ABSTRACT
India’s counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign in Mizoram remains an interesting case study of India’s approaches to fighting insurgencies within its territory. Mizoram is located in India’s northeast, and thus the COIN efforts in Mizoram are often linked with those in Nagaland (Chapter 1). In Mizoram, India faced an insurgency that emerged at the end of the 1950s from popular dissatisfaction, broke out with ferociousness and military precision, and was led by charismatic leaders. India grappled with the insurgency in Mizoram for almost twenty years. In the end, by the mid-1980s Mizoram was at peace, with former leaders of the insurgency heading the state in a democratic process within parameters laid down by the Constitution of India. India had again handled an insurgency that threatened its territorial integrity in a manner that preserved the full extent of India’s territory and its democratic processes. This chapter explores how India achieved this result in its COIN campaign in Mizoram.
