizo Hills.
The plan involved surprise attacks on treasuries, fuel stations,communications facilities, neutralising the police force,taking all senior non-Mizo government officials captive and overpowering camps and bases of Indian security forces all over the Mizo Hills.
After gaining control,the flag of independent Mizoram was to be raised in Aizawl on March 1 and if the flag could be kept flying for 48 hours, Pakistan and other countries would grant diplomatic recognition to Mizoram and get the UN to grant recognition to the new country.
The plan was put into operation from the night of February 28,1966 and many important places in the Mizo Hills fell to the rebels.Aizawl was also nearly captured by the rebels, but the 1st Assam Rifles battalion held out and foiled the MNFs plans.
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