Rat Plague
Every 48 years, the Mautam bamboo blooms and its high-protein seeds lead to an explosion in the Black Rat population in the jungle, a.k.a. rat flood, which historically has destroyed entire villages' food supply when the rats move on to farm fields. The plague "in 1958-59, provoked a rural uprising that saw the indigenous Mizo people launch a violent 20-year rebellion against the federal government that was only finally resolved in 1986."
Read more about this topic: Mizoram
Famous quotes containing the words rat and/or plague:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)