India suspends Free Movement Regime with Myanmar

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on February 8 that the Government has decided to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along Myanmar border to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of India’s North Eastern States. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has recommended the immediate suspension of FMR, he said. It is Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji’s resolve to secure our borders.

MHA has decided that the 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, MHA has recommended the immediate suspension of the FMR,” Mr. Shah posted on X.

Under the FMR, any member of a hill tribe, who is a citizen of either India or Myanmar, and who resides within 16 km of the border on either side, can cross on the production of a border pass, usually valid for a year, and can stay up to two weeks per visit. India and Myanmar share an unfenced 1,643 km-long border and people on either side have familial and ethnic ties, which had initially prompted the arrangement. A 1968 government notification limited the free movement of people up to 40 km on either side of the border, which was further reduced to 16 km in 2004. The FMR’s provisions were last revised in 2016.

In its 2011-12 annual report, the MHA observed that the FMR makes the international border extremely porous, and the hilly and inhospitable terrain provides cover to the activities of various Indian Insurgent Groups (IIGs). “The unfenced Indo-Myanmar border with FMR is thus being exploited by various IIGs,” the report said.

The India-Myanmar border passes through the States of Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Nagaland (215 km), Manipur (398 km), and Mizoram (510 km).