Hunger, Governance Failure and Its Outcome: An Analysis of the Historical Experience of the Mizo Hills District of Undivided Assam

Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger is foremost among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were adopted in the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000. Eradication of hunger figures among the MDGs because freedom from hunger is a human right. It is also treated as a MDG because hunger related malnutrition results in ill health leading to loss of productivity of the working age population and the productive potential of a country by affecting the health of its children. Loss of lives due to hunger and malnutrition can also lower the productive capacity of countries both in the short and the long run. Eradication of hunger is also important because persistent hunger leads to political and social crisis. Using Census data and secondary data sources, it will be shown in the chapter that famine and hunger caused by rodents and the Assam government’s failure of governance in providing relief to the starving Mizos were proximate causes of the 20-year long insurgency and social unrest in the Mizo Hills from 1966 to 1986. The chapter will focus on a historical analysis of the failure of the Assam government in dealing with hunger and famine in the Mizo Hills District, the political economy operating behind its failure of governance and the outcome of this failure.