ECONOMIC HISTORY OF MIZORAM: SOME EXPLORATIONS
Perched on the hills of North Eastern corner of India, Mizoram is flanked by Bangladesh on the west and Burma on the east and south. In Mizo society, the basic resources for economic activities, i.e., the land was distributed by the local chief and mutually owned by the community. Since pre-historic times the entire population was engaged in agriculture and derived their livelihood by cultivating paddy. The system of business transaction before the pre-colonial period was in the form of Barter system and Sial (Mithun) played a significant role in trading as well as for festival purposes. From 1891, Mizoram was under the political and administrative control of the British Government, which was followed by the entry of the Christian Missionaries in 1894. The British introduced annual house tax. The collection of house tax in kind was terminated from 1904 and they insisted the payment in cash. As a consequence, the society started to acknowledge the value and utility of Money. Economic activities in Mizoram spurred with the coming of the British and the tribal economy experienced a huge expansion in trade and in all developmental exercises. This paper is an attempt to analyse the economic history of Mizoram from the pre-colonial and colonial perspective. This study employs historical research methods, and it is descriptive in nature and the data were gathered from the secondary sources.
Mizo - Colonial – Agriculture -Tax - Economic Development -Trade.