After his morning meal, Rangchwanga lit a bidi and strolled from his ward. He stopped abruptly at the sight of a familiar face. Though the years had changed him, the man was unmistakable.
“Hey,” Rangchwanga called out. “Aren’t you Thanglura?”
The man turned. “Yes. I am Thanglura.”
“You have changed,” Rangchwanga said, smiling. “Gained a little weight. I almost walked past you.”
“Jail food sits heavy,” Thanglura joked, though his eyes were tired. “But tell me, I haven’t seen you around. Where were you hiding?”
“Hiding? I was here,” Rangchwanga laughed. “But you—you disappeared. Where did they take you?”
“They shuffled us like a deck of cards,” Thanglura sighed. “First Nagaon. Then Tezpur. I arrived back here only last night. And you?”
“I’ve been on a tour of Assam’s finest prisons myself. They brought me back ten days ago.”
“I can’t figure out what the bastards want with us,” Thanglura muttered, looking around the crowded yard. “They keep us locked up, yet every day they bring in new Mizos.”
“Yes,” Rangchwanga agreed. “Fresh faces every day.”
Thanglura scanned the yard. “I don’t recognize most of these men. Are they all new? Have they released the old prisoners?”
Rangchwanga’s expression darkened. “New faces, yes. But as for the old ones… I don’t know if anyone has been released. But a few have gone.”
Thanglura frowned. “Gone? What kind of riddle is that? You said no one was released.”
“Gone means their bodies are no longer here,” Rangchwanga said quietly. “The slow torture, the years of waiting… it broke them. One by one, death signed their release warrants. The authorities couldn’t keep them.”
Thanglura fell silent. The faces of old comrades floated in his memory—men from Bankan, Zembawk, Pangzawl. Old men, snatched from their families, who spent their days in silent bewilderment. They had done no wrong, yet they rotted here. He remembered their deep sighs, the look of helplessness as they thought of the children they left behind. Now, they were dead.
And what of their families? The wives who waited, clinging to the hope that he will be released soon. Years passed. Hope turned to despair. And then the final blow: he died in jail.
“What was his crime?” the widows would ask. “Why did he die?”
The children would ask too. And as they grew, they would find the answer: His crime was being Mizo. His crime was belonging to a nation that dared to demand freedom. That realization would harden their hearts. They would not just sigh in the corners of the Protected Villages. They would carry the anger of their ancestors forward.
Rangchwanga watched his friend’s face. “You went quiet.”
“I was thinking,” Thanglura said softly. “About the families. About the future.”
“They will judge this injustice,” Rangchwanga said firmly. “They will not just think; they will act. They will finish what the dead started.”
A group of young prisoners drifted over, curious about the intense conversation.
“What are you two discussing so happily?” one asked.
“Not happily,” Rangchwanga corrected. “We were talking about the prisoners who died here.”
The boy looked embarrassed. “Oh. I thought… never mind. But did you talk about the birth?”
“Birth?” Thanglura asked sharply. “What birth?”
“Mrs. Rozama,” the boy said. “She gave birth to a son inside this jail.”
“How is that possible?”
“The government spares no one,” the boy said bitterly. “Old, young, pregnant. They arrested Mrs. Rozama months ago. She carried the child here, and she delivered him here. A baby boy, born behind bars.”
It was a cruel accident of fate. A child born not in the lush hills of Mizoram, but in a stone cell in the plains. He knew nothing of his culture, his customs, his land. He belonged to the jail authorities.
Mrs. Rozama worried constantly. Would her son spend his life in prison? Would he grow up knowing only walls?
But this child, too, was a symbol. Future generations would remember the baby born in captivity. He would grow up asking why. Why was he born in a cage? Why was his mother separated from her land? And in finding the answers, he would find his purpose.
“Let’s go to your ward,” Thanglura said, needing to move. “Standing here talking makes me restless.”
They walked together, Rangchwanga nodding. “Change is coming, Thanglura. Not just in this jail. In individuals, in society, in the nation. We move forward in the wave of that change.”
The indignities piled up. The corruption of the jailers, the endless delays, the brutality. Finally, the prisoners reached a breaking point.
Rangchwanga, Thanglura, and the others made a decision. They would not sit quietly and rot. They drafted a memorandum demanding an end to the mistreatment and the immediate start of their trials.
They declared an indefinite hunger strike.
It was unprecedented in eastern India—undertrial prisoners uniting in mass protest. The mainstream press ignored it, preferring to cover politicians’ colds and club inaugurations. But the silence couldn’t hold. The strike forced the government to look.
A delegation of the Assam Legislative Assembly was sent to review the situation in the Mizo hills. They returned with a recommendation: reduce the military’s authority.
The pressure worked. The Assam cabinet announced that the trials would begin “very soon.”
The prisoners were skeptical. They had heard “soon” for years. But having made their point, they broke their fast, claiming a moral victory.
This time, however, the government moved. Groups of prisoners were transferred from Silchar back to Aizawl. One by one, the gates opened.
Eventually, it was their turn. Rangchwanga and Thanglura walked out of the jail, breathing the air of uncertainty and freedom.