Minority within a minority: What Chawngte revealed about Mizoram’s Chakmas 

In eight years of reporting in Mizoram, I had never visited the Chakma Autonomous District Council. It took a reporting grant from the Press Club of India and an International Foundation for Disability Inclusion fellowship to finally get me there this May. The visit reshaped much of what I thought I understood about inequality within this state.

The journey itself is telling. Travelling with two children (one aged three, the other just eight months old), we decided to break the trip, spending the night in Lunglei before driving to Chawngte the next morning.

We left Aizawl on a Saturday evening, reached Lunglei around 11 pm, and set off for Chawngte at 8:30 the next morning. The roads were bumpy in stretches but better than the horror stories I had heard, likely recently repaired.

What greeted us at the destination was harder to explain away.

Chawngte is a town divided into three parts: Chawngte L, which falls under Lunglei district; Chawngte P, which falls under Lawngtlai district and is inhabited by the Lai people; and Chawngte C (also known as Kamalanagar), the capital of the Chakma Autonomous District Council and home to the Chakma community. 

The contrast between the areas is immediate and stark. Chawngte L has metal roads, albeit with some damage.

Many of Chawngte C roads have never been tarred. Though barely two hours from Lunglei, where the weather is typically cool and overcast, Chawngte was alarmingly hot, the kind of heat that makes the absence of basic infrastructure feel even more punishing.

I had reported extensively on the lack of access to healthcare in southern Mizoram. But seeing it in person is different. Residents of Chawngte C must travel those same roads, in whatever condition, all the way to Lunglei for medical care. 

I had reached out to a contact for help locating persons with disabilities in the community, and was given the contact of Ranbir Chakma.

I have spoken to many people from the Chakma community over the years, particularly during the pandemic for my reports in Caravan magazine, but Ranbir was the first I met in person, inside the CADC itself.

On a hot Sunday, from around 11 am until the afternoon, he drove me around on his scooter, climbing small hills, locating interviewees, and taking me to a village council president who could point us further. 

In conversation, Ranbir mentioned that he had spent much of his life away from the CADC, studying in Bangalore and then working there, before choosing to return. He wanted to do something for the area. He was now working as a correspondent for All India Radio. 

This is the part that most people in the rest of Mizoram may not fully appreciate: the Chakma people inside Mizoram cannot easily get a state government job.

The Mizoram government requires working knowledge of the Mizo language (up to middle school standard) for virtually all state government positions. 

The Mizoram Public Service Commission lists Mizo language proficiency as a compulsory condition across Group A, B, and C posts, from civil services to clerical roles. This is not a minor hurdle.

Inside CADC, schools teach in the Chakma language, not Mizo. For most young Chakma people, Mizo is effectively a foreign language. The state government job market is closed to them.

The Chakma are not a small community. According to the 2011 Census of India, there are approximately 92,850 Chakma people in Mizoram alone, making them the second-largest ethnic group in the state after the Mizo.

Nationally, the Chakma population in India stands at around 228,281, concentrated almost entirely in Northeast India across Mizoram, Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh. They are a Scheduled Tribe with constitutional protections.

And yet, within the state they call home, a language policy effectively shuts them out of public employment.

The consequences are visible in migration data. According to a 2018 Government of India report on tribal health, more than half of India’s 104.3 million tribal population already lives outside tribal majority blocks, pushed out by the search for jobs and education. 

Among Northeast India’s tribal communities broadly, research published in The Indian Journal of Labour Economicsfound that on average, nearly 60 per cent of migrants leave for mainland India primarily for work or education. Youth from the region migrate mainly to Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Goa. 

A 2014 Bezbaruah Committee report found that more than 200,000 people from the Northeast had migrated to Delhi alone between 2005 and 2013. A survey by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung found that 74.5 per cent of Northeast youth want to settle outside the region for better career prospects.

I could not find precise figures for Chakma migration specifically, but the pattern is clear to those who have observed the community.

Educated Chakma youth, unable to access state government jobs and lacking the language credentials that most state employment requires, have no option but to leave. Currently, steps are being taken to start a Mizo language learning centre at Kamalanagar. 

Some of the people I spoke to in Chawngte pointed to corruption within the CADC as a reason development has lagged. Autonomous District Councils under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution have powers over land, forests, local customs, and taxation; however, they are not insulated from state oversight. 

The Governor retains the authority to alter boundaries, nominate council members, and, in extreme cases, dissolve the council entirely.

The state government also controls law and order, and ADCs remain financially dependent on state allocations. In practice, as researchers have noted, there is persistent friction between ADCs and state departments over education, land management, and natural resources.

Last year in May, a delegation of the Chakma Autonomous District Council called on the Governor of Mizoram, General (Dr.) Vijay Kumar Singh. They informed the Governor that the CADC was facing a financial crisis as a result of salary fund allocation. 

According to a report from the CADC website, the 2nd Mizoram State Finance Commission had proposed that CADC receive 25.04% of the total share earmarked for Autonomous District Councils, but actual allocations had fallen short.

As per this report, the staff strength of CADC  which is 1,429 was remains lower than that of MADC 1,789 and LADC 1,927.

Concern was also raised about various developmental drawbacks.

The exclusion of 33 development proposals submitted by CADC from the State Government’s priority list, and the pending sanction of ₹118.75 crore under the Border Area Development Programme (BADP). In regard to education, CADC has a literacy rate of only 46.4%, compared to the state average of 98.2%.

Though inside Mizoram, the fact that the Chakma are a minority within the state is plain to see. The state government could do more to ensure that people in this southern corner are given a life on par with the rest of the state.

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