Laldenga

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Laldenga (born June 11, 1927 in Pukpui , Assam , British India ; † July 7, 1990 in London ) was an Indian guerrilla fighter of the Mizo National Front and from 1986 to 1989 Chief Minister of Mizoram .

Life path

Laldenga comes from the village of Pukpui in what was then Assam (now Lunglei district in Mizoram ). He was an employee of a bank. From 1955 he headed the Mizo Cultural Society. He was of the opinion that the Mizo were n't really Indians, and that the colonial rulers didn't care much about them either. When the bamboo blossom ( mautam ), which recurs every 52 to 54 years, in 1959 again led to a two-year famine in the area inhabited by the Mizo due to the proliferation of rodents, he founded the Mizoram Famine Front (MFF) under his chairmanship requested assistance from the Assam State Government.

This organization, which soon enjoyed a great reputation among the population for its support activities, was transformed into a political party, the Mizo National Front . After government aid soon proved to be inadequate, independence was demanded for the small tribe, but this was not taken seriously by the Indians until the uprising broke out.

Armed fight

From then on Laldenga led the armed struggle from the jungle of his mountainous home region. He was arrested for smuggling weapons from East Pakistan in 1965 but was soon released. Like all MNF cadres, he went into exile in East Pakistan in 1969, where he lived in Dhaka . Before the Indian invasion of 1971, he was able to flee at the last minute on a speedboat towards Chittagong and escaped via Karachi to Islamabad , where he stayed until 1976.

After the first peace feelers showed success, he returned to Delhi in January 1976. When the MNF was banned by the Indira Gandhi government on January 22, 1982, he was not imprisoned. However, it wasn't until 1986 that a peace agreement was reached.

Politician

Laldenga became Chief Minister on August 21, 1986 - before Mizoram was actually founded as a federal state in early 1987 . His party also won the first election, so he kept the post. Accusations of corruption soon became loud and many party members left the parliamentary group, so that he lost his post again on September 7, 1988.

He died of lung cancer at the age of 63 and was buried on July 13, 1990.

Literature and Sources

  • Hazarika, Sanjoy; Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace from India's Northeast; New Delhi u. a. 1994

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Suhas Chatterjee: Making of Mizoram: Role of Laldenga, Volume 1. MD Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1994, p. 50, ISBN 9788185880389
  2. ↑ Joseph L. Ralte: Tute nge? Mizo Who's Who. Zorin Publications, 1994, p. 14
  3. ↑ a b Hazarika, Sanjoy; Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace from India's Northeast; New Delhi u. a. 1994

See also

personal data
SURNAME Laldenga
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian guerrilla and politician
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Pukpui , Assam , British India
DATE OF DEATH July 7, 1990
Place of death London