Amit Shah announced to scrap India-Myanmar Free Movement Regime
On 7th February, Home Minister Amit Shah announced a decision to scrap India- Myanmar Free Movement Regime (FMR) to ensure the country's internal security.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on 8th February wrote on X, “It is Prime Minister Narendra Modi Ji’s resolve to secure our borders, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided that the Free Movement Regime (FMR) between India and Myanmar be scrapped to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of India’s North Eastern States bordering Myanmar. Since the Ministry of External Affairs is currently in the process of scrapping it, the MHA has recommended the immediate suspension of the FMR.”
The Free Movement Regime allows people residing close to the India-Myanmar border to venture 16km into each other's territory without any documents.
Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Ministry of Home Affairs has recommended this immediate suspension of the Free Movement Regime. This announcement of dissolving the Free Movement Regime came two days after Home Minister Amit Shah said that India has decided to fence the entire 1643 km long India-Myanmar border.
The India-Myanmar border decided to be fenced
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on 6th February wrote on X, "The Modi government is committed to building impenetrable borders. It has decided to construct a fence along the entire 1643-kilometer-long Indo-Myanmar border. To facilitate better surveillance, a patrol track along the border will also be paved. Out of the total border length, a 10 km stretch in Moreh, Manipur, has already been fenced. Furthermore, two pilot projects of fencing through a Hybrid Surveillance System (HSS) are under execution. They will fence a stretch of 1 km each in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. Additionally, fence works covering approx 20 km in Manipur have also been approved, and the work will start soon."
Mizoram shares a 510 km long border with Myanmar, Manipur 390 km, Arunachal Pradesh 520 km and Nagaland 215 km. In 2018, the government promoted the Free Movement Regime as a part of its act to make Northeast as the gateway to Southeast Asia but it seems that developments in both sides of the border in Myanmar as well as Northeast to be precise in Manipur has led Centre to reevaluate. The Centre says that the decision has been taken to ensure internal security within the country from the India-Myanmar border and to ensure that there is no demographic imbalance in Northeast.
Since May 2023, Manipur has witnessed several ethnic clashes and has been continuously demanding scrapping to the Free Movement Regime that allows citizens on both sides of the India-Myanmar international border to travel up to 16 km into the other country without any travel document. Army Chief General Manoj Pandey at a press conference ahead of the Army day said the fight between Myanmar's armed ethnic groups and government forces led 416 Myanmarese Army personnel to cross over to India.
Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh said, "This is yet another historic decision in curbing illegal immigration and strengthening our internal security after the recent announcement to fence the 1,643km Indo-Myanmar border by Government of India.”
