Paper short abstract:

In this paper an attempt has been made to study the social, economic and political consequences of the famine of 1959 and how it has been remembered differently orally and also represented in fictional narratives.

Paper long abstract:

North-east India has extensive bamboo vegetation covering an area of 3.05 million ha. Out of this the state of Mizoram accounts for highest forest cover with bamboo. It has 9 general and 20 species. The reproductive cycle of bamboo vary from species to species. Most of the various kinds of bamboo flower and die only once in about 50 years. There are two distinct groups: ' The mautam group' and 'the ting-tam group.' The former flowers and sprouts its seeds in a cycle of every 50 years and the later every 30 years. Once bamboos start flowering the rats population rises alarmingly and starts attacking the crops and then granaries leading thereby to famine conditions. The famines of 1862, 1882, 1911-12, 1931, 1959,1979 and 2007 have been recorded by missionaries, colonial and post-colonial officials. Sajal Nag who spcialises in the history of modern North-east India is the first to do serious academic work on these famines. But he has based his work on archival sources. Neither did he unearth the oral memories of the people nor the cultural representations of the famines. I have been trying to attempt this gap in my larger project on the social history of the food in Mizoram. This paper is an humble attempt to study the social, economic and political consequences of the famine of 1959 and how it has been remembered differently orally and also represented in fictional narratives.