Explained: Controversy Over Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma Speech At US Event

1. Lalduhoma gave the first speech in Maryland on September 2 at a Mizo Day event. It is in this address that he spoke about whether the Zo people living in India, Myanmar and Bangladesh can aspire to be reunited under India, which sources had clarified had no reason to be controversial.

2. “The main objective of [the] ZORO Movement in 1988 was Zo-reunification within India. Can the Zo people in India, Burma [Myanmar] and Bangladesh today aspire to be reunited under India? Looking at the geopolitical realities of our time, it may not be so farfetched to think this could be a possibility one day…” Lalduhoma said on September 2.

3. “Perhaps, fate has this reunification in store for us in the future. Also, I am not oblivious to the huge responsibility I bear in this regard, towards contributing to making this dream a reality. For now, I can only say that I eagerly await the day and time when the question I have posed above is answered,” he had said.

4. The full text of the September 2 speech is available on the website of the Mizoram government’s Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DIPR).

5. Lalduhoma’s second speech in Indianapolis on September 4, however, had two instances that have been shared and reported widely. One is the part where he explained why “we cannot afford to have three enemies which are bigger than us”, and the other is when he explained towards the end of the speech why he accepted the invitation to visit the US.

6. The Mizoram Chief Minister’s “cannot fight three enemies simultaneously” comment has been taken out of context on social media, with clips of this speech beginning only from the middle being shared. Lalduhoma was referring to a point in time when Mizoram had just become a state in 1987 after a violent insurgency, and the formation of the Zo Reunification Organisation, or ZORO, a year later.

7. In the full speech uploaded on the ‘USA Mizo News’ YouTube channel, Lalduhoma said, “So far as ZORO was concerned, the main policy of ZORO was to have reunification within India. We cannot fight Myanmar, we cannot fight India, we cannot fight Bangladesh simultaneously. We cannot afford to have three enemies which are bigger than us…”

8. The entire controversy, hence, is about the other portion of Lalduhoma’s speech on September 4 in Indianapolis i.e. his closing comments, where he said: “As I approach the end of my speech, I want to let everyone here know that the primary reason I accepted the invitation to visit the United States is to seek a path towards unity for all of us. We are one people – brothers and sisters – and we cannot afford to be divided or apart from one another. I want us to have the conviction and confidence that one day, through the strength of God, who made us a nation, we will rise together under one leadership to achieve our destiny of nationhood. While a country may have borders, a true nation transcends such limitations. We have been unjustly divided, forced to exist under three different governments in three different countries, and this is something we can never accept…”

9. The full text of the September 4 speech is also available on the Mizoram government DIPR’s website.

10. The External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal in the weekly briefing today said he has not seen Lalduhoma’s comments yet, and will respond when they get some clarity on it. “… We have had issues there [India-Myanmar border] because of the Myanmar security situation. We have talked about [border] fencing earlier, some of the proposals that are there, so I will come back to you after we have some clarity on that,” Mr Jaiswal told reporters on Thursday.

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