By Joydeep Dasgupta
Agartala ( Tripura), May 26 : Vanghum is a lesser-known village situated in the North Tripura district of Tripura.
Few years back a small step by the conscious citizens of the village change the destiny of a village, when they took a decision to maintain the clean and green aspects of their village without expecting much from the government and after years, the village is now on the limelight. Vanghmun is now regarded as the cleanliest village of Tripura.
Vanghum is the headquarter of famous Jampui Hill RD Block which comes under Kanchanpur Sub Division. Jampui Hill is famous from its sweet and juicy oranges. Since 1919, the Mizo community inhabits Vanghmun. But there has traces of human settlements in Vanghmun area much before the 1900s.
Earlier, Vanghmun was named after Raja Bahadur Dokhuma Sailo village, since he was the Village Chief who started inhabitation in the village. The title of ‘Raja Bahadur’ is given to him by the Maharaja of Tripura because of his wise ruling over his subjects and also good relation with the Maharaja himself.
The inhabitants are Mizos, so Mizo language is largely spoken language here. Most of the in habitants can speak Bengali fluently and the younger generations are well conversant in English. As per the village census done by the Young Mizo Association (local Voluntary Organization) in 2011, there are 402 houses with over 2000 population.
In the history of Vanghmun, two major important incidents occurred in the village. During the Second World War, Crash landing of American Fighter Plane on Nov 14 1944 where the pilot and the co pilot were rescued by the Youths of Vanghmun village.
These also reflect the conscious nature of village people. The second incident was the attack on Indian Military Camp (Provincial Armed Corps) by the Mizo National Army during the Mizo unrest on Nov 1 1967, who entered Vanghmun through Mizoram.
Whatever may be the past, the future is bright as the citizen of this tiny hamlet of Northeast has proved that any conscious and positive effort doesn’t goes waste and when it comes to maintain their home and neighborhood they can soon be in the world map for being clean and green.
