A history of the Free Movement regime

While the visa-free mobility regime received a bilateral stamp of approval in 2018, the open border between the two countries has a much longer history. In 1826, after a two-year war, forces of the British East India Company routed the Burmese empire and expelled it from the eastern front. A peace treaty signed in Yandabo, a village by the Irrawaddy River, forced the Burmese to give away Assam and Manipur to the British. The pact also produced the first version of a demarcated land boundary between India and Burma, which British cartographers amended several times in the subsequent decades.

But neither the British nor the Burmese attempted to stop local tribal communities from shuttling back and forth, let alone fence the border. This was because of the logistical implausibility of building a fence through the unusually hostile terrain through which the boundary ran.

There was another, more pressing, reason. Both empires knew that the partially demarcated boundary cut across a continuous ethnic geography. Neither wanted to physically slice up such a space and irk local hill tribes inhabiting the border areas.

This logic endured through the decades, right until Burma achieved independence in 1948. The same year, the new government in Rangoon enacted “The Burma Passport Rules”. Honouring the legacy of the open border, it allowed hill tribes living in areas adjacent to the border with India to cross over into Burma without visas and travel up to 25 miles (or 40 km). The Indian government put in place an exactly similar provision. The only difference was that the Indian government allowed those crossing over from Burma to stay for three days, while Rangoon let those entering from India stay for just a day.

Thus, the “Free Movement Regime” as we know it today was born at the same time as the two new nations. In that sense, the open border and decolonisation were historical twins.

Reasons behind the tightening of the regime

But, the years after independence were complicated. Freedom from colonialism brought to the fore incendiary political divisions within both India and Burma. Insurgencies erupted on both sides of the border, whose openness came as a boon to armed groups looking for safe havens. Soon, realising that Naga, Mizo and Meitei insurgents had been using the unregulated cross-border mobility regime to establish a strategic backyard in western Myanmar, Delhi put the first check on the open border policy in August 1968: travel permits.

Yet, even as the insurgency raged on, neither government withdrew the FMR or fenced the border. Because it was both a logistical nightmare and a political risk, downsizing the policy was deemed to be less costly than erecting a fence. Therefore, in 2004, the Indian government reduced the visa-free travel zone from 40 km down to 16 km. Myanmar, however, didn’t follow suit, at least in official policy. This divergence generated a lack of clarity on the status quo, which was settled only fourteen years later in 2018 when both countries harmonised the regime.

The Nagas, Mizos, Kuki-Zo, Singpho and other ethnic communities with cross-border familial ties always saw the demarcated boundary as nothing more than a colonial vestige. While territorial notions of national belongingness have certainly shaped their political identities in the postcolonial period, the border itself remained an abstract idea that only notionally partitioned a historical ethnic homeland. In fact, many of these tribes reconciled with their Indian-ness precisely because of the flexibility accorded to them at the border.

Hence, despite the volatility and growing suspicion within India’s security establishment about the open border, sealing it was no one’s proposition. Even the deadly ambushes against the Indian Army and Assam Rifles in 2015 and 2021, respectively, by militants based in Myanmar did not immediately result in a revocation of the FMR or a decision to seal the border.

A louder call for restricted border movement

But, in recent years, voices against the open border have grown in scope and size, both within the Northeast and in Delhi. Among them, the Meitei civil society and political class in Manipur have been at the forefront of advocating for a harder border to protect the “territorial integrity” of the state. They have found supporters in central institutions, including the Assam Rifles and defence ministry who see the FMR as an Achilles heel of India’s border management architecture.

These sentiments have always existed. But, India’s Act East Policy, announced by the Modi government in 2014, ensured that the overall policy tilt remained in favour of an open border for the sake of stronger overland connectivity, bilateral trade and people-to-people contacts.

New Delhi appears to have abandoned this sound logic now. The violent convulsions in Manipur that began in May, combined with Imphal’s concerns about supposed “interlopers” from Myanmar, provided the final political push towards reversing the rich legacy of the unfenced border.

Successive governments in New Delhi have been wise to recognise that the India-Myanmar border isn’t about a few ethnic communities punctuating an international boundary line, but rather the very opposite – an international boundary line, conjured by colonial cartographers, punctuating the timeless homeland of several ethnic communities. The Modi government should not dismiss this reality if it wants to effectively manage its northeastern frontiers.

Angshuman Choudhury is an Associate Fellow with the Centre for Policy Research and focuses on Northeast India and Myanmar. The views expressed are personal