Not for nothing has Mizo National Front (MNF) President Laldenga acquired a reputation for being a cool and calculating man. Towards the end of 1981, however, his smooth phrases took on a jagged edge, as his talks with the prime minister’s special envoy G. Parthasarathi entered the final lap. Mizoram-watchers were not surprised, therefore, when the Union Government declared the MNF an unlawful body on January 20, thus rescinding the cease-fire agreement that had come into effect 18 months back. Newspapers the next morning reported that Laldenga’s arrest was imminent. But there he was that evening, playing a strenuous game of badminton with his son David and the two men who came back with him from the MNF’S underground headquarters in September last year-‘general secretary’ Rinchhana and ‘supply minister’ Thankima. It was clear that Laldenga did not fear arrest.

It was also clear that the man known as Mual-za-vata (“one who has cleared 100 miles of jungle in a day”), the rebel leader who had risen from a minor post in the Mizo District Council office in 1959, when Mizoram was merely a district of Assam, to lead one of the longest-lasting rebellions against the Government-above all, the man who had, with wile and subterfuge, held the Government of India’s mighty machinery at bay ever since he returned from exile in Cologne. West Germany, exactly six years back, had finally reached a crisis point.

Full Circle: Almost 16 years have elapsed since Laldenga’s Mizo National Army went underground. Now, as Laldenga prepares to return with his family to the MNFs underground headquarters, just below Mizoram in the densely-forested and mountainous tri-junction of India, Burma and Bangladesh, the wheel seems to have come full circle.

Just a week before the Government notification, the Laldenga-Parthasarathi talks broke down over the impossibility of the Mizo leader’s demands. The prime minister, who had throughout upheld Laldenga’s case, finally had to give way under a barrage of bad news. Violence was becoming endemic in far-off Mizoram, the cease-fire had ceased to have any meaning, and the MNF was getting too enthusiastic about turning the screws on the Government (see India Today, December 11. 1981). The issue was clinched by Mizoram Lieutenant-Governor Admiral S.N. Kohli, who reported to the Centre that Brigadier T. Sailo’s Ministry was doing a good job and that Laldenga ought to be given short shrift.

Laldenga’s vitriolic duel with Sailo is Ironic: Sailo’s son Lalsangliana had been one of Laldenga’s closest aldes in the under-ground, and Sailo’s party, the People’s Conference, is built around a core group of men who had formed the MNF’S intellectual backbone in 1966-the ‘Blue Group’

A day before the Government’s notification, said Laldenga, he had met Union Home Minister Zail Singh “It was very cordial,” said Laldenga, “and Gianiji said, let us part as friends ” He insists that the prime minister will “keep her word of honour” and offer him safe conduct back to his underground headquarters.

“Politically it has been ensured that we stand no chance,” he said angrily, “and the armed forces are already hunting out my men-they have arrested my brother Ngurchhina and brother-in-law Darhzanva,”

Shifted Stance: Every violent incident in the last few weeks in Mizoram has been engineered, alleges Laldenga, Does he think his men at headquarters will tone down their demands so that Laldenga can return to the negotiating table? “I am subject to my party’s decision,” said Laldenga, “and my party is very unlikely to change its demands, very unlikely ” He vehemently denies that there is a dissident group within the MNF which will reject any settlement .

Significantly, as the tide turned against him. Laldenga cleverly shifted his stance on two key demands Earlier, he had insisted on the dismissal of the Sailo Ministry as a precondition Now, he told INDIA TODAY, he wanted “dissolution of the Assembly only after a solution” Secondly, Laldenga had demanded an interim ministry with himself as chief minister. Now. he said, all he had asked for was the imposition of President’s rule, and his nomination as advisor to the Lt-Governor “Some type of power is needed, my men will be afraid of then own shadows when they come overground, and I only want to solve a human problem,” he said

It was clear, though that the banning of the MNF had been a victory for the Home Ministry, which had taken an anti-Laldenga stand all along. Once before, in July 1979, Laldenga had been rebuffed by the then prime minister Morarii Desai. The MNF had been banned then to;, and Laldenga had been placed under house arrest. This time, under a more benign dispensation, it looked as though the Government would give Laldenga a long rope-enough to hang himself with.

In the coming weeks, observers in Delhi and Aizawl anticipate a stepping up of hostilities between the MNF’S men and the armed forces. Things are not the same as in 1966. though, when the MNF initially captured Aizawl town and overran other parts of the region. Since then, the army has established a special counter-insurgency school at Vairengte on the Assam-Mizoram border; the strength of the army’s units, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Assam Rifles has been increased, and there’s little doubt that they’re more than a match for the rebels. But Laldenga’s men, too, have been steadily accumulating arms and provisions and are capable of keeping the security forces on their toes. More ominously, intelligence sources believe that they are raring to have a go at their ‘Indian enemies’.

Whether Laldenga himself is willing to resume full-scale war is doubtful. Even since he fled to Pakistan in 1972, after the liberation of Bangladesh deprived the MNF of its East Pakistan sanctuaries. Laldenga has led an easy life. From Rawalpindi he went on to West Germany and returned to India in January 1976. And in Delhi. he has been looked after very well by the Government at his south Delhi home. Unlike the hundreds of idealistic young men who left their families behind to go underground in 1966, Laldenga’s family never really experienced any hardships. And his crusade long ago veered away from any ideology towards the simple acquisition of political power, an aim that became evident for the first time at the ‘Calcutta convention’ of the MNF in March 1976 and again in his insistence that no solution was possible without dismissing the Sailo administration and holding fresh elections.

So, although Laldenga and his family were scheduled to begin the long journey back to the underground headquarters last fortnight, there is little likelihood of a full- scale war breaking out again in the tiny north-eastern union territory. Instead, Mizoram will become even less safe for outsiders as the MNF returns to a state of ragged guerrilla attacks. But Laldenga is not the kind of man who will watch his dream of political power slipping out of his grasp. Last fortnight, he refused to acknowledge that the peace effort was all over officially. “Politics is never over officially,” he laughed.

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