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Defence & Security
Mahesh

22/01/24 06:31 AM IST

India-Myanmar border Free Movement Regime

In News
  • Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the Centre has decided to fence the entire length of the India-Myanmar border to stop the free movement of people.
Free border regime
  • The 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.
  • It 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.
  • In fact, the FMR was to be put in place in 2017 itself but was deferred due to the Rohingya refugee crisis that erupted that August.
Reason behind this regime
  • The border between India and Myanmar was demarcated by the British in 1826, without seeking the opinion of the people living in the region.
  • The border effectively divided people of the same ethnicity and culture into two nations without their consent.
  • The current India-Myanmar Border reflects the line the British drew.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Given the low-income economy, such exchanges are vital for the sustenance of local livelihoods. For border people in Myanmar too, Indian towns are closer for business, education, and healthcare than those in their own country.
Reasons for disbanding FMR
  • The illegal migration of tribal Kuki-Chin peoples into India from Myanmar is one of the key issues in the ongoing Manipur conflict.
  • While the Meiteis have accused these illegal migrants and the alleged “narco-terror network” along the India-Myanmar Border (IMB) of fomenting trouble in the state, the Kukis have blamed the Meiteis and Chief Minister N Biren Singh, a Meitei himself, of using this as a pretext for “ethnic cleansing”.
  • Amid this charged and sensitive debate in the state, questions have been raised about the FMR.
  • Although beneficial to local people and helpful in improving Indo-Myanmar ties, it has been criticised in the past for unintentionally aiding illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and gun running.
  • The border runs through forested and undulating terrain, is almost entirely unfenced, and difficult to monitor. In Manipur, less than 6 km of the border is fenced.
  • Since the military coup in Myanmar on February 1, 2021, the ruling junta has launched a campaign of persecution against the Kuki-Chin peoples.
  • This has pushed large numbers of Myanmarese tribals across the country’s western border into India, especially into Manipur and Mizoram, where they have sought shelter.
  • Mizoram, where a large section of the population has close ethnic and cultural ties with people across the border, has set up camps for more than 40,000 refugees, despite protests from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
Migration to Manipur
  • Manipur too has received a chunk of illegal migrants in the last few months. A committee set up by the state government to identify such migrants in 2023 put their number at 2,187.
  • In September 2022, 5,500 illegal immigrants were caught in Moreh, and 4,300 were pushed back. Biometrics of these individuals have been recorded.
  • The Manipur government has alleged that village chiefs have been illegally settling migrants from Myanmar in new villages in the hills, leading to deforestation.
  • An eviction drive against these new villages became the flashpoint between Kukis in the hills and the government last March, leading to violence in the state.
  • The Kuki and Naga peoples live in the hills that surround the Imphal valley, whereas the valley itself is home to the majority Meiteis.
  • A large quantity of narcotics, including heroin, opium, brown sugar, and ganja, crystal meth and yaba (methamphetamine and caffeine), and prescription drugs such as the stimulant pseudoephedrine and analgesic spasmoproxyvon, were seized, several thousand acres of poppy were destroyed during 2022.
  • The value of the drugs seized or destroyed is estimated to have been more than Rs 1,227 crore in the international market.
Source- Indian Express

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