As Myanmar border FMR ends, major changes await
FMR ALLOWED FAMILIES TO NURTURE TIES BETWEEN MEMBERS SEPARATED BY AN INTERNATIONAL FRONTIER
NEW DELHI: The verdant hills of Mizoram’s Champhai district hold many treasures -- pristine rivers where the sun’s rays bounce off the clear blue of the water, a trove of animals and birds, and long stretches of virgin forest illuminated only by the silver slats of moonlight at night.
What it does not have in abundance are good schools.
Khamlun knows this. The principal of the local Baptist English School spends the first half of his day teaching in his school in Mizoram, and then walks a kilometre down a rolling mountain road to a restaurant, where children gather by nightfall, eager to learn the alphabet and arithmetic. The man, in his 40s, has made this journey every day for five years now -- unremarkable except for the fact that he crosses an international border twice during his minute commute.
“I teach children in Myanmar inside the restaurant on the other side to each a little extra cash,” he said.
In his village of Zowkhatar, he is not the only one for whom the India-Myanmar international boundary is only an incidental line, marked not by the usual flurry of documents, armed guards and tense wait that characterise most border crossings across the world, but only a forlorn check post.
Sauma, another resident of the village, said that locals cross the border to attend funerals and weddings twice every month. “In border villages of Mizoram, people get married or have relatives across the border... we have people here who buy chicken in India and sell it in Myanmar just to earn ₹100 extra and make a little profit. We share the same ties,” he said.
This is the norm in the 1,643km porous border between India and Myanmar where the free movement regime (FMR) allowed thousands of families to nurture ties between members separated by an international frontier and communities to hold on to shared traditions and customs. People shared tribal allegiances, ethnicities and often bloodlines across the border. Recognising this, FMR -introduced in 2018 as part of India’s effort to boost the region’s economy by encouraging trade with Southeast Asian nations -- eschewed the compulsory inspection of travel documents and fostered hassle-free travel.
The verdant hills of Mizoram’s Champhai district hold many treasures -- pristine rivers where the sun’s rays bounce off the clear blue of the water, a trove of animals and birds, and long stretches of virgin forest illuminated only by the silver slats of moonlight at night.
What it does not have in abundance are good schools.
Khamlun knows this. The principal of the local Baptist English School spends the first half of his day teaching in his school in Mizoram, and then walks a kilometre down a rolling mountain road to a restaurant, where children gather by nightfall, eager to learn the alphabet and arithmetic. The man, in his 40s, has made this journey every day for five years now -- unremarkable except for the fact that he crosses an international border twice during his minute commute.
“I teach children in Myanmar inside the restaurant on the other side to each a little extra cash,” he said.
In his village of Zowkhatar, he is not the only one for whom the India-Myanmar international boundary is only an incidental line, marked not by the usual flurry of documents, armed guards and tense wait that characterise most border crossings across the world, but only a forlorn check post.
Sauma, another resident of the village, said that locals cross the border to attend funerals and weddings twice every month. “In border villages of Mizoram, people get married or have relatives across the border...we have people here who buy chicken in India and sell it in Myanmar just to earn ₹100 extra and make a little profit. We share the same ties,” he said.
This is the norm in the 1,643km porous border between India and Myanmar where the free movement regime (FMR) allowed thousands of families to nurture ties between members separated by an international frontier and communities to hold on to shared traditions and customs. People shared tribal allegiances, ethnicities and often bloodlines across the border. Recognising this, FMR -- introduced in 2018 as part of India’s effort to boost the region’s economy by encouraging trade with Southeast Asian nations -eschewed the compulsory inspection of travel documents and fostered hassle-free travel.
But this might have come at too high a cost to national security, the government now argues, adding that the pitfalls of FMR only became stark with the influx of 30,000 people from coup-hit Myanmar into Mizoram, and the ethnic tensions that have roiled neighbouring Manipur and killed at least 210. Security forces on the ground said that FMR allowed a thriving smuggling racket that aids the movement of drugs, arms and insurgents, and that this was the primary reason behind Union home minister Amit Shah’s decision to fence the entire border and suspend FMR.
“The number of drugs, contraband or weapons seized is only 5-10% of the actual quantum of smuggling. Add to this the over 100,000 refugees spread across Mizoram. And with the political situation in Myanmar, it was only a matter of time that the government would take such a step,” said an army officer posted in Manipur.
For Khamlun, though, it is the end of what he knew as normal life. “90% of our villagers carry the loads across the India-Myanmar border. Villagers will have nothing to eat,” he said. “We will suffer.”
Life and crime along the border
The India-Myanmar border stretches across four states – Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. It passes through hills, rivers and plains, and at some places, is steeper than 70 degrees. Drugs, weapons, Areca Nuts, and all other types of contraband are transported using the thousands of entry points at the porous borders, where there are no security forces.
The Assam Rifles, which guards the Myanmar border, has a strength of around 66,414 personnel. The border check point by the force only exists at a few points. Hundreds of kilometers of the border are unmanned. In many stretches, slender streams act as the boundary, allowing people (and smugglers) to easily swim across.
And that is what they’ve been doing.
Security forces on the ground say the smuggling racket focusses on areca nuts and foreign cigarettes, hurting the local economy.
In 2023 alone, Assam Rifles seized nearly 4,300 tonnes of Areca nuts used to make gutkha, which it valued it at over ₹150 crore. In the latest incident, the force seized nearly 35,000kg of nuts from Mizoram’s Champhai district on Wednesday.
“Based on the interrogation of the people we arrested, we learnt about the profits that people engaged in this racket make. The prices of areca nuts increases to almost 5-6 times once it enters India and is taken to the mainland (metro cities in central India). The nuts smuggled from the India-Myanmar border are brought not just from Myanmar but even further east from countries like Thailand,” said an official,
requesting anonymity.
Security officials said that the smuggling not only robbed the government of taxes but also spurred the creation of a parallel underground economy. “Every packet of the consignment is being brought illegally. The local farmers are unable to sell their products because people have access to the smuggled ones. Indian citizens are at a loss,” the official quoted above added.
According to a retired lieutenant general, who served in the northeast over at least three tenures, “In my estimate the net worth of the areca nut or foreign cigarette smuggling is over a thousand crores. Drugs smuggled from the Golden Triangle alone is worth ₹50,000 crore. Where is this money going?”
In 2022, Congress lawmaker Lalrindika Ralte from Mizoram wrote to Prime Minister Narendra
Modi about the losses suffered by the state’s areca nut farmers because of the influx of smuggled goods from Myanmar.
Officials said the smuggled consignments are brought through the porous border and stored in the houses of local residents. “The nuts seized on Wednesday, for example, were brought in different trips and kept at a hidden location. These smugglers wait for days and take the risk of transporting them when they believe that security is lax, “the official quoted above added.
Taking advantage of the unmanned border at thousands of entry points, the smugglers bring in another common item – foreign cigarettes.
According to data seen by HT, in Mizoram alone, Assam Rifles have seized over 4,134 cases of foreign cigarettes last year, which they valued at ₹47.79 crore. “The smuggling of such cigarettes is in crores because of the huge demand in the Northeast. In many districts of Mizoram, you won’t even find common Indian brands. Our probes revealed the cigarettes are brought not just from Myanmar but even from Thailand and South Korea,” an officer posted in Mizoram said.
A more recent phenomenon is the menace of drug smuggling rearing its head. The opiumgrowing regions of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, from where a bulk of the drugs is smuggled into India, was in 2022 referred to by Shah as the death triangle.
“Because of the location of Myanmar, the smuggling of drugs is also destroying the country’s image,” the first official said, adding that it was not even practical to patrol the border because of the inhospitable terrain.
In 2023 alone, Assam Rifles seized drugs worth over ₹956 crore in Mizoram. The seized drugs included heroin and poppy seeds. Assam Rifles DG, lieutenant general PC Nair had in September 2023 said that the force seized at least 4500 crore worth of drugs in the last four years.
The high volume of drugs smuggling prompted the Narcotics Control Bureau(NCB) to open a zonal office in Imphal last year.
“The Imphal zonal office started last year. A regional office will open soon. The offices will crack down on the drug racket,” said an NCB official, requesting anonymity.
Over the last nine months, Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh has on many occasions claimed that Myanmar’s drug money was fuelling the violence and directed police to destroy opium fields in the state. Kuki groups have refuted Singh’s allegations.
On Thursday too, the Manipur Police and forest department destroyed nearly 20 acres of poppy plantation in Ukhrul district.
Win some, lose some
In the North-east though, currents of concern are coursing through the local tribal populations in Manipur and Mizoram.
Ginza Vualzong, spokesperson of the Manipur-based umbrella organisation, Indigenous Tribal
Leaders Forum ITLF), said that cancelling FMR will affect people from many states. “Kuki-ZoHmar tribal people in both countries share ethnic ties. They have been separated by an invisible boundary,” he said.
Malsaumliana, the general secretary of the Central Young Mizo Association (YMA), an influential civil society group of Mizoram that works with refugees,said FMR was vital in maintaining the ethnic and cultural linkages between Mizo peoples residing on both sides of the border.
“The abolition of FMR and the implementation of border fencing will have a detrimental effect and disrupt the harmonious coexistence and cultural exchange that has been integral to the lives of the Mizo people.”
But security forces on the ground say given the terrain and the length of the Indo-Myanmar border, no other solution was feasible.
“The international border check points manned by customs and Assam Rifles are the only legal way to enter India from Myanmar but there are thousands of entry points spread across the four states, especially Mizoram and Nagaland. The hills next to a border village or the river outside a resident’s house could be the illegal border entry point, so it is difficult to man the entire stretch. No force can man the entire stretch. One may have to guard a river, a dense jungle or a hill,” said an officer, requesting anonymity.
“Fencing will take a long time because of the terrain but it is the only solution.”