Fear of devil prevents members of Christian cult in Mizoram from sending children to school

Aizawl – A handful of families in Mizoram have prevented their children from going to school fearing that allowing their children to mingle with others would make the devil block the way to heaven, Christian Today has confirmed.

According to H. Lalzarliana, Lunglei district education officer, Mizoram, some 34 children living in two villages in the southern Lunglei district whose parents belong to a certain religious sect refuse to let their kids go to school as it was against their “religious beliefs.”

Identified as members of a Christian cult called “Zero Christianity,” this handful of families do not send their children to school.

"They fear that by allowing their children to attend schools the devil would be able to send them to hell instead of heaven," Lalzarliana said.

A predominantly Christian tribal state bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh, Mizoram is India's second highest literate state.

"Zero Christianity is nothing but a cult followed by a handful of families which do not belong to any denomination. These people follow a wrong doctrine, a practice similar to heresy," Rev. Liaangaia, a church leader, said.

"Nothing much is known about Zero Christianity and its followers' religious beliefs and practices as they lead a very private life." There are an estimated 50–odd families practicing Zero Christianity in the two villages of Rawlvang and Chhuahthum in Lunglei district, about 200 kilometers south of Mizoram's capital Aizawl.

The cult's practice of not allowing its followers to send their children to school has come as a major hindrance in Mizoram's bid to attain 100 percent literacy.

According to the 2001 census, Mizoram's literacy rate is 88.49 percent, a shade lower than Kerala's 89.91 percent. India's average literacy rate is 52.21 percent.

"We need to motivate the followers of Zero Christianity to educate their children. We have a target to surpass Kerala's literacy rate and become India's highest literate state by end of this year and a 100 percent literate state by 2010," IRNA has quoted Mizoram's education minister, R. Lalthangliana, as saying.

"It is a shame that in a state like Mizoram where Christianity is so dominant and people yearn for knowledge and education, one finds people still holding on to primitive beliefs and superstitions," the minister added.

The journey from being a tribe without any written language to becoming one of India's most literate states has been a long one.

In 1894, two British Baptist missionaries, William Frederick Savidge and J. H. Lorrain, were the first to venture into the hills of Mizoram and soon thereafter reduced the oral Mizo language into written form.

Both also taught a number of locals to read and write besides opening schools and imparting education to the people.

"It is no less a miracle to find the Mizo people transforming themselves into a model community in a little more than four generations and we owe all this to the British missionaries who taught us how to read and write," Boicchingpuii, Mizoram's director of art and culture said.