Free Movement Regime agreement

Context

The Union Home Minister recently said the 1,643 km India-Myanmar border would soon be fenced.
He also said the Free Movement Regime (FMR) agreement with Myanmar would be reconsidered to stop border residents from moving into each other’s country without any paperwork.

What is the FMR?

Much of India’s present-day northeast was temporarily under Burmese occupation until the British pushed them out in the 1800s.
The victors and the vanquished signed the Treaty of Yandaboo in 1826, leading to the current alignment of the boundary between India and Burma, later renamed Myanmar.
The border divided people of the same ethnicity and culture — specifically the Nagas of Nagaland and Manipur and the Kuki-Chin-Mizo communities of Manipur and Mizoram — without their consent.
Wary of increasing Chinese influence in Myanmar, New Delhi began working on improving diplomatic ties with the Myanmar government a decade ago.
After almost a year’s delay, the FMR came about in 2018 as part of the Government’s Act East policy.
The FMR allows people living on either side of the border to travel up to 16 km inside each other’s country without a visa. A border resident needs to have a border pass, valid for a year, to stay in the other country for about two weeks per visit.
The FMR also envisaged the promotion of localised border trade through customs stations and designated markets apart from helping the people of Myanmar access better education and healthcare facilities on the Indian side of the border.

Why is the FMR being reconsidered?

Apart from a 10 km stretch in Manipur, the India-Myanmar border through hills and jungles is unfenced.
The security forces have for decades grappled with members of extremist groups carrying out hit-and-run operations from their clandestine bases in the Chin and Sagaing regions of Myanmar.
The ease of cross-border movement, even before the FMR was in place, was often flagged for inward trafficking of drugs and outward trafficking of wildlife body parts.
The trigger for the rethink on the FMR was the conflict that broke out between the majority Meitei and the tribal Kuki-Zo communities in Manipur in 2023.

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