July 30, 2025 was an oppressively humid day in Aizawl. The kind that wraps itself around your neck like a damp scarf and doesn’t let go. For weeks now, the steep hill city had been brought to a slow, grinding halt, and my family, like most others, was stuck right in the middle of it.
Ten days earlier, on July 19, the Mizoram Tipper Association had called for a strike. Their reason was painfully familiar: dangerously damaged roads. But even before the strike, movement along NH-306, the state’s only lifeline, was becoming nearly impossible. Every monsoon, this road turns into a recurring nightmare, but this year, it felt almost biblical. Videos even surfaced online of locals pretending to swim in potholes.
Then came the final blow. On July 30, the North East Petroleum Mazdoor Union (NEPMU) announced that from August 1, it would halt all fuel transport to Mizoram. In a letter to the Chief General Manager of Indian Oil Corporation (Assam Oil Division), they wrote that the road conditions posed too great a risk for tanker crews. Serious accidents, they warned, were not a matter of “if” but “when.”
Almost immediately, panic spread online. The few fuel stations still operating were suddenly overwhelmed. Social media lit up with frantic messages, and traffic snarled as vehicles lined up in droves.
We were already low on petrol, so we joined the desperate hunt. Our family piled into our car and headed out. Our first stop was a pump roughly 30 minutes away, en route to the airport. We had heard they still had petrol. But as we approached, we were turned away—traffic police shooing away the line, warning that a VIP convoy from the airport was about to pass. Our empty tank didn’t stand a chance against flashing beacons and high security protocol.
Undeterred, we drove further. Two more petrol pumps, 20 minutes apart, greeted us with handwritten signs: “No Petrol,” “No Diesel.” Ropes were strung across the entry and exit points. Another hour lost. Our hopes, much like our fuel tank, were nearly empty.
Eventually, we returned to the city. The VIP convoy had passed, and the pump on that route had resumed operation. We fell in line again, behind rows of two-wheelers, private cars, taxis, and even people clutching jerry cans. One taxi driver complained that he too had been driven away earlier to clear the road for the VIP, never mind that he relied on fuel for his day’s income.
It’s important to understand something here. Mizoram, unlike many Indian states, has just one lifeline, one road connecting it to the rest of the country. When that road fails, everything stops. Groceries. Medicines. Gas. Daily life itself. Yes, even other Northeast states face fuel shortages at times, but usually due to bandhs or protests. Here, it’s just the road. Every party that has come to power, MNF, Congress, now ZPM, has promised better roads. But like their predecessors, ZPM had from November 2023 until now to repair the route before monsoon hit. They didn’t.
The blame game quickly followed: PWD pointed to NHIDCL, NHIDCL to railway construction. Mizoram finally having a railway link should have been a milestone. Instead, it’s part of the reason the state is once again starved of fuel.
There’s another uncomfortable truth. Along the long queues of struggling citizens, one type of vehicle was conspicuously absent: government vehicles. Ministers’ cars. Bureaucrats’ SUVs. Why? Because they don’t need to queue. They are the only ones entitled to fuel coupons distributed by the government, golden tickets that guarantee petrol even when the pumps are dry. They receive allotted litres, written on paper, no questions asked.
So who suffers? Taxi drivers. Daily wage workers. Small business owners who sell clothes, makeup, and household goods. People whose lives depend on every litre they can find. For them, these shortages are not an inconvenience; they are an economic catastrophe.
Yes, the government has now appointed a minister and an MLA to visit the site daily. That’s a start. But where was this urgency six months ago? Why does Mizoram need to collapse before its leaders wake up?
And here’s what I won’t forget from that day: as we waited, eight vehicles away from the pump, a taxi suddenly swerved ahead, cutting the queue entirely. I instinctively got out, ready to confront the driver, but someone beat me to it. After a brief exchange, the man returned to say the driver was drunk and it wasn’t worth the trouble.
What struck me wasn’t just the audacity of the queue-cutter, but the quiet resignation that followed. In any other state, a scene like this might have escalated – a shouting match, maybe even a fight. But here in Mizoram, the rest of the drivers, some of whom had likely been waiting for hours, simply sat in their vehicles, looking past the incident as though it hadn’t happened.
That moment felt emblematic of something deeper. People here are, perhaps, too patient. For years, we’ve watched each successive government stumble through the same promises, delivering the same excuses. And yet, we’ve often responded with nothing more than a shrug, appeased by small favours, grateful for kind words, unwilling to demand real accountability.
Maybe it’s time that changed. Maybe it’s time we stopped being so patient with leaders who seem too drunk on their own power to be worth arguing with.
After three long hours, waiting for VIP cars to pass, for drunken men to claim our place, for petrol to finally flow, we made it home. Relieved. Grateful. But already beginning to forget. Forget how thoroughly the public had been failed, how avoidable all of this could have been.
In a few weeks, the fuel lines will return. And most likely, so will the silence. All over again. Until another patched-up road fails with the next monsoon, and we’re reminded, briefly, of just how much we continue to tolerate.
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