Looking into the history of Mizos. Know what? There is nothing called a Mizo. In fact, there is nothing even called Lushai. What we have is something called Lushei - a tribe on an alliance of six closely coupled tribes claiming descent from Thangula, who is dated to early 1700s.
Paihte say Thangula is born out of a bastard son of a Paihte chief, the Lushei claim he is born out of a Burmese man and a Paihte woman - in either case, the verdict seems to be that they spliced off from the Paihte. In fact, all the tribes from Manipur to Chittagong to Arakan
(except the Chakma) came from the same stock. Anyways. These six tribes expanded out of their core territory causing much disturbance. But, there is one thing to note here. The North of them are the powerful Thados and Paihte, the South of them are Chakmas and to the East, Chin.
They had only one option - march West. Now, one may ask, what's the need for the Lushei to march west. The Chins were trying to do to the Lushei what were to do to other tribes like the Thados - they simply fled and consolidated elsewhere.
But, even into 1850s, the Chins were a terror to the Lushai - in a single campaign, a king of Guite captured almost 5% of the total Lushei population. It's a different thing that the Lushei Supreme God Pathain came to their aid that day when
the Manipuris who were allied with the Guite betrayed the Guite and captured their king, releasing the Lushei. With their march West, they forcibly assimilated other tribes - the remnants of which fled into Manipur, Cachar, Sylhet and Tripura.
This first wave of exodus happened in 1830s and was seen as a raid of the Kuki tribes. Only later the residents of Cachar and other areas realized those are not raids but people fleeing in panic. The Lushei have now become Lushai by assimilation and it's a matter of time
they fought among themselves. The powerful Zadeng is crushed first ultimately, the Sailo gained supremacy. That's not that. Now, started the civil wars amongst the Sailo. In the first civil war, North and South fought and South was defeated, and
in the second one, the East and West of the victorious North fought with each other. Amidst all this, the Thados were attacked and they had to flee into Cachar and Sylhet - these are the new Kukis or the Second Kuki Wave. Raiding across the frontiers, fighting among themselves,
other tribes attacking themselves dwindled their numbers and on the other side, their exposure to a better civilization mollified them. By 1890, they were a spent force and Fenai were able to make out of Lushai what they did out of the other tribes who lived in that area
before them. We would see that the Lushai became almost extinct in a matter of 100-150 years if not for the British. Now, what is Mizo? It's another superset of Lushai - those who accepted to be Lushai and followed a certain code. What is that code? Surprise!! Christianity.
Any Christian from that racial stock who is ready to identify himself as Mizo will become a Mizo - it's as simple as that. Chin, Pahte or anyone - it doesn't matter. All it matters is he should be a Christian. Anyone who isn't is just a subhuman.
A famous Mizo over the Bru goes thus - Zo hnahthlak - Tuikuk Pathian siam theilo’ ‘kha siam kan tum’ (‘we are trying to make humans out of those people who failed God’) - these are the problem tribes who will not be acknowledged as residents of Mizoram,
all because they are not Christian first and they don't want to identify themselves as Mizo, secondly. By the way, Tuikuk means water bug.
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