Rangchwanga and his companions were removed from Silchar jail and loaded onto a train, their destination unknown. As the wheels clattered against the tracks, a heavy apprehension settled over them. They were being scattered—divided among different jails across Assam and beyond, isolated from one another to break their spirits.
For the rebels, life became a cycle of waiting in unknown four-walled enclosures. They had been arrested under Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code—waging war against the state—but the honorable courts seemed in no hurry to establish truth or justice. They remained undertrial prisoners, suspended in legal limbo.
Occasionally, the authorities would play a cruel game. They would announce that charges were being dropped because a charge sheet couldn’t be filed. A tide of joy would rush through the prisoners; they would imagine the hills of home, the faces of their mothers. But the joy was short-lived. As they stepped out of the jail gate, the police would be waiting to re-arrest them under a different section. It was a farce—a way for the system to say, “Look, we follow the law,” while ensuring the Mizo prisoners never actually tasted freedom.
One morning, in this new prison, Rangchwanga saw four Mizo boys drawing water from the jail’s well. He paused, surprised. They were wearing the striped uniforms of convicts, not the plain clothes of undertrials.
He approached them. “Hey. It seems your trial is over?”
“Yes,” one of the boys replied, wiping sweat from his forehead. “The court has judged us. We have all been sentenced to six months of rigorous imprisonment.”
“Only six months?”
“Yes. Six months.”
“That is great news,” Rangchwanga said, genuinely relieved for them. “After six months, you can go back home.”
The boys exchanged meaningful glances. A faint, bitter smile played on their lips. Rangchwanga felt a flush of embarrassment. Do they think I am a fool?
“Why are you laughing?” he asked.
One of the boys stepped closer. “We can’t help but laugh, brother. The matter is not as simple as you think. The six months we are serving now… that is not the end.”
He lowered his voice and explained.
“We were arrested two years ago from our homes. They kept us as undertrials, just like you. Months passed, then years. No trial, no charge sheet. We realized they intended to let us rot here. So, the four of us made a decision: why stay? We broke through the ward wall one night and jumped the perimeter.”
The boy sighed. “But the alarm was raised instantly. They hunted us down, caught us on the road out of the city, and beat us within an inch of our lives. Then, they charged us with escaping prison. That is what we were tried for. The court found us guilty of escaping and gave us six months. But the original charge—the one they arrested us for two years ago? They still haven’t filed a charge sheet for that. So when this sentence ends, we go back to being undertrials.”
He smiled again, a look of tragic irony. “So, you tell me. Can we go home in six months?”
Rangchwanga felt foolish. The absurdity of the system was overwhelming.
“I see,” Rangchwanga said, shaking his head. “It is… almost funny. You are convicts and undertrials at the same time. You hold a dual role. Your position is certainly unique.”
“You could join us,” the boy joked. “Escape, get caught, get a uniform.”
“No, thank you,” Rangchwanga laughed. “I have courage for the battlefield, but the thought of a jail beating makes me shiver.”
He looked at them with new respect. “I have been talking all this time, but I don’t know your names.”
“I am Manliana,” the speaker said. He pointed to the others. “This is Belendena, Lalrenhun, and Lindoana.”
“Manliana and Belendena,” he continued, “we were engineering students. Lalrenhun and Lindoana were in college in Aizawl.”
Rangchwanga’s smile faded. “Look how they have ruined your lives. You were studying engineering? You would have been big shots. Now you are drawing water in convict clothes.”
Manliana’s expression hardened. “Are you joking with us?”
“Why?”
“Do not say our lives are ruined,” Manliana said fiercely. “If we cared only about our ‘prospects,’ why would our nation be fighting today? Thousands of Mizos are sacrificing everything to be independent. We may not be fighting on the field with guns, but we are spending our youth in jail for the same cause. Our suffering contributes to the future happiness of Mizoram. We are proud to serve this sentence.”
Rangchwanga was silenced. He had meant to tease, but he had touched a deep vein of patriotism.
“You are right,” Rangchwanga said softly. “I have nothing to say against that.”
He realized it was dangerous to linger too long. “I should go back to my ward. If the jail babus see us talking too much, their evil eye will fall on you.”
At sunset, the lockdown began. The heavy iron doors clanged shut, sealing the prisoners into darkness.
As night deepened, a sound rose from the cells. The Mizo prisoners were praying. An old pastor, arrested from a distant punjee, led the chorus from his cell, and the others joined in.
Rangchwanga lay on his blanket, listening. He did not join the prayers. He couldn’t oppose them—it gave the men comfort—but he couldn’t help analyzing it.
The influence of Christianity in the Mizo hills was profound. Decades ago, when the British realized they couldn’t defeat the Mizo warriors with guns alone, they changed tactics. They realized that brute force only made the highlanders more vengeful. So, the imperialists deployed a different weapon: the missionaries.
They declared the Mizo district an “Excluded Area,” barring outsiders but welcoming the messengers of Jesus. These missionaries built schools and introduced the Roman script. The literacy rate skyrocketed, surpassing almost every region in India except Kerala. A “privileged class” of Mizos emerged—educated, westernized, occupying government posts and IAS positions. The British even inducted the warlike Mizos into their army, channeling their aggression into service of the Empire.
The cultural conversion was total. The missionaries had scrubbed the Mizo mind so thoroughly that they could no longer tolerate other faiths. Rangchwanga remembered how the Ramakrishna Mission had tried to enter the hills before 1966, only to be driven out by zealous Mizo Christians.
Now, the irony was thick. Mizos stood by the graves of the very missionaries their ancestors had killed, praying for forgiveness on Christmas. “O Lord, our ancestors were ignorant. Forgive them.”
Rangchwanga listened to the hymns drifting through the jail. This sanskara—this deep cultural conditioning—was in their marrow now. It was impossible to strip away. The men in these cells needed Jesus to survive the night.
But the men on the battlefield? That was different.
As sleep finally overtook him, Rangchwanga thought of the jungle. In the heat of a firefight, with bullets snapping branches around your head and the enemy closing in, there was no time to remember Jesus. The instinct to survive and the will to kill left no room for prayer. In the war for freedom, the mind had no master but the gun.