When Home Minister Amit Shah announced on January 20 that India has decided to put up barbed wire fencing along its British colonial ruled-imposed border with Myanmar and is reconsidering an end to a five-year-old agreement with that country on free movement of people residing close to the frontier, he was only thinking aloud in public on what has been in the realm of speculations for quite some time.

 “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has decided that the India-Myanmar border, which is open, will be protected by barbed fencing just like what we have along the India-Bangladesh border,” an official statement quoted Shah as saying at the passing-out parade of Assam Police commando battalions in Guwahati.

The 1,643km unfenced border between India and Myanmar allows unfettered movement of nationals of the two countries up to 16km deep inside each other’s territories without the need for a passport or visa and stay up to two weeks.

This area runs through difficult terrains and sparsely populated areas in four northeastern Indian states Arunachal Pradesh (520km), Nagaland (215km), Manipur (398km), and Mizoram (510km). Only ten km of the border Manipur has with Myanmar is fenced at present. The agreement on free movement of people is aimed at promoting cross-border trade and people-to-people contacts, went into force in January 2018.

The Chin people living in Chin province of Myanmar, abutting Mizoram, share ethnic kinship and family ties with Mizos and Kuki-Zomis of Manipur. There is also a good number of Naga population in Myanmar in Myanmar’s Sagaing region.

One of the main arguments cited by the Indian authorities at the time of operationalising the accord relating to the free movement of people along the border five years ago was that it is only formalising a practice of socio-economic linkages across the border that have been in existence informally. Secondly, the government had contended that the agreement would “safeguard the traditional rights of the largely tribal communities residing along the border which are accustomed to free movement across the land border.”

Not that those contentions have fallen apart. But New Delhi’s decision to fence the border and a rethink on the free movement agreement are prompted by the changed security situation in Manipur which has seen ethnic violence since May last year. Clearly, security concerns have trumped other factors in the backdrop of the allegations by the BJP government in Manipur, headed by chief minister N Biren Singh, a former Congress leader, that the open border and free movement were among the main reasons for prolonged violence and instability in the state. The ethnic violence in Manipur involving the majority Metei community and minority Kuki-Zomi tribals has left more than 200 people dead since May last year and 50,000 people uprooted from homes.

The Metei community’s civil society concurred with the N Biren Singh government that the open border with Myanmar facilitated the influx of illegal immigrants, drugs and gold smuggling and helped the insurgent outfits to carry out attacks on the Indian side and escape back into Myanmar. The BJP government at the Centre too has bought this view. Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the lower House of parliament, in August last year, Amit Shah had referred to immigration in Manipur as the root of the conflict in Manipur.

He had voiced “fears of a demographic change” sparked by the settling of Kukis in the forests of Manipur following the Myanmar junta’s drive against Chin rebels. Hence, the change in the Indian government’s strategy towards Myanmar. More than 50,000 people from Chin crossed over to Mizoram and Manipur and sought shelter there since the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021. Hundreds of Myanmar soldiers have also fled to India following clashes with militia group People’s Defence Force which ran over the army’s positions in Chin.

The Indian government’s move on border fencing and proposal for a stop to free cross-border movement faces resistance from Mizoram and Nagaland. Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma expressed shock over Amit Shah’s announcement especially after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Home Minister and conveying to them about the opposition to the twin issues of scrapping free cross-border movement and fencing, pointing to ethnic ties between Mizo and Chin communities of Myanmar.

Mizoram’s biggest civil society group Central Young Mizo Association and the apex students organisation Mizoi Zirlai Pawl have also come out against the decision to fence the border and free cross-border movement. The voice of opposition also came from Nagaland whose Deputy Chief Minister Y Patton agreed with Lalduhoma and said any decision to fence the border would be unacceptable to Nagas. Patton, himself a BJP legislator, pointed out that a sizable population of Naga ethnicity have been residents of Myanmar since long.

Questions are being raised if free movement across the border is the only reason for gun-runners and drug-peddlers to take advantage of the porous border. Didn’t this problem exist before 2018 or is it going to disappear in future? One has seen how the insurgents in the north east had in the past used to take shelter in Myanmar, Bangladesh and China. United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent faction) leader Paresh Baruah is still suspected to be holed up somewhere in Myanmar and China. Security and strategic considerations are no doubt a key determinant of a country’s foreign policy. It is for this reason India has remained engaged with the Myanmar junta in spite of repeatedly calling for restoration of democracy in that country. India cannot be oblivious of China’s deeper involvement in Myanmar’s infrastructure development.
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The writer is a veteran Indian journalist