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Zohotal, Mizoram, India – The past few weeks have been fraught with anxiety for 61-year-old Vanlarchaka.
In Zohotar, a border village in northeastern India perched on a mountainside surrounded by green hills, Vanlalchaka’s farm has been a safe haven for refugees fleeing the civil war in neighboring Myanmar since 2021. There is. Five refugees currently live there, and Vanlarchaka is leading the efforts in the village. , located on the banks of the Thiau River, helps people coming across the border.
Like his ancestors, he said he never accepted the political borders that divided his people, known as the Chin people of Myanmar, the Mizo people of Mizoram, India, and the Kuki people of India’s Manipur state. Ta.
Vanlarchaka’s wife, BM Tangi, is from Chin State, Myanmar. Vanlarchaka is referred to by a single name as per the customs of his community.
“The people of Zohotal and Homawi [the adjacent border village in Chin state] Vanlarchaka, sitting with Tangi, 59, said they were run as one village. If someone gets sick, we will travel across the border to visit the patient and stay overnight if necessary. ”
That may no longer be possible.
As Mizoram prepares to vote in the first of seven phases of India’s national elections on April 19, border communities are grappling with deep rifts in their way of life.
Several indigenous communities in the northeastern Indian states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh have shared the same ethnicity for centuries, and the 1,600 km (1,000 mi) border between present-day India and Myanmar ) live on both sides of the border. Even after India and Myanmar gained independence, they continued to coexist as a de facto community, as their borders were largely porous.
In 2018, the Indian government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi went a step further in reaching out to the country’s northeast and Myanmar’s then-democratic government, declaring a free movement regime with Myanmar that allowed people on either side of the border to move. did. Enter the other country beyond 16 km (10 miles) without a visa. People needed a one-year border permit to stay on the other side of the border for about two weeks at a time.
But in February this year, weeks before multi-phase elections were to begin, the Indian government abandoned the agreement to “ensure internal security” and “preserve the demographic structure” of the region bordering Myanmar. Said Amit Shah, Home Minister of India.
The decision comes as clashes intensify in Myanmar between various rebel groups and the military, which seized power in a coup in 2021. These conflicts, in turn, have led to a refugee crisis, with towns like Zohotar becoming safe havens for displaced people. However, many people in northeast India see deeper political reasons behind the decision to close the border. They say blaming migrants and refugees is a convenient escape route from addressing serious internal security deficiencies that have led to outbreaks of violence in the region in recent months.
But for Vanlarchaka and the rest of the village, politics is secondary, and the end of free movement feels personal.
“The central government [decision of] The end of the border fence and FMR will separate our families,” Vanlarchaka said. “It’s just a shame,” his wife Tangi added.
‘For what? ‘
From trade to agriculture, the livelihoods of thousands of people have long depended on open borders. Zohotar’s favorite betel nuts and homemade cigarettes are purchased from Myanmar. Beer cans have the country’s label on them. And it would be impossible to travel through Mizoram’s rugged borderlands without his Kenbo-125 motorcycle, also made in Myanmar.
“We mainly depend on border trade. If imports of essential goods for our lives stopped, most of the residents of this village would lose their jobs and have to migrate.” Vanlarchaka said.
Since Myanmar’s military coup in 2021, Mizoram has hosted thousands of refugees fleeing violence despite opposition from India’s federal government. India’s federal government in September asked state governments to collect biometric details of Myanmar refugees. The state government refused.
Nearly 80,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar live in India, 53,000 of them since the 2021 coup. According to UNHCR data for 2023, Mizoram alone is hosting 40,000 refugees, half of them, who have been settled in makeshift camps in villages such as Zohotal.
“Like other Mizoram residents, we have many close relatives in Myanmar,” Tangi said. Last month, she was joined by her sister Marovi and her family, who had flown in from Kalemyo in Myanmar, where fighting has worsened. “Their house was bombed this morning. They were lucky that the explosion did not occur while they were in the house,” she added.
Their eldest sister, 73-year-old Lalchami, fled with her two children in 2022 when heavy fighting approached her home. Currently, Lalchami and her children live in a makeshift shack made of wood and tin sheets on a farm in Vanlarchaka. Lalchami’s 42-year-old daughter Marsoom Sanghi has breast cancer.
“My daughter’s cancer has spread to her lungs. If we stay in Myanmar, it will be very difficult for her to receive treatment,” Lalchami told Al Jazeera. The nearest medical facility is in Kalemio, currently a hotly contested town, but medical facilities in Yangon and Mandalay remain inaccessible.
“What if we come back and fighting starts again? We are lucky that she can receive treatment in Mizoram,” she said. “In our situation, any attempt to separate us is [by the Indian government] It’s just sad and leaves us vulnerable. ”
Repulsion
The Indian government’s move has sparked a backlash not only from border communities but also from political leaders in the two states, including allies in Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Mizoram Home Minister K. Sapdanga said the India-Myanmar border is a colonial-era legacy that fosters ethnic division. He said in February that people “have dreamed of reunification, but cannot accept the imposed Indo-Myanmar border.” Earlier, Sapdanga’s party, the Zolam People’s Movement, had vowed that it would not join hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party or the opposition Congress-led alliance in order to maintain its identity as a free and independent regional party. was. [New] Control of Delhi”.
In Nagaland, the Bharatiya Janata Party-allied party on March 1 tabled a resolution in the state assembly arguing that New Delhi’s decision to abolish free movement would destroy long-standing ties.
Across the border, Myanmar’s government-in-exile, the National Unity Government (NUG), made up of parliamentarians ousted in a 2021 coup, is also concerned about India’s policy shift.
“Burma is at war, a war of resistance. This is not a normal situation in the country,” a senior NUG foreign ministry official said in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location and on condition of anonymity. “And as our people flee for their lives from the military regime, we rely heavily on India for humanitarian assistance.”
The official said NUG has clearly expressed its concerns to India. “New Delhi needs to recognize that FMR is a humanitarian requirement,” the official said. “A country of India’s stature should not impose such a humanitarian crisis on its people.”
Fencing the border and ending free movement also carries long-term risks for New Delhi. New Delhi has had tense relations with India’s northeast for decades. The region witnessed large-scale separatist movements, some of which still exist.
Anshuman Chaudhary, an associate fellow at the Center for Policy Research (CPR), a New Delhi-based think tank, said, “Successive governments have made it easier for local ethnic communities to understand that open border policies are important to their social and cultural existence.” I’ve come to realize that it’s important,” he said. Myanmar and northeastern India. “Twiddling it will create a new cycle of discontent and violence. There are so many ethnic political differences that the border fence has become another front against the central government.”
border anxiety
To be sure, India has its own genuine security concerns.
Myanmar’s Tatmadaw military has suffered a major blow in recent months, with the Arakan Army rebels overtaking a number of military outposts and gaining territory in western Myanmar.
The Indian government’s move to fence the border is in many ways a “reaction to the rapidly escalating and worsening war in Myanmar, which poses grave border security concerns for India and Bangladesh,” according to Wilson International. said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute. Center in Washington DC.
“India wants to do everything possible to reduce the possibility that the conflict in Myanmar spills over into India,” he said.
However, on the ground, border control is a complex task.
When Al Jazeera visited in March, the bridge over the Thiau River linking Zokotar and Kaumawi was held by the Indian army’s Assam Rifles, along with Mizoram police and rebels linked to Myanmar’s Chin National Defense Forces (CNDF). Ta.
The Myanmar region just on the other coast is “in the hands of the people,” said Rodina, the CNDF secretary who, like Vanlarchaka, goes by a single name.
The CNDF is trying to reopen hospitals in its jurisdiction, but “due to a lack of medical equipment, we are unable to accept critically ill patients,” Rodina said. “Many patients will still need to go to Mizoram for treatment.” It is unclear how far that will be possible if the border is fenced.
Meanwhile, locals on the Indian side claim that the Assam Rifles have increased the presence of armed personnel since the fencing plan was announced in February.
And New Delhi feels it is in “uncharted territory,” CPR’s Chaudhary said. This is because the CNDF is not the only major rebel group in the border province of Chin. And the opinions of the various rebel groups do not always agree. At the moment, he said, India appears to lack a coherent policy on how to deal with these multiple groups.
Manipur State Puzzle Piece
But some analysts wonder if India’s new policy stance may be partially driven by a separate crisis in Manipur state in northern Mizoram that originated entirely within India. ing.
Ethnic violence that erupted in May 2023 has killed more than 200 people and displaced thousands more. Ethnic violence continues to rage between Manipur’s majority Meitei people and the Kuki and Naga minorities. The Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state has been accused of stirring up tensions to shore up Meitei’s support base, a charge the party denies.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, on the other hand, denied the charges and blamed the violence on “illegal immigrants” from Myanmar. But critics say these positions are aimed at diverting attention from the government’s internal security failures.
“It’s easy for them to point at the border and say migrants are to blame. It’s just a distraction,” CPR’s Chaudhary said.
Chaudhary pointed out that in the past, the Indian government, including Prime Minister Modi, had refrained from moving ahead with building border fencing even after deadly ambushes on Indian security personnel by armed fighters crossing from Myanmar. .
Choudhary said that by imposing fencing this time, Modi’s government risks further alienating already remote communities and “triggering a cycle of discontent and violence.”
“In the end, everything just becomes a mess. And for what?”
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