A year ago, India decided to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the border with Myanmar. A unique feature of the India-Myanmar border, the FMR was meant to allow people from the other side of the border to enter up to 16 kilometers into Indian territory without a visa. The FMR ensured that the familial bonds of the border communities were recognized and respected and traditional trade routes, of mostly the informal economy in the borderlands, were also maintained even though there had been concerns over the exploitation of FMR by insurgent groups.
Over the years, the FMR also played its part in India’s larger geostrategic plan for greater engagement with the Southeast Asian region. Myanmar provided the immediate border and a gateway to the ASEAN countries for India. Hence, the border played a critical role in India’s Act East Policy (AEP) which is meant to balance the influence of its Asian competitor, China, in the region.
The kinship between the people on either sides of the border – from Chin State in Myanmar and the Mizos and Kukis in Mizoram and Manipur in India – is an important component in India’s eastward focus. The crossborder relationships of locals in the border area makes it difficult to dismiss them from the larger policy dynamics, whether bilateral or geopolitical. This makes it important to understand the role that the FMR played in the everyday lives of the border community and its importance to foreign policy measures like the AEP.
Issues at the Border
In February 2024, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs said it was scrapping the FMR scheme. The announcement was made ahead of India’s national election, three years after thousands of people from Chin State in Myanmar fled to the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur in the aftermath of the country’s military coup.
The close ethnic, linguistic, and familial bond between the people from Chin State and the Mizos and Kukis in Mizoram and Manipur, respectively, allowed those who fled the military junta in Myanmar an option to seek shelter in India. Safe passage was also possible because the FMR allowed them to enter up to 16 kilometers into Indian territory.
However, India is not a signatory to the U.N. Convention on Refugees, so the national government directed the state governments to prevent the flow of people and record the biometrics of those who were already in India.
While the Mizoram state government refused the center’s order to capture the biometrics of the refugees and was welcoming of the refugees by providing food, shelter, healthcare, and education, the Manipur government took a restrictive stance and started deporting people despite the center’s reassurance that deportation would not happen until normalcy was restored in Myanmar.
The Manipur government also held meetings to push for the construction of an additional 70 kilometers of border fencing along the Indo-Myanmar border, apart from establishing special teams, including civil and police nodal officers, to monitor and control the influx of illegal migrants in the five districts bordering Myanmar.
The total number of refugees who have arrived in India from Myanmar since the coup is estimated at 78,731, with the highest number (34,350) reportedly in Mizoram. News reports also suggest that many people, especially men, have fled to India even after the scrapping of the FMR to avoid being recruited forcibly into ethnic armed groups like the Arakan Army.
What Is the FMR?
India and Myanmar have a 1,643-kilometer-long border. Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh in India share the border with Myanmar’s Chin, Sagaing, and Kachin states. The FMR dates back to 1950, when India amended the Passport Rules in sync with a law in Myanmar, then better known as Burma, to exempt hill tribes who were citizens of India or Burma and who resided in any area within 40 kilometers of the India-Burma frontier from carrying passports or visas while entering India. This helped the Chin ethnic community in Myanmar and Mizoram and Manipur in India to maintain familial ties despite being in two different countries.
The border of Northeast India and Myanmar has communities with long-standing ethnic, cultural, and commercial linkages. These communities primarily engage in subsistence farming, animal husbandry, and forest resource utilization. Their economic activities are predominantly informal, with traditional trade in goods such as agricultural produce, livestock, handicrafts, and textiles. This is one of the reasons why the FMR has been critical to the border community both in terms of family bonds and informal trade.
Moreover, due to the better infrastructure in India and the crippling poverty in Myanmar’s Chin State, border residents have also relied on the Indian states for essential services like healthcare and education. Chin in particular has the highest poverty rate in Myanmar, with six out of ten people living below the poverty line. According to a 2015 survey, nearly 80 percent had poor or borderline food insecurity. The situation has been exacerbated by the people getting caught in the crossfire between the military and the armed ethnic outfits.
However, the FMR was also exploited by insurgent groups operating in India, who used it to easily slip across to the other side. The border areas of Myanmar were allegedly being used by separatist groups against India.
Concerns regarding insurgency in the Northeast resulted in changes to the FMR over the years. In 2004, India reduced the limit of movement to 16 kilometers and allowed crossing from only designated points: Pangsau, Moreh, and Zokhawthar in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Mizoram, respectively.
The FMR was originally a move to continue allowing tribespeople to maintain familial ties and traditional trade linkages but over the next few decades, it also turned out to be an important component in India’s connection to Southeast Asia and ASEAN to offset the influence of China in the region.
The coexistence of borderland communities and the extent to which borders can function as barriers to movement and interaction, or act as an interface by creating meeting points, are important and have a potential impact on various domains of policy, including foreign policy. Borderlands can be seen as both social and political negotiation spaces. Therefore, borderland communities cannot be excluded from India’s attempts at creating an effective Act East Policy.
Moves like scrapping the FMR or creating a fenced border between the two nations has the potential to impact not just the border population but also the larger geopolitical dynamics between India, Myanmar, and China, and in turn have a bearing on the success of the Act East Policy.
Myanmar’s Importance for India Vis-à-Vis China
Myanmar is an immediate neighbor of India but what makes the border even more significant is the country’s geographical location between India and China. The India-Myanmar border is vital for defense and internal security needs and the expansion of India’s influence in the Bay of Bengal area and Southeast Asia to be able to counter China’s influence in the region.
The strategic value of Myanmar’s location has been the reason for India’s effort to enhance regional connectivity. The region’s rich natural resources and the kinship between the border people make it the geographical linchpin of India’s connectivity to Southeast and East Asia.
Meanwhile, with 98 percent of India’s Northeastern borders being international, the consequent geostrategic significance of these borders especially with Myanmar is difficult to ignore. And, the thriving border population is a significant factor in all the relationships – from the bilateral one between India and Myanmar to the geostrategic dynamics between India, Myanmar, and China.
The India-Myanmar border should not be viewed only as a frontier that India needs to secure but also as a vital tool in India’s foreign policy. For this, it is important to consider the human angle – the people-to-people interaction at the border and both their socio-cultural bonds and trade engagements.