India-Myanmar border will be fenced like that of Bangladesh, Centre reconsidering Free Movement Regime: Amit Shah

Subject: Geography

Section: Places in news

Context:

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday announced that the Centre has decided to fence the entire length of the currently porous India-Myanmar border to stop free movement of people.

More on news:

The Narendra Modi government has taken a decision that the India-Myanmar border will be secure and the whole border will be fenced like the Bangladesh border.
The government will reconsider the Free Movement Regime (FMR) agreement with Myanmar and is going to end this ease of coming and going sooner.

India Myanmar border:

India and Myanmar share a 1,643-km border along the Northeastern states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

It is a porous border of which only 10 km is fenced in Manipur.

About Free Movement Regime (FMR):

The FMR with Myanmar was formalized in 2018 following the agreement between India and Myanmar on land border crossing.
It allowed tribes living along the border on either side to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa and stay up to two weeks.
It was implemented in 2018 as part of the Narendra Modi government’s Act East policy.

Benefits of FMR:

Centre had referred to this FMR as an “enabling arrangement for movement of people” which would “facilitate regulation and harmonization” of the already existing free movement rights of people living along this border.
While the Chin people living in Chin state of Myanmar is contiguous with Mizoram and are of the same ethnicity as the Mizos and the Kuki-Zomis of Manipur.
There is also a sizable Naga population in Myanmar residing largely in the Naga Self-Administered Zone in Myanmar’s Sagaing region.
The Mizo-Chins and Nagas on both sides of the border share close social, economic and day-to-day ties.

Why to end this regime of FMR?

Recent developments have prompted security wrt FMR.
The rationale for this move is to check the influx of illegal immigrants, drugs and gold smuggling.
Another reason is to “stop the misuse of FMR” by insurgent groups to carry out attacks on the Indian side and escape into Myanmar.
There are “fears of a demographic change” which had been triggered by the settling of “Kuki brothers” in the forests of Manipur.
This is followed by the military crackdown against the Chin resistance movement in Myanmar.

Implications:

Mizos consider the India-Myanmar border “an imposed boundary” and that fencing it is “unacceptable”.
This fencing the border would be “unacceptable for Nagas” given the significant Naga population in Myanmar.

Tribes in news:

Kuki tribe:

The Kuki people are an ethnic group in the Northeastern Indian states of Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, as well as the neighboring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar.
The Kuki constitute one of several hill tribes within India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. In Northeast India, they are present in all states except Arunachal Pradesh.

Naga tribe:

Nagas are various ethnic groups native to northeastern India and northwestern Myanmar.
The groups have similar cultures and traditions, and form the majority of population in the Indian state of Nagaland and Naga Self-Administered Zone of Myanmar (Burma).
Their populations are found in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in India and in Sagaing Region and Kachin State in Myanmar.

Chin tribe:

The Chin people are an ethnic group native to the Chin State and Rakhine State of Myanmar.
The term “Chin” only refers to the 53 sub-tribes of the Chin ethnic group, divided and recognized by the Burmese government.
They speak the Kuki-Chin-Mizo languages, which are often mutually unintelligible but are closely related.
The Chin people of Myanmar and the Mizo people of Mizoram are kindred tribes of the Kukis. They are collectively termed as the Zo people.

The Zou people or Zomi:

They are an indigenous community living along the frontier of India and Burma. They are a subgroup of the Zo people (Mizo-Kuki-Chin).
In India, they live with and are similar in language and habits to the Paite and the Simte peoples.
In India, the Zou are officially recognized as one of the thirty-three indigenous peoples within the state of Manipur, and are one of the Scheduled tribes.
According to the 2001 Census, the Zou/Jou population in Manipur is around 20,000, less than 3% of the population.
The community is concentrated in Churachandpur and Chandel districts of Manipur.