Zo Chronicles: A Documentary Study of History and Culture of The Kuki-Chin-Lushai Tribe

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India's North-east is home to numerous tribal groups, many of whom have their cognate groups spread across the international borders of Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and Myanmar. Official colonial writings are befuddled by the seemingly diverse diversities of these tribal groups. Enumeration of tribes under various colonial projects tends to give various misleading nomenclatures to otherwise one tribe/people making them appear as if they were different peoples. The case of Zo people, commonly known in British colonial historiography as Kuki- Chin-Lushai, is one among them. Considered to be one of the largest tribal groups in South and South-east Asia, the Zo people are now making concerted efforts to transcend these colonial categories to preserve, protect and uphold their unique identity and culture.

Unification movement of this kind has immense potential to question and redefine international borders across Bangladesh, India and Myanmar where they are spread.

In Zo Chronicles, the author gainfully uses his experience and scholarship to glean rare documents available from exclusive sources including the Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK. A pioneering collection of its kind, it provides invaluable information and guide to understand the socio-cultural and political history of the Zo people. It reorients our understanding to the whole matrix of trans-border identity, culture and politics and begs us to explore the larger issue of protection of minority rights engendered by a 'nation without a state."

The book will be of interest to students, scholars, researchers and practitioners of history and politics, anthropology and sociology having avowed interest in issues especially of identity, culture autonomy, and minority rights.

KHUP ZA GO (1944-2005) was born in Murlen, Champhai District (Mizoram). He earned his Master's degree in Political Science from Guwahati University in 1971. Since then he committed himself to a full time church ministry despite his promising career. Rev. Go served the Chin Baptist Association as Executive Secretary (1971-1977) and in various capacities. In between he worked as the Assistant Director and thereafter as the Director of Christian Literature Centre of CBCNEI (Council of Baptist Churches in North East India) in Guwahati (1981-87). He was elected Vice-President of CBCNEI in 1991-92. Rev. Go completed his theological studies from Serampore College (1980-81); Oxford; and Union Theological College, Bangalore (1993-95). As a Baptist church leader, he participated in various international Christian seminars/fairs in Bali, Boston, Frankfurt, and in Myanmar and Thailand.

Rev. Go published more than 15 books; the latest being an autobiography, Leivui Panin [Out of the Dust (2005) in Tedim Chin language]. A Critical Historical Study of Bible Translations among the Zo People in North- East India (1996) is, inter alia, his monumental contribution to the study of society, religion and politics in North-east India. An ecumenical preacher, he ardently championed the cause of Zo unity and solidarity through diverse channels including vernacular journals: Zogam Tangko, Rangoon (as Assistant Editor in the 1960s) and Zo Aw, Guwahati-as founder Editor in the 1980s. He died while he was an incumbent pastor at Zomi Christian Fellowship, Delhi on 9 April 2005 in a tragic road accident. Rev Khup Za Go is survived by his wife (Niang Khan Man) and two sons (Carey Pum Khan Tuang and John Khual Lian Mung).

The North East of India is one of the lesser researched and known places of India-and of South Asia, not to mention the world. Its many communities live in situations of conflict and disharmony as well as of cooperation and partnership.

Governance is no mean task here-there are eight states, about 350 identified ethnic groups (large and small), numerous confrontations relating to issues of land and political formation. And, not the least, several insurgencies which claim to fight for independence or for "self-determination" or of representing the rights of "their people". Of course, all this is taking place without even a basic reference to the will of the public through a democratic, elective process: instead armed gangs thrust their views and commands upon a helpless and hapless population.

Ranged against this as well as outbursts of public outrage over government excesses-are the armed force of the State, a massive security machinery, backed up by the might of the Central govemment and its numerous departments and agencies.

Large population groups as well as small ones find themselves hurt, trapped and under tremendous pressure and facing great odds during these times. In the process, many of them are so intent on the day to day struggle for survival, for solace, for security, that they often are unable to look at their roots or understand the complex traditional systems and forces which have shaped the lives of their ancestors and their own.

This is why the Zo Chronicles is an important effort. It seeks to map in great detail the legal processes and laws that govern the Zo Community and provides useful documentation for both researchers and those interested in the region about this ethnic group and the many aspects of their lives. It is important and solid contribution to the documentation and data of the people and their lives.

The seventeen landmark documents painstakingly collected and compiled by my friend Rev. Khup Za Go represent in brief the cultural and political history of the Zo people in India, Burma and Bangladesh. The compilation is indeed a Zo chronicle without which the socio-political history of the Zo people from the advent of the British Raj to the present day will be incomplete as the Holy Bible would without the book of Chronicles I & II.

But who are the Zo people? 'Zo' is a generic name by which a group of tribes variously known as Chins, Kukis, Lushais and Mizos/ Zomis call themselves. In his diary of 962 A.D., Fan-Ch'o, an envoy of the Tang dynasty of China described the inhabitants in and around the Chindwin valley as 'Zo'. Earlier, Father Cincentius Sangermano in his book A Description of the Burmese Empire (1833) mentioned a 'petty nation called Jo (Yaw). Col. T.H. Lewin, the first British officer who first came in close contact with the inhabitants of Lushai Hills (now Mizoram) during the Lushai expedition of 1871-72 and wrote extensively about them said that "the generic name of the whole nation is Dzo". Dr. G.A. Grierson who had conducted the first ever- reliable survey of the languages of the people (Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III, Part III, 1904) however used the term 'Kuki-Chin' as he found "no proper name comprising all these tribes."

The Zo Chronicles is about these tribes who share an historic homeland, a myth of common ancestry and historical memories, common language and culture. Documents I, II, III, IV & V deal with the cultural and administrative aspects of the people based on their customs and traditions. Particularly important is The Chin Hills Regulations of 1896, a unified Zo legal code of common rights and duties and extended to all Zo inhabited areas; it became the harbinger of the special protection and safeguards provided for the Zo and other hill people in the North-East by the Indian Constitution under the Sixth Schedule.

**Contents and Sample Pages**