Union Home Minister Amit Shah on January 20 in Guwahati announced that the Centre has decided to “fence the entire length of the Indo-Mynamar border” in order to prevent movement of people from both sides. The Free Movement Regime(FMR) is a mutually agreed arrangement between the two countries that allows tribes living along the border on either side to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa. The two countries share a largely unfenced 1,643 km border, which goes through the states of Manipur, Mizoram, Assam, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. The FMR was implemented in 2018 as part of the Narendra Modi government’s Act East policy, at a time when diplomatic relations between India and Myanmar were on the upswing. The FMR was to be put in place in 2017 itself but was deferred due to the Rohingya refugee crisis that erupted that August(2017). Apart from facilitating people-to-people contact, the FMR was supposed to provide impetus to local trade and business. The region has a long history of trans-border commerce through customs and border haats. People living on the other side in Myanmar are generally poor and depend a lot on trade with those living on the Indian side of the border. The movement of people across the border was the only means of commerce that was beneficial to people living in both side of the border. For border people in Myanmar too, Indian towns are closer for business, education, and healthcare than those in their own country. All these will end when Shah announced “Free Movement Regime (FMR) agreement with Myanmar is going to end this ease of coming and going.” The border between India and Myanmar was demarcated by the British in 1826, without seeking the opinion of the people living in the region. People of same ethnicity and culture were divided arbitrarily into two nations without their consent. People in the region have strong ethnic and familial ties across the border. In Manipur’s Moreh region, there are villages where some homes are in Myanmar. In Nagaland’s Mon district, the border actually passes through the house of the chief of Longwa village, splitting his home into two. Although beneficial to local people and helpful in improving Indo-Myanmar ties, FMR has also been criticised in the past for unintentionally aiding illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and gun running. Given the interests of the local population, however, neither the complete removal of the FMR nor full fencing of the border may be desirable. The decision to suspend the six-year old FMR, which came into being in 2018, is largely seen as a step to address concerns of the Biren Singh government in Manipur under the plea of preventing movement of Chin-Kuki immigrants allegedly involved in drug trafficking or helping Kuki militants against Meitei armed militia operating with impunity under the Biren Singh government or supplying guns. These factors – drug trafficking, illegal immigration and gun running-have been in existence for several decades but suddenly, they have become serious enough in 2024 to suspend FMR. It is ironic that when BJP under Modi came to power in 2014, it transformed the concept of Look East Policy of the Congress into a proactive Act East Policy. Now, the FMR policy has shut down the Vision NE.
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