Mizoram

Mizoram is a small, hilly state in the far north-east, bounded by Myanmar to the east and south and Bangladesh to the west. The capital is Aizawl. The terrain is a series of steep north–south ridges, and settlements sit along the ridge tops.

The population is overwhelmingly Mizo, with a large majority belonging to churches established by nineteenth- and twentieth-century missionaries, and the state has one of the highest literacy rates in India. Shifting cultivation on the slopes was long the main livelihood; it has declined as bamboo and horticulture — particularly oil palm and ginger — have expanded, alongside a large government payroll. Bamboo flowers gregariously at long intervals, and the crop failures that follow have caused famine in the past.

Mizoram had a two-decade insurgency that ended with the Mizo Accord of 1986, after which the state was granted full statehood in 1987 — an outcome often cited as a successful negotiated settlement. More recently, refugees from the conflict in neighbouring Myanmar have crossed into the state, and Mizoram has sheltered a large number of them despite the absence of a formal framework for their stay.