Twice a year, Vanmawithang loads up bags of medicine, clothing, and farm equipment and begins the journey home.

Home, for now, is a refugee camp called Chandmari Kanan about two kilometres from Lawngtlai, where the 36-year-old has lived for nearly three years since fleeing military dictatorship in Myanmar. But another home is in Matupi, a town 555 miles away by road, across the border in Chin State, where his relatives wait for the supplies that have become nearly impossible to obtain under a military blockade.

“My relatives pool their money, and I buy in bulk,” Vanmawithang said.  “I am the only source of aid at this time of emergency.”

Thousands like Vanmawithang who live along the Indian state of Mizoram’s 510-kilometre border with Chin State have been living in a state of emergency since the military junta severed supply lines from central Myanmar to Chin State. The blockade – a response to the armed resistance against military rule – left towns like Matupi completely cut off from essential goods. Vanmawithang obtains temporary passes to cross at Zawngsling, the border checkpoint in the southernmost district of Mizoram, carrying the supplies that have become his family’s lifeline.

But each crossing feels more uncertain than the last.

When he first fled the military’s raids in Myanmar, Vanmawithang left his identification papers behind. Indian paramilitary forces stationed at the border – the Assam Rifles – let him through as scores of refugees poured across. While many underwent document checks, he was among those waved through without identification.

Indian authorities have continued to tighten restrictions in the past year, effectively curtailing a longstanding policy regarding the Myanmar border: the Free Movement Regime (FMR). First established in the 1970s, the FMR is a system allowing members of hill tribes living within a certain distance of the border – on either side – to cross without restriction.

Following the outbreak of Covid in 2020 and the Myanmar military’s seizure of power a year later, India incrementally tightened restrictions on the India-Myanmar border for national security reasons. Two of India’s three friendship gates in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh have remained closed since then. Only the gate in Zokhawthar, Mizoram remains open since the restrictions prompted by the pandemic ended.

India’s Ministry of Home Affairs announced in February 2024 that it would scrap the FMR, citing internal security concerns and a need to preserve the demographic composition of northeastern states along the border. The announcement also came on the heels of an eruption of ethnic conflict in the neighbouring state of Manipur.

Amit Shah, the Indian home minister, recommended immediate suspension of the agreement as the country’s Ministry of External Affairs began taking steps to end it formally, characterising the decision as consistent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to securing India’s borders.

Ever aware of these fast-moving changes, Vanmawithang is afraid his lack of documentation and inability to communicate with the armed officials in Hindi could strand him on either side of the border, depriving his relatives of access to the medicine and other necessities for which they depend on his twice-yearly trips.

These new uncertainties and fears mark a sharp departure from the borderlands of his childhood. People like Vanmawithang remember when the border was nothing more than an invisible line, and the checkpoints and documentation requirements that have emerged are wholly new.

“I remember there were no such checks when I was young,” he said.  “I hope we return to the same old days.”

Kin, allies and neighbours

Vanmawithang first crossed into Mizoram at age 6, then again at 13, staying with relatives in Aizawl, the state capital. His family tried to build a life in India but later returned to Myanmar. Back then, crossing the border was routine. The Chin people of Myanmar and Mizo people of India share deep ancestral ties, their communities divided only when British colonial administrators drew a line between them.

During previous influxes of refugees in the 1980s and 2000s, New Delhi had embraced a humanitarian approach, accepting displaced people despite the absence of a formal refugee policy or binding international treaty obligations.

Under the incumbent Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, however, the challenges for people seeking refuge from neighbouring countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh have been immense. Deportations have been on an uptick, with hundreds expelled this year alone, including many with Indian citizenship.

Many on the Myanmar side recall how the Chin helped Mizo people escape atrocities, which were perpetrated under the authority of India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act during the Mizo National Front insurgency from 1966 to 1986. In Mizoram, state government officials and rights advocates still said they view humanitarian work with refugees as an opportunity to repay that previous generosity.

Nandita Haksar, a leading human rights lawyer who has been fighting for the rights of Myanmar refugees in India, testified to a mutual understanding and solidarity among border communities. It is a long-accepted practice for refugees to cross borders without documents, she told Myanmar Now.

“Carrying identity papers itself can be dangerous and put them at risk in the country of their origin, in this case Myanmar,” she explained, noting that refugees escaping persecution are usually forced to enter the country where they’re seeking asylum by extra-legal means.

Shrinking free movement

The present border between India and Myanmar dates back to the Treaty of Yandabo, which brought an end to the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1826, forcing the Burmese Empire to cede Manipur and other territories. Notwithstanding the new, politically imposed division of territory, familial and social ties persisted across the boundary.

Political analysts have argued that the FMR emerged to balance India’s sovereignty with the need to preserve cross-border ethnic and cultural connections.

In 1950, the newly independent India’s home ministry chose to allow hill tribes along the frontier to venture up to 40 kilometres into the neighbouring country without passports or visas, acknowledging the communities as social and cultural entities that extended outside the politically designated bounds. The arrangement was formalised in 1968 with the introduction of the FMR, facilitating travel for family visits, traditional festivals, and local trade.

However, in the same year this formalisation led to authorities restricting this free movement to families living within 40 kilometres of the boundary line.

The India-Myanmar border stretches a full 1,643 kilometres between the four Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram and three subdivisions of Myanmar: Kachin State, Sagaing Region, and Chin States. Mizoram’s border with Chin State makes up 510 kilometres of that length.

The range for free movement shrunk even further – to 16 kilometres – in 2004, and the Indian government introduced additional revisions to the FMR in 2016, which were prompted by growing concerns in India about security threats from insurgents as well as drug and arms traffickers. A report released by the home ministry in 2012 called the border “extremely porous”, noting that it also provided an effective sanctuary for Indian insurgent groups.

“The border runs along hilly and inhospitable terrain which grossly lacks basic infrastructure and provides adequate cover to the activities of various Indian Insurgent Groups,” the report said, arguing that the free movement regime on the “unfenced Indo-Myanmar border is being exploited” by the same groups.

The 16-kilometre limit was reaffirmed in a bilateral agreement between Myanmar and India in 2018, which also established designated crossings and new procedures for passage through the checkpoints.

India tightened the rules even further in 2024, purportedly in response to infiltration by narco-traffickers and armed groups, reducing the free movement zone to 10 kilometres and creating a system of QR code-enabled, seven-day border passes issued by the Assam Rifles. Government officials said the Manipur and Nagaland borders were sealed.

Lalhriatpuia, the deputy commissioner of Aizawl District, recalled how seizing a kilogramme of drugs was considered a major achievement when he worked as an excise inspector in the 1990s. However, he said, “now you have drug seizures weighing tonnes.”

“Earlier, smugglers from Myanmar used roads through Manipur,” he said. “But since Manipur scrapped the Free Movement Regime, sealing the border, drugs and firearms are being smuggled through the roads connecting to Mizoram.”

Businesses feel the jolt

In 2022, when the escalating conflict between the Chin National Defense Force and the military junta led to full-scale firing at the border village of Khawmawi, 30-year old businessman Tlangtinpuia shut his shop and crossed the border. He usually sourced many of the goods at his shop – mostly home wares like furniture, storage containers, drawers, suitcases and plastic buckets – through the Friendship Gate in Zokhawthar, Mizoram.

Tlangtinpuia recalled that, when the level of the Tiau River dropped so low that you could easily touch the bottom, he was able to float his goods across to the Indian side by himself.

The increased reports of drug smuggling created major hurdles for Tlangtinpuia. After one major seizure of contraband was announced, he was stopped and told to keep his goods on the roadside for days on end while he waited to be let through. He believes some of them were stolen. Some of his goods were also damaged by rough handling at checkpoints, he said.

The year he closed his shop, Tlangtinpuia recalled, smuggling reports at the border were ten times higher than usual. With Mizoram officials and New Delhi agreeing to FMR restrictions, Tlangtinpuia fears the inspections will continue, forcing him to send replacements to clients after failed deliveries and trapping him in an inescapable cycle of losses and delays.

He currently buys products from a wholesaler in Mandalay and resells them to another agent in Aizawl, the state capital. But his purchasing capacity has been crippled dramatically this year as prices have soared and as factions of the anti-junta armed resistance in Myanmar have begun to demand “tolls” from traders, sometimes quadrupling the costs of transport.

“Earlier I would get one storage box for Rs 200 [$2.20],” Tlangtinpuia told Myanmar Now. “Now one box from Myanmar costs Rs 800 [$8.80]. I have no profit margin this year.”

Before 2023, he could afford to purchase goods twice monthly and earned about Rs 1.5 to 2 million ($16,600-22,300) a year, netting roughly Rs 50,000 ($560) in monthly profit. This year, sales have plummeted and he is unable to charge higher prices in Aizawl, where he has to compete with cheap alternatives from India and Bangladesh.

If tougher border rules are imposed, the delays are only likely to increase. Crossing without a border pass typically used to take up to 45 minutes. Now, on busy days, the wait seems endless. When the Tiau runs low in winter, admits Tlangtinpuia, it’s easier to simply wade across the shrunken river.

Businessmen from Myanmar’s border districts aren’t the only ones entering Mizoram for trade. People travel from as far as Rakhine State to conduct commerce in towns across the border Lawngtlai.

Arjun Das, 23, is a trader from Kyauktaw, Rakhine State, where ongoing clashes between regime forces and the ethnic armed organisation Arakan Army have eliminated most opportunities for employment or business for years. Last year, together with four friends, he launched a small business to support his family.

His father, a former auto rickshaw driver, is now too old for the roads, which means that responsibility for the wellbeing of their household has now fallen on Arjun’s shoulders. He was forced to mortgage their only home, securing a loan of Rs 600,000 ($6,700). Each trip to the border town of Lawngtlai in Mizoram involves purchasing a varied stock of hardware such as screws, pipes, materials for crafting incense, tarpaulin sheets, and elastic ropes, all of which the business sources through an agent in Silchar, Assam.

The journey is arduous in itself, with one trip from Kyauktaw to Lawngtlai often taking more than four days; of which three are spent navigating or crossing twisting waterways like the Kaladan and its tributaries before reaching the border town of Kakichchuah. Delays at the border crossing are common and expected.

“With 15 to 20 people ahead of us, it took three hours to clear the checkpoints,” Arjun said. “The patchy data connections in the hills also cause delays and sometimes force travellers to camp by the roadside overnight.”

While the alternative of taking a boat is also available, the cost fluctuates with the changing seasons. When the rivers swell during the monsoon, passage costs around Rs 15,000 ($170). When water levels drop in the cold season, the rivers become harder to navigate.

“In winter, the cost rises to Rs 25,000 rupees [$280]. Sometimes we need three boats if the water is low, though two suffice when the rivers flow fast,” Arjun explained.

Profit margins remain slim. Before, offering Indian products at a small markup brought in customers, but sales soon faltered. Now, Arjun buys goods from Silchar in Assam at lower prices, allowing for a small profit.

Additional expenses – from paying for more workers to extended stays while they wait for border clearance – further erode Arjun’s gains. “If we make any profit at all,” he said, “it has to be shared among five partners. It’s not much, but it’s the only way a poor man like me can keep his family afloat.”

A Mizoram politician, who asked not to be named, said the civil war in Myanmar has hurt businesses far more than border restrictions.

“These thorough inspections might have some impact, but it’s minimal compared to the effects of the civil war on prices,” he said. “Traders have to pay protection to armed groups, and hauliers charge more because of damaged roads.”

The politician added that the ongoing but delayed Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which will connect India’s eastern ports to the northeast through waterways and roads, should ease concerns about inflated prices by providing a shorter route. India’s minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal said in a press release that the project would enable faster transport of goods between Kolkata and Aizawl at costs up to 50 percent lower than transport via overland routes.

“This is a wonderful thing which will not only help us economically but also environmentally,” he said, noting that marine transport would reduce road traffic and carbon emissions.

The shipping ministry has said the project will eventually link Mizoram to Paletwa in Myanmar’s Chin State by road and make the port of Sittwe, Rakhine State accessible by river via Paletwa, in addition to allowing for sea travel between Sittwe to Indian ports like Kolkata.

From freedom to fences and biometric checks

When Governor of Mizoram Vijay Singh made reassurances last April that the FMR along the state’s border with Myanmar would remain intact, Dr C. Lalremuata, the president of the student organisation Mizo Zirlai Pawl, was sceptical.

Singh defended the new restrictions on movement as necessary safeguards against instability in Myanmar and illegal cross-border activity. But for indigenous communities on either side sharing deep cultural connections with people in the neighbouring country, the changes threatened relationships older than the border itself.

Two months earlier, home minister Amit Shah’s recommendation to scrap the FMR had sparked controversy and provoked widespread protests across Mizoram. Civil society groups, united in opposing what they perceived as a grave threat to age-old Chin-Mizo relationships, mobilised quickly.

The State NGO Coordination Committee – an alliance of influential organisations including the Young Mizo Association, the Mizo Women’s Organisation, elders’ groups, and student federations – organised demonstrations and drafted a pointed message to the home minister.

Their memorandum invoked international law, pointing to India’s signing of the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which committed the government to protecting the rights of indigenous communities divided by international borders.

Lalremuata filed a formal inquiry into the policy of ending the FMR under India’s Right to Information Act. The vague response from the home ministry stated only that the FMR would continue with “enforced restrictions”.

Asking not to be named, a Mizoram politician argued that the FMR was a legal agreement between India and the Union of Myanmar. Even with Myanmar’s military regime having lost effective control of Chin and Rakhine states to armed groups active in those territories, he said, “They still  fall under the administration of Myanmar.”

“How can we technically challenge the [Indian] government on this issue?” he asked.

Under the changed system, movement into and out of India will be permitted at only one checkpoint in Zokhawthar and will require biometric scans. Travellers will also be obligated to leave at the same crossing where they entered, regardless of whether returning through Lawngtlai is more efficient or convenient.

According to Lalremuata, these conditions will inevitably cause hardship for families with kin on both sides of the border, a common occurrence due to intermarriage between Mizo and Chin people. A better alternative, he argued, would be replacing the single entry rules with a centralised data management system allowing people to pass through any crossing point.

The Indian government is also planning to erect a fence along the full 1,643-kilometre length of the border. Lalremuata argued that effective border fencing would require parallel roadways for security access, constant maintenance to repair damage from monsoon rains and rust, and round-the-clock patrols.

“You will find no one attending to these issues and infiltrators making use of loopholes to cross,” he said.

There are persistent doubts over the efficacy of such physical barriers in curbing the rise of drug trafficking across borders. Angshuman Chowdhury, a doctoral candidate whose research examines identity and border dynamics across northeast India and Myanmar, has argued that the expanding restrictions on the FMR will do little to bring a solution closer.

“Suspending or limiting the FMR won’t comprehensively address drug trafficking,” Choudhury said. “The government can only regulate movement at official crossings. Drug smuggling occurs along unmonitored border stretches without police or Assam Rifles presence.”

Moreover, he emphasised, criminal networks adapt to changes in the rules. Choudhury therefore advocates collaborating with ethnic armed groups exercising control over border territories, especially on the Mizoram-Chin State boundary, including the Chinland Council led by the Chin National Front, the Chin Brotherhood Alliance, and Arakan Army.

“These organisations could help India monitor the border alongside government forces,” he said.

Lalremuata agrees with this approach. In a research paper, he has proposed alternatives to physical barriers such as hybrid smart surveillance systems that engage local residents such as the YMA in monitoring the border alongside security personnel; special permit frameworks designed for cross-border tribal movement; and socioeconomic development programmes. Citing surveillance systems used along the United States-Mexico border, at European Union frontiers, and some Israeli policies, he advocates methods using technology and local community engagement rather than simply putting up the fence.

What remains to be seen, particularly considering the concerns of local advocacy groups, is whether the current process will lead to the right kind of change. Noting that the FMR had always operated as a bilateral agreement between India and Myanmar, Lalremuata warned: “By proceeding unilaterally, India risks damaging the trust and cooperation that have characterised cross-border relations.”

This article has been co-published with Myanmar Now.

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