History of Mizoram

Mizoram was a part of the Assam state in the 1950s

The history of Mizoram encompasses the history of Mizoram which lies in the southernmost part of northeast India. It is a conglomerate history of several ethnic groups of Chin people who migrated from Chin State of Burma. But information of their patterns of westward migration are based on oral history and archaeological inferences, hence nothing definite can be said. The recorded history started relatively recently around the mid-19th century when the adjoining regions were occupied by the British monarchy. Following religious, political and cultural revolutions in the mid-20th century majority of the people agglomerated into a super tribe, Mizo. Hence the officially recognised settlement of the Mizos became Mizoram.

The earliest documented records of Mizoram were from the British military officers in the 1850s, when they encountered a series of raids in their official jurisdiction in Chittagong Hill Tracts from the neighbouring natives. By then they referred the land to as Lushai Hills. As a consequence of relentless tribal encroachment and often resulting in human mortality, British rulers were compelled to subjugate the tribal chiefdoms. Punitive British military expeditions in 1871 and 1889 forced the annexation of the entire Lushai Hills. After the Indian independence from British Empire in 1947, the land became Lushai Hills district under the Government of Assam. In 1972 the district was declared a union territory and was given a more culturally inclusive name Mizoram. Ultimately Mizoram became a full-fledged federal state of India in 1986.