Hannah Russell | ယခုဆောင်းပါးကို မြန်မာဘာသာဖြင့် ဖတ်ရှုရန် ဤနေရာတွင် နှိပ်ပါ

Cite as: 
Russell, H. (2025). Introduction to the Special Issue on Displacement to Mizoram. Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship, 6. https://ijbs.online/?page_id=5460

This special issue broadens our understanding of the situation for Myanmar refugees in Mizoram State, northeast India (henceforth: Mizoram) and offers rich data from a displaced community that rarely receives the attention it deserves. The issue’s five contributing authors, all members of the community of displaced Myanmar people in Mizoram, examine the Chin-Mizoram displacement context through the themes of gender, livelihoods, and education. They wrote their articles after completing a year of research training in 2022-2023 through the Myanmar Research Fellowship Program, facilitated by the Institute of Chin Affairs (ICA), supported by the International Development and Research Center, and hosted at Mizoram University (MZU) at Aizawl, the capital city of Mizoram.

Drawing on their own experiences and insights, the fellows’ research in these pages highlight the systemic barriers to education, employment, and legal recognition for refugees, particularly women and youth, while also unpacking the sociocultural dynamics between Chin and Mizo communities. Shared ethnic and religious heritage has helped Chin refugees remain in Mizoram, but the lack of legal protection and formal humanitarian infrastructure exposes refugees to discrimination, exploitation, and lack of work and education opportunities. Collectively, this special issue’s articles underscore the resilience of the refugees that fled Myanmar for Mizoram and call for inclusive policy responses that recognize the vulnerability of all refugees in Mizoram. They need increased and inclusive support and should not be marginalized.

The Myanmar Research Fellowship Program

Initiated in March 2022 and with its inaugural welcome meeting in October 2022, the 12-month Myanmar Research Fellowship Program in Mizoram was designed to offer research skills and academic support to refugee scholars by engaging them in a series of lectures on skills and approaches to research, taught by academics from MZU, as well as by international scholars from Chiang Mai University and the London School of Economics. The lectures covered research skills such as data collection, ethics, analysis and safety in research, and examined subject areas such as conflict and displacement, environment and climate change, gender diversity, and justice. The program was designed to equip its fellows with knowledge of the foundational principles of research and the social sciences. It supported fellows in designing and following their own research studies on the themes of displacement in Myanmar and Mizoram, informed by personal experience and perspectives, allowing them to contribute to debates on displacement, conflict, and social change in Myanmar.

The five selected fellows were originally chosen from a pool of 16 competitive applicants to the program. The application process involved completing set tasks and interviews with ICA staff, who assessed applicants’ backgrounds and capacities. Staff selected the final five fellows based on their capacity to engage in research, their background in research or education, and their lived experience of displacement.

Throughout the program, the fellows experienced some challenges adjusting to their new life but also felt welcomed by the faculty at MZU. Their daily academic efforts took place in the shadow of intensifying conflict and unrest in their homelands. As the fellowship program was the first of its kind, the fellows and ICA staff had to pioneer working relationships with MZU, the facilitation of lectures, and the mentorship program. The strong work ethic and dedication shown by the fellows was welcomed by their MZU colleagues. Four of the five fellows are from Chin State, with the fifth, Yu Gan Paing, originally hailing from neighboring Sagaing Region. Before the 2021 coup, the five worked in a range of jobs, from journalism to civil society. One fellow, Zalette Myey, was already studying social sciences before 2021.

The program first provided the five fellows with two training modules in research methods and thematic approaches. The fellows were then partnered with mentors to engage in independent research for a period of six months. They then wrote up their research projects as articles, refined them, and submitted them to this journal. The resulting articles capture the concerns of a cohort stuck in a singular place and time, highlighting the sociopolitical conditions, historical and religious ties, and conflict-driven shifts that impact displaced people from Myanmar as they try to build lives and find opportunities in Mizoram.

One and a half years on from their completion, the articles’ findings remain relevant, as the state government of Mizoram responds to greater pressure from the Indian central government on restricting the rights and freedoms of displaced people from Myanmar.¹ This includes a physical border wall, which would significantly disrupt the movement of people and the lives of transborder communities.² A surge in weapons and drug smuggling on the border has led to an effort for greater refugee scrutiny, including the threat of collecting biometric data from Myanmar refugees in Mizoram.³ Tensions have risen between ethnic Mizo and displaced people from Myanmar due to strains on already limited resources.⁴

The five fellows who successfully completed the program were supported to pursue their personal goals after graduating. They went on to study master’s degrees at other institutions in India, further abroad, or gained employment with organizations supporting displaced people. Despite the best efforts of ICA, achieving funding for a second round of the fellowship program failed. However, ICA continues to build on its relationship with MZU and has taken that relationship forward to explore new programs that support displaced Myanmar people with access to higher education in Mizoram.

The Chin-Mizoram Context

Chin State, in Myanmar’s northwest, is one of the country’s poorest areas, with over 73 percent of the state’s estimated 478,801 people living below the poverty line.⁵ Chin State also has the highest prevalence of disability in Myanmar at around 21 percent, with one in six people living with a disability.⁶ It is a diverse state, with several distinct cultural groups living there, but it is named within the Union of Myanmar after the ethnonym “Chin”, an identity that cohered during the imposition of British colonial rule in the nineteenth century.⁷ Many Chin groups refer to themselves as zo. The 2014 Myanmar national census determined more than 35 languages were spoken by between 36-53 distinct tribes in Chin State, though this number is disputed by the Chin National Action Committee on the Census.⁸

The book In Search of Chin Identity: A Study in Religion, Politics and Ethnic Identity in Burma by influential Chin scholar and politician Lian Sakhong claims Christianity is a crucial aspect of Chin-ness, and that as the religion became a central pillar of Chin community, differing ethnic groups found a point of spiritual commonality that transcended other tribal or cultural identities.⁹ An apple farmer in Hakha may speak Lai, and a pastor in Tedim may preach the bible in the Zomi language, but both most likely identify as Chin Christians. Not all Chin people are Christian, however, and Chin identity is also characterized by staunch resistance to persecution and marginalization. As an ethnic and religious minority in majority-Buddhist Myanmar, Chin people have been subject to the violence of Burmanization for decades, with the celebration of Chin National Day forbidden until the 2012 ceasefire agreement.¹⁰ While Chin people exhibit some unity in terms of religious and ethnic identity, the different Christian denominations and deep divisions along ethnic lines have left a legacy that continues to impact Chin resistance movements today.¹¹

Citizens in Chin State voted overwhelmingly for the National League for Democracy in the 2020 general elections and many participated in protests after the military’s February 2021 attempted coup. Two months after that, groups across Chin State’s nine townships formed the Chinland Defense Force (CDF), a cluster of local militias armed with traditional hunting rifles to defend communities from the Myanmar military’s attacks.¹² In September 2021, the CDF and the Chin National Front¹³ (CNF) joined forces to attack a military base in Thantlang, and the Myanmar military’s response caused 10,000 residents to flee their homes. Armed conflict is yet to cease in Chin State, with a strong uptick in fighting in November 2023 following the resistance-led Operation 10/27. Earlier this year, the Chin Nationalities Defense Force defeated the military in Falam, a major town north of the state capital Hakha, from which tens of thousands more were displaced.¹⁴

The movement of people between areas now known as Chin State and Mizoram has been ongoing for centuries, but the scale of displacement since 2021 is unprecedented. Humanitarian aid for displaced people from Chin State is limited by restrictions on the Indian side of the border, and Myanmar military aid blockades on the Myanmar side.¹⁵ In 2023, a reported estimate of 90 percent of financial support for refugees in Mizoram came from the Chin diaspora in America, Australia, and Europe. This support is not equally distributed, being funneled primarily through opaque church networks and often delivered to particular denominations or Chin cultural or linguistic groups, leaving those less connected to diaspora networks with less support.¹⁶

Since the attempted coup in February 2021, over 90,500 people have crossed from Myanmar into India,¹⁷ primarily from Chin State and Sagaing Region. The majority of the displaced people entered Mizoram, a state of India named after the Mizo people, who have historic ties with ethnic groups in Chin State. While Mizoram shares borders with Bangladesh, and the Indian states of Tripura, Assam and Manipur, Mizo people do not share the same close historical and ethnic ties with people from those geographies as they do with the Chin people. For the Mizo people, people from other parts of India are considered foreign, despite shared citizenship, due to lack of cultural commonalities and the collective memory of violence and cruelty inflicted in Mizoram during periods of war.¹⁸ Migrants from Bangladesh are equally not regarded as sharing heritage with the Mizos and are “both resented and feared”.¹⁹

In contrast, the Chin and Mizo people recognize a common heritage, with strong similarities in language and cultural practices, and a shared origin myth describing migration to the Chin hills, with both Chin and Mizo peoples describing emergence from a chhinglung, or cave, in present-day China.²⁰ Prior to British rule, the Chin and Mizo people, lived in what they refer to as Chinram, an area including what are now Chin and Mizoram states, which was ruled independently by antecedent tribal chiefs. By 1896, all of the land in Chinram was conquered by the British, and in 1937, the British divided Chinram into parts of their Burmese and Indian dominions. Shared heritage in these areas grew to include shared experiences of colonization, Christian conversion, conflict, independence from Britain, and bitter insurgencies against central rule in India and Burma.

For as long as there have been Mizoram and Chin states, the border between them has been porous. From 1966 to 1985, Mizoram was embroiled in an insurgency sparked by a mass movement against a famine that had been ongoing since 1959, as well as a decision by the central government to impose unwanted policies. This led to the displacement of people from Mizoram into Myanmar. However, the settlement of the Mizo Peace Accord in 1986 and the events of the 1988 political uprising and coup in Myanmar reversed this flow of people, with tens of thousands escaping from Chin State and Sagaing Division²¹ across the border to Mizoram.

India is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol. Registering in India with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for formal refugee status is risky, as it means displaced people traveling to New Delhi or Chennai undocumented.²² Even if you are a registered refugee, you are not safe from deportation, and state governments in India regularly deport genuine accredited asylum seekers to their homelands where they face persecution. Chin people in Mizoram instead often try to obtain other documentation to regulate their status, such as an Aadhaar card, which provides its holder with an identity number if they give over biometric data.²³ In 2011, it was estimated that around 100,000 people from Myanmar were living in Mizoram.²⁴

Mizo residents of Mizoram staunchly believe they and the Chin share kinship, common histories, and religious beliefs. The shared heritage and cultural similarities between Chins and Mizos result in a strong sense of ethnic kinship. In fact, Mizo people often reject using the label “refugee” for Chin people living in Mizoram, as the word is associated with dependency on international assistance. Mizo and Chin people tend to describe each other in familial terms, emphasizing the bond that predates the imposition of international borders and nation states.

However, there remains a lack of legal clarity around the position of Chin people in Mizoram. This, combined with the sense of ethnic and religious brotherhood, means Chin people’s sense of belonging in Mizoram, capacity for control of their lives, and ability to utilize opportunities is dependent on the benevolence of the Mizo state government, church institutions, and Mizo civil society—and the prevailing political climate. It is possible for Chin people to gain employment as domestic workers, weavers, agricultural or quarry laborers, but at the same time, many Chin workers have experienced discrimination and exploitation.²⁵ This has a particularly strong impact on Chin women, who are unable to access protection under existing laws, and instead must rely on informal kinship ties or church mediation in cases of abuse, such as domestic violence or abuse from employers. Sadly, Chin people are sometimes stereotyped by the wider public in Mizoram as alcoholics responsible for drug smuggling, theft, illegal trade, and law breaking,²⁶ common tropes attributed by host communities to guests seeking refugee the world over. It should be noted however that Mizo voices do speak out against these prejudices; in April 2025, the Political Adviser to Mizoram’s Chief Minister, Pu Lalmuanpuia, called on citizens to refrain from marginalizing Chin refugees, citing official data that showed Myanmar refugees accounted for just four percent of all arrests in Mizoram over a 16-month period.²⁷ Since the 1990s, there have been multiple instances of extreme discrimination against Chin people in Mizoram, such as burning down the houses they occupy, large scale arrests, and deportations. In 1996, approximately 1,000 Chin people were forced back over the border into Myanmar, in the year 2000, several hundred were arrested and 105 deported, and in 2003, another 10,000 Chin people were forced back into Chin State.²⁸

While people seeking refuge in Thailand, a country hosting with many magnitudes more displaced Myanmar residents, still face daily challenges with security, there is a network of development and humanitarian organizations on the Thailand-Myanmar border that have provided support, access to services and opportunities for work and education since 1988. In Mizoram, humanitarian support available for refugees from international organizations is extremely limited, so voluntary associations and church groups provide the bulk of humanitarian coordination, care for vulnerable groups such as the elderly, and organize funerals and the repatriation of deceased refugees to Chin State.

Voluntary associations have played a crucial role in the development of Mizo national identity, embodying an ethos of tlawmngaihna (self-sacrifice and care for others). Voluntary associations exist in every district of Mizoram, and along with the state-wide presence of the Presbyterian church, these Mizo institutions have resisted the establishment of explicitly Chin organizations and churches, weakening Chin civil society and their capacity for organizing.²⁹

Articles in the Special Issue

The five articles in this special issue offer compelling examinations of the refugee experience in Mizoram, written by scholars who are themselves displaced, and utilizing qualitative methods including extensive interviews and observations. Each study foregrounds a different facet of the refugee experience: Zohesia examines barriers to education; Len Len looks at mental health and coping mechanisms; Zalette Myey investigates settlement and legal status; Yu Gan Paing takes the case of economic migration from Sagaing, and Dawt describes gendered livelihood challenges. They collectively illuminate the precarious, often invisible lives of Chin refugees navigating displacement without formal refugee status or institutional protection.

The first article in this special issue, “Education Challenges Faced by Chin Refugee Children in Mizoram State, India” by Zohesia, focuses on the difficulties faced by refugee families and children trying to access education. Zohesia overviews the legal provisions for refugees in other country contexts, including Uganda and Belgium, and reviews common challenges for refugee children across different geographies, such as language barriers, inadequate teaching resources, and low-quality instruction. Facing a paucity of research on education for refugee children in Mizoram, Zohesia set out to collect perspectives from refugee students, parents and educators as well analyze the legal frameworks around education in Myanmar and India, focusing particularly on the issue of mother tongue-based multilingual education in Myanmar. The students she interviewed provide a palpable sense of the confusion and isolation they felt trying to engage in classes conducted in the Mizo or English languages. The parents she interviewed also felt challenged by the language barrier and lack of organizational support in Mizoram. Zohesia’s research highlights the extraordinary resilience shown by respondents despite such challenges, learning new languages through sheer perseverance, and defending themselves against discrimination in school. This article also underlines the difficulties of balancing the preservation of linguistic diversity with promoting ethnic unity among Chin peoples.

From students to workers, the next article in the special issue focuses on one particular trade, teasing out the complex dynamics of migration and labor market outcomes in Mizoram State. “Factors Behind Weavers Migrating from Myanmar to Mizoram State, India” by Yu Gan Paing examines the impact of external pressures such as access to information, discrimination, and migration costs, on the livelihoods of Myanmar migrant weavers. Through three months of interviews and observation in 2022, the author deeply immersed into the lives of migrant weavers and then returned in 2023 to conduct further data collection. His literature review includes consideration of the very term ‘migrant,’ and the structural factors that drive people to move from one place to another. Yu Gan Paing provides exposition of the Sagaing Region people and the long tradition of weaving there. He highlights that in Mizoram, highly skilled weavers are regarded as expert craftsmen, and in both Mizoram and Sagaing, traditional weaving plays a role in preserving cultural heritage. Yu Gan Paing’s interviews paint a picture of economic migration to Mizoram alongside the devastating political shifts in Myanmar since 1988, noting that pull factors like higher wages are less researched than the push factors of conflict and instability. He also highlights the way in which the Sagaing economic migrant is seen as valuable in Mizoram in a different way to Chin people in Mizoram; they are prized for their creative skill, rather than accepted for their cultural similarities. This article provides a helpful counter-narrative to the conventional understanding that all refugees in Mizoram arriving through Chin State are of Chin origin, when in fact displaced people from other areas close to India, such as Sagaing Region and Rakhine State, also migrate there.

Continuing with the theme of livelihoods is Dawt’s “Experiences of Chin Refugee Women in Accessing Livelihoods in Mizoram State, India.” Challenges to accessing and maintaining livelihoods include language barriers, lack of documentation, and miniscule wages. Dawt’s interviewees are university-educated women, and before the 2021 coup they had professions such as nurse, university lecturer, and teacher, but their Myanmar qualifications are not recognized in Mizoram. This in conjunction with their lack of national documents in India means they are restricted to working in retail, fruit selling, and such. The discussion section of the article conveys Chin refugee women’s palpable sense of despair and anger. Dawt’s article is a much-needed exploration of women’s experiences as Chin refugees, seeking to understand the way in which their gendered experiences color universal obstacles for Chin refugees in Mizoram, such as legal uncertainty, high costs, and language barriers. In the style of an activist researcher, Dawt calls for strong interventions by stakeholders to allow Mizoram employers to recognize qualification documentation from Myanmar and support displaced women to support themselves.

The next article, “Factors Influencing Chin Refugees Settling in Aizawl After 2021” explores the complex relationship between the Chin and Mizo peoples in Mizoram and bravely engages in discussion on whether Chin people have a distinguished status in Mizoram due to some kind of ethnic brotherhood. Zalette Myey asserts that, while they may be allowed to reside in Aizawl, the capital city of Mizoram, Chin people are unable to access protection from UNHCR, run a business, access land, buy property, or seek employment. These restrictions keep Chin refugees in a state of limbo, where they struggle to survive on the supposed spirit of brotherhood alone. The article is informed by perspectives from 14 research participants: men and women displaced from various parts of Chin State and mostly Civil Disobedience Movement participants. Key reasons for them entering Mizoram and then Aizawl included seeking education, escaping violence, and avoiding arrest. While hastily erected refugee camps mushroomed in Mizoram after 2021, the lack of humanitarian organizations involving in their management and support (beyond that provided by small volunteer organizations), means that camp residence can be dehumanizing and difficult for Chin refugees—compelling many to choose urban refuge in Aizawl instead. But in Aizawl, they face barriers regarding discrimination in housing, work, and ownership rights. In this way, Zalette Myey identifies gaps in the support for Aizawl’s urban refugees who go it alone outside of the camps.

The final article in the special issue, “Young Chin Refugees in Aizawl District Since 2021”, spotlights the situation for youth in the Chin refugee cohort in Aizawl. Research fellow Len Len highlights the lack of research on the mental health challenges of Chin refugees, drawing comparisons with refugees from Myanmar residing in Thailand and New Delhi with high levels of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Guided by the experiences of research participants across four refugee camps in Aizawl District, which is a large area stretching for hundreds of kilometers (and not confined to Aizawl city), Len Len’s analysis illustrates the complex emotional landscape of refugee Chin youth. She found that most of her respondents felt safe in the district and were grateful for the hospitality extended to them by local Mizo people. Respondents felt comfort in their religious beliefs and daily routine, but the language barriers and lack of opportunities were still isolating. The respondents also shared their experiences of education, livelihood, and other challenges. Len’s article is a crucial reminder that all displaced people suffer long-term mental health challenges as a result of their experiences, and while religious and ethnic communities can provide support, loneliness and anxiety are pervasive issues.

A recurring theme across all contributions is the perseverance of displaced people who despite experiences of great trauma, discrimination and barriers to communication, housing and employment, persist in finding a way to survive in Mizoram and support their families. The shared ethnic and religious ties with the Mizo community provide a sense of refuge, but the research fellows highlight significant gaps in existing support, with little help for accessing legal rights, healthcare, sustainable livelihoods, and mental health support. These studies also reveal significant gaps in humanitarian response and policy, including the urgent need for gender-sensitive approaches. Together, they call for coordinated action from local authorities, non-governmental organizations, and international actors to recognize refugee rights, ensure protection, and create pathways for inclusion, dignity, and opportunity in Mizoram.

This emerging body of scholarship not only amplifies the voices of displaced Chin individuals but also serves as a critical resource for informing more just and effective refugee policies in India and beyond.

Endnotes

¹ “Mizoram Chief Minister”, 2025.
² International Crisis Group, 2025b.
³ “Mizoram to collect”, 2025.
⁴ “Myanmar refugees”, 2025.
⁵ Market Analysis Unit, 2022.
⁶ Myanmar Information Management Unit, 2021.
⁷ Pum Khan Pau, 2020.
⁸ Sang, 2023.
⁹ Lian Sakhong, 2003.
¹⁰ Edwards & South, 2020.
¹¹ Sang, 2023.
¹² International Crisis Group, 2025a.
¹³ The Chin National Front is one of the largest ethnic armed organizations in Chin State, formed in 1988. The Chin National Army is its armed wing.
¹⁴ “Eighty-nine Chin resistance members”, 2025.
¹⁵ Salai Za Uk Ling, 2022.
¹⁶ Sang, 2023.
¹⁷ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2025.
¹⁸ McConnachie, 2018.
¹⁹ McConnachie, 2018, p. 6.
²⁰ Basavapatna, 2012.
²¹ The previous name for Sagaing Region in the current 2008 constitution.
²² IRIN, 2014.
²³ Banerjee, 2016. With rising tensions in Mizoram related to the flows of Myanmar refugees, ICA has reported that securing an Aadhaar card without documentation is no longer possible.
²⁴ Chin Association of Maryland, 2011.
²⁵ McConnachie, 2018.
²⁶ Basavapatna, 2012.
²⁷ Mizoram News, 2025.
²⁸ Basavapatna, 2012; Human Rights Watch, 2009.
²⁹ McConnachie, 2018.

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