A Review of C. Zâma’s "Die As a Man"

 

C. Zâma’s Die As a Man is thin yet carries so much weight. It does not arrive as a grand commentary on the Mizo independence movement of 1966–1986, nor as an attempt to retell history with sweeping declarations. Instead, it walks into that turbulent period the way an old camera might walk into a village morning — slow, steady, conscious of every footprint behind it. The book carries the weight of memory, but it carries it without theatrics. Its aim is simple: to bring forward the men whose names have long remained in the background, men who stepped into the conflict and never returned. By placing their stories in the foreground, the book shifts the reader’s sense of the past from a distant political struggle to a sequence of personal lives, each shaped by hope, fear, conviction, and loss.

Zâma re-writes the memoir of the fallen brethren from within the world he understands. As a former member of the Mizo National Army, he carries a familiarity with the terrain, the hardship, and the choices that marked the twenty-year movement. He writes for the “forgotten and unsung heroes” of the Mizo independence movement. What emerges is not a dramatic retelling but a gentle, steady unveiling. Each story appears as if the writer had paused at a doorway, lifted a curtain slightly, and invited the reader to step inside.

The narrative is structured around individuals rather than events. Sixteen chapters carry the names of fallen fighters — Major P.C. Lianhmingthanga, Major Thankhuma, Lt. Ngulkhopao, and others whose stories fill the pages with a sense of unadorned truth. The order is not rigid, but the movement from the early years of the uprising to the long endurance of the 1970s gives the book a natural flow. The reader moves from the charged atmosphere of February 1966 — when the declaration of independence set off a chain of clashes — to the weary persistence of a movement that refused to collapse even when the world around it shifted.

This approach brings the reader close to the ground. The stories begin in childhood homes, schoolrooms, village paths, and jhum fields. Before the men pick up arms, they appear as sons, brothers, neighbours, or young men with ordinary dreams. We see the traits that shaped them long before the war did: a quiet boy known for honesty, a young man with a sharp sense of responsibility, a village youth always alert to the suffering of others. These glimpses are brief, but they are enough to remind the reader that these figures did not enter history as symbols. They were ingrained in a familiar world.

When the conflict enters, it does not do so with sudden violence alone. It arrives through rumour, tension, whispered meetings, and the growing sense that the land is reaching a point beyond return. The February 1966 uprising begins with coordinated attacks on military installations. Zâma recounts these scenes not with the pace of an action novel but with the calm of someone who has learned to let events speak for themselves. The reader sees volunteers taking their positions through the mist, hears the short instructions exchanged in the dark, and senses the fear mixed with determination. The first shots are reported without flourish. The chapters build not drama but accuracy.

The book does not hide the imbalance of the conflict. One of its most haunting sections describes the March 1966 air raid on Aizawl. The town watched aircraft circle overhead before dropping bombs on their own citizens. Volunteers holding rifles understood at once how small they were in front of the machines above them. A fighter’s comparison — that resisting the planes was like confronting an elephant with bare hands — conveys the despair without exaggeration. Zâma simply places the image before the reader and steps aside. The shock of that moment carries its own weight.

Prison escapes are some of the most dramatic episodes. Zama tells how D. C. Zailiana and others spent seventeen days secretly loosening nails and grates in their cell at Aizawl jail, using a prayer meeting as a diversion while they finally squeezed through a narrow opening and fled into the night. The story has all the tension of a thriller, yet Zama’s understated writing keeps it grounded. The reader knows that if they had been discovered, the punishment could have been immediate execution. Elsewhere, an attempted escape ends in bloody reprisals, reminding us that not all such efforts succeeded.

Although many chapters focus on fighters, Die As A Man also gives a sense of the wider social experience of Mizoram during the conflict. It shows how war entered kitchens, churches, fields and village meetings. A recurring theme is communal solidarity. Zama gives an example of Lieutenant Lalruata, who persuades his village to invite Indian soldiers for tea when they are ordered to assemble in the school. While the troops enjoy hospitality, a few of his friends slip away through the back. The scene is almost quiet in tone, yet it demonstrates how ordinary villagers used the social value of hospitality as a way to protect their own.

The book also offers small glimpses of humanity. In one account, a captured leader is executed soon after refusing to surrender despite deep wounds. Later, an Indian Army officer expresses regret to his widow. The book does not expand on the gesture; it only acknowledges it. This quiet inclusion protects the narrative from sliding into easy binaries. It keeps the focus on the human cost rather than assigning simplified moral positions.

The strength of Zâma’s technique lies in his restraint. The stories unfold as if the camera is placed at shoulder height, slightly behind the protagonists, capturing only what they see and hear. Dialogue is recorded sparingly but meaningfully. A commander urges his men not to hesitate. A dying fighter tells his comrades to leave him behind for their own safety. A young corporal, driven past his patience, accepts a challenge with a traditional dao knife and fights with the dignity of someone who refuses to be intimidated. These spoken lines make the scenes vivid without needing dramatic commentary.

The cultural texture of Mizoram is present throughout the book, quietly and naturally. Villages appear as living communities — places where people gather for church, share rice, debate local decisions, and protect one another in the face of danger. Christianity surfaces in the background: a prayer whispered during a march, the memory of a church elder whose son now carries a gun, or the intervention of village leaders trying to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. Zâma does not pause to explain these cultural elements. He lets them exist in their own rhythm, trusting that the reader will feel their presence.

The wider region also enters the frame. Naga allies guide Mizo fighters through difficult terrain. Kuki youths join the struggle under Lt. Ngulkhopao. These relationships emerge through action — shared ambushes, journeys across borders, nights spent hiding in thick forest. The broader political landscape remains at the edges of the narrative, yet its influence is unmistakable. The reliance on East Pakistan as a rear base, the limitations faced after 1971, and the growing fatigue of the 1970s all appear as part of the lived reality of the fighters. Songs and poems are another important vehicle of memory. Throughout the text, Zama cites lyrics of Mizo hla, both patriotic songs and laments.

What gives the book its emotional force is not the scale of events but the small scenes that reveal a person’s character under pressure. One of the most striking involves Deputy Commissioner Zailiana. Captured, wounded, and offered treatment in exchange for surrender, he refuses calmly, stating that he will continue the struggle until his last moment. He is executed soon after. Zâma reports this with minimal description, but the quiet determination of that refusal lingers. It stands beside many other such moments — fighters who accept death rather than abandon their loyalty, families who endure imprisonment without complaint, villagers who rebuild the homes of widows. These scenes do not require elaborate language. They speak through the simplicity of the people involved.

The stories accumulate, chapter after chapter, until the reader gains an intimate picture of a society living through a long war. Some chapters describe daring missions, others describe sudden encounters that last only minutes. Some men die during well-planned operations; others die in moments of chance that no tactic could prevent. The repetition of death never becomes monotonous. Instead, it deepens the sense of what the movement cost its participants. The fighters were not machines of war. They were men with fears, friendships, and families. Their courage did not come from a place beyond humanity but from within it.

The book’s title, Die As a Man, finds meaning in these cumulative portraits. It reflects an ethic that guided many of the fighters: the belief that dignity should not be surrendered even when survival seems impossible. The men who appear in the book do not declare themselves heroes. They act because the situation before them demands a choice, and they choose loyalty, sometimes at the expense of their lives. Zâma never states this as doctrine. It emerges naturally from the stories he records.

As the narrative moves into the 1970s, the tone shifts quietly. The early energy of the rebellion is replaced by the endurance of a movement pushed to its limits. Sanctuary in East Pakistan ends after the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Supplies dwindle. Operations become more desperate. Yet the resolve of the fighters remains steady. Their determination is not romanticised. It is shown through the way they continue crossing rivers at night, navigating forests under monsoon rain, and carrying wounded comrades across ridges even when escape seems unlikely. The reader senses the physical and emotional strain, but also the stubborn persistence that kept the movement alive until the final accords.

By the time the book reaches its closing chapters, the reader feels not a single sweeping narrative but a quiet accumulation of human stories — a mosaic of sacrifice, loyalty, fear, endurance, and love for the land. The book becomes a memorial made of facts, spoken lines, and remembered actions. The writer’s intention is not to glorify but to bear witness.

This witness-like quality is what gives Die As a Man its distinctive voice. The tone resembles that of an archivist holding old film reels: steady hands, clear eyes, and a firm commitment to accuracy. Zâma does not instruct the reader on how to interpret the stories. He simply places them within reach. The result is a narrative that invites reflection rather than argument.

When the reader finally closes the book, what remains is not the noise of war but the faces of the men who passed through it. Each life is restored to its place in memory. Each sacrifice gains the dignity of being seen. The broader history of Mizoram during those twenty years becomes clearer, but it is the human cost that stays closest to the heart. It leaves the reader with a sense of respect — not for the idea of war, but for the individuals who bore its weight with dignity. The title itself – Die As A Man – echoes a core tenet of the ethos he portrays: to die as a true Mizo pasaltha. Masculinity here is not about machismo in the abstract; it is articulated through the warrior ethos, the cultural ideal of the pasaltha – the brave warrior who values honour, duty, and sacrifice above his own life.