23/05/2026
Conversion of Mizoram to Christianity
The Battle of Plassey in 1757 established the British firmly in India and they became undisputed rulers of the Bengal, one of the largest province in India. It was comprised of present Bihar, Orissa, Bengal, Bangladesh and Assam. They also got Chittagong, the south-eastern port of the province which did wonders to the British trade. This also brought them to the immediate vicinity of North-Eastern hill tribals like Lushai, Chakma and Kumi, to name a few. These tribes inhabited the area of present Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur.
These were aborigine tribes and occasionally raided the neighbouring tribes and collected the taxes and even heads of the people. In the process, they also used to loot the items which they could not afford. After the arrival of the British, people started paying taxes to the British, instead of them. This dried their revenues and brought on a collision course with the British. The latter named them headhunters but adopted the policy of leaving the tribes on their own. One day, however, everything changed.
During those times, the British also occupied the Cachar hills in southern Assam where the city of Silchar is located. With time, they established the tea gardens in the area which proved to be highly profitable. Soon a mania swept the region where tea planters begin to expand their gardens and encroach on the Lushai territory. One such tea garden was in Alexandrapur near Silchar which was owned by one George Seller. One day, he invited one of his close friends James Wi******er and his 6 years old daughter Mary Wi******er in 1870 as she was going to Britain for further studies. Mary was the illegitimate child of James and his Meitei (Manipuri) worker. Lushais got the wind of such celebration and swooped down on the tea garden in a pre-dawn raid. They killed a few people including James during confrontation. Seller, however, managed to escape while Mary was kidnapped and taken to Lushai headquarters. This created a media furore in London, a few days later. Mary was, however, treated like a queen by the tribal women. In one year of captivity, she became used to the Mizo lifestyle and forgot English completely.
On 8th October 1871, after more than a year passed, the British attacked the Lushai hamlet and killed everyone. Mary had to be dragged against her will by the British soldiers. She was then sent to Scotland to her grandparents.
However, the story has not finished for hapless Lushais and other tribes in North-East. The missionaries saw their chance and dubbed the kidnapping barbaric. It did not matter to them that they killed every unyielding tribal in retaliation. It also did not matter that they carried out much more barbarity during the crusades and during the first war of independence in 1857. Turks were even in the habit of making towers of heads. By 1898, the British captured the whole Lushai territory and missionaries started to have a field day. Arthington Mission and Welsh Presbyterian missionaries were the foremost in converting and within a decade they converted more than 1 lakh tribals.
A story was deliberately spread that tribals had fallen into a trance after converting and they saw remarkable visions, namely that two great lights would shine in the land, one in the north and the other in the south. This further propelled the conversion as they were made to be ashamed of their ancestors, however, it is another matter that they were now converted from head hunters to soul hunters and church planters. A plaque of James were made in the tea garden and they were taken to Alexanderpur on an annual yatra to remind them of their savage past and how they were now the civilized people. Mizoram is consequently now 87% Christian. Mary was deified as a Christian messiah and her photos with Jesus are in most households. Everyone was told that it was prophesied in the Christian texts like Isaiah 60:22 which elaborated ‘A little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong nation.’
Mary was projected as a little one.
Written by Amit Agarwal, author of the bestseller on Indian history titled “Swift horses Sharp Swords”. You may buy the book at Amazon
Source: Lewin TH, A Fly on the Wheel: Or, How I Helped to Govern India, 1912, p 256-290
Hattaway, Paul, 2006. From Headhunters to Church Planters, p 4-8
Gait, Edward, 1977. A History of Assam, p 318
Sajal Nag, Re-searching Transitions in Indian History, p 202-214
