The India-Myanmar border has come to dominate Naga public discourse since the announcement of the decision to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR).
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The India-Myanmar border has come to dominate Naga public discourse since the announcement of the decision to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) and the construction of boundary fencing in February 2024. The decision evoked strong sentiments and invited sharp opposition from the Nagas on both sides of the border. The issue has become emotive not only because the Nagas were not taken into confidence prior to taking the decision pertaining to the border, but also successive governmental decisions have paid no heed to the appeals and concerns of the Nagas for the past several decades.
The February 2024 decision is the latest in a series of governmental treaties, agreements, and policy decisions that were arbitrarily imposed on the Nagas. The tradition began in the colonial era with the Treaty of Yandaboo of 1826 that led to the emergence of the boundary. It continued in the post-colonial period, when the boundary was formalized with the signing of the India-Burma Boundary Agreement in 1967. Today, it has come in the form of scrapping of the FMR and fencing of the border. The long practice shares three defining characteristics––to serve the interests of policy-makers; lack consultation with local stakeholders; and overlook local protests against such decisions.
The current India-Myanmar boundary is a colonial territorial construct that resulted out of the Treaty of Yandaboo and provided the basis for subsequent agreements on the border. The treaty designated the Patkai Hills as the northern border between British India and Burma. A key motivation of entering into the treaty was the British colonial interests to mark its control over the newly acquired territories by drawing a borderline. Applying its own principles of delineating borders, the Patkai Hills served as a natural buffer between British India and the Burmese kingdom. Thus, the superimposed boundary divided a single socio-cultural territorial space of the Naga ancestral land without their knowledge.
After several rounds of re-adjudgments and refinements, the boundary was formally demarcated in 1896 followed by erection of boundary pillars between British India and Burma. Even during the stage of implementing the border, the Nagas were not informed about what the borderline meant to them. There was no immediate protest on the part of the Nagas against the act of dividing their land during this period as the Naga areas where the borderline passed still remained un-administered and the border existed as an imaginary line. It was only later on that the Nagas found themselves divided in their own land.
India inherited the borders from the British. In the formative years, a vital objective of the Indian state was its state-building exercise to consolidate its territorial control, particularly the frontier regions. Since its inception, the Indian state was preoccupied with its Western frontier that it shares with Pakistan. The Indian state was compelled to reorient its approach towards the Eastern frontier when it suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese in the 1962 border conflict. If the border conflict provided the strategic imperative of the Eastern frontier, the rise of ethnic uprisings in the 1960s prompted the Indian state to formalise the India-Burma boundary.
Since the mid-1950s, the Indian armed forces have been deployed in the Eastern frontier to suppress the ongoing Naga political struggle led by the Naga National Council (NNC) against Indian occupation. In 1964, the Meiteis formed the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) in Manipur with the political aim of secession from India. Then, in 1966, the Mizo National Front (MNF) rebelled against the Indian state with the goal of creating an independent nation. These developments impelled the Indian state to initiate the formalisation of its border with Burma to strengthen its security apparatus to deal with the challenges posed by the ethnic revolts in the Eastern frontier. In January 1967, India and Burma agreed to formalise the border and two months later, on 10 March, the Indian government signed the India-Burma Boundary Agreement with the Burmese military regime under Ne Win.
The extraordinarily short period of time taken to sign the boundary agreement meant that it was designed to suit the political expediency of the Indian state and there was no intention to consult the Nagas. Studies based on archival records reveal that the Indian government took a deliberate decision not to consult local stakeholders on the ground that it was only formalising the “traditional boundary on the map.” Soon after the signing of the agreement, the Nagas protested and raised concerns over its implications, but their opposition was brushed aside with the excuse that the border would have no impact on the livelihoods of the Naga people. In 1968, the then chief minister of Nagaland T N Angami opposed the border agreement and urged the Indian leadership not to construct permanent border pillars. Similarly, in 1971, Hokishe Sema, who succeeded T N Angami, questioned the agreement and sought re-negotiation of the boundary agreement, but these appeals were ignored.
Prior to February 2024, the Indian state had begun mulling with the idea of scrapping the FMR and fence the border as early as 2004-05. By 2011, border fencing work was initiated in the Moreh area of Manipur. In Nagaland, construction of border fencing began at Pangsha in Noklak district in 2017, but it met with stiff opposition from the Nagas with several public and tribal bodies expressing concerns over the border fencing. On 28 March 2017, the Nagaland Legislative Assembly passed a resolution requesting the Government of India to take up the matter with Myanmar to “permanently drop” the fencing project along the India-Myanmar border. Similarly, the FMR has also undergone changes with new rules introduced from time to time including issuing of “border pass”, designating border crossing points or limiting the hours of stay, etc. In 2018, India and Myanmar signed the Land Border Crossing Agreement and added new rules to regulate and harmonise the movement of people across the border.
With the ongoing political crisis in Myanmar and the eruption of the Manipur conflict, the official rationale offered for the February 2024 decision was to ensure “internal security” owing to potential influx of illegal immigration and narcotics from Myanmar as well as spillover of conflict into the Northeastern states bordering Myanmar. However, as discussed above, the Indian state had already begun working towards ending the FMR and to fence the border with a view to mitigate security threats emanating from the India-Myanmar border without any regard for its implications on the communities divided by the border.
On 1 March 2024, the Nagaland assembly again adopted a resolution opposing the scrapping of the FMR and the construction of fencing. Despite the numerous appeals from Naga tribal bodies and the resolution to restore the FMR in its entirety, the Indian state went ahead with issuing revised guidelines restricting movement of people across the India-Myanmar border in December 2024. Then, in March this year, reports citing government officials and a parliamentary panel report indicated that the entire 1643-km-long border with Myanmar would be fenced in the next 10 years. All these negated the democratic path of the Nagas in voicing out their indigenous rights.
The progression of the India-Myanmar boundary began with a line on the map that later was formalised into an agreement and today it is taking the form of a physical structure. At every stage of the evolution of the border, neither was the consent of the Nagas sought nor their appeals heard. All along, the Nagas democratically expressed their opposition against the arbitrary decisions of dividing their ancestral land. Unfortunately, the Indians state adopted an autocratic approach that only fuelled resentments to grow among the Nagas. Time and again, the position of the Nagas and the determination to fight for their rights have been stated loud and clear, it is for the Indian state to decide whether it desires to continue with the long arbitrary tradition or chooses to respect the indigenous rights of the Nagas.
Khriezo Yhome
(The writer is a scholar with a research focused on Southeast Asian studies)