Guwahati: Former Mizoram CM Zoramthanga, who spent nearly two decades as a guerrilla fighter before entering constitutional politics, received his graduation certificate from Gauhati University on Thursday — 60 years after appearing for the examination.Zoramthanga sat for the BA examination at DM College in Imphal, which was then affiliated with Gauhati University. He joined the Mizo National Front (MNF) in 1965 and went underground in 1966 after the Mizo insurgency began.Recalling the circumstances surrounding his degree, Zoramthanga said his mother wanted him to become a pastor, while he aspired to join the IAS. He had even filled out the form for the civil services examination in 1966. “Instead of serving the Govt of India as an IAS officer, I decided to take up the rifle and join the underground movement,” he recalled.Despite preparing to go underground, Zoramthanga appeared for his BA examination in April 1966 on the advice of his underground leaders. He said he and his friends were more focused on disappearing into the movement than on the result. He later passed the examination and secretly returned to DM College to verify it, discovering that he was the only student in the English Honours course to clear the examination that year.“At last, after nearly 60 years, I received my certificate,” Zoramthanga said.Calling it “an unusual certificate, prepared by unusual people, for an unusual student”, he joked that the longer one waited, the more valuable a certificate became.As he put it, the “strange chief minister” was taking home his “strange certificate” from a “strange university” after six decades.
