The sudden termination of the Free Motion Regime (FMR), which allowed individuals on either side of the India-Myanmar border to journey as much as 16 km into one another’s territory with out passport and visa, can have repercussions that nobody is speaking about. Furthermore, fencing the hitherto unfenced border won’t be a cakewalk for the Centre after the assertive and difficult stand of not one however two state governments – Mizoram and Nagaland – in opposition to ending the FMR and sealing off the frontier.
Mizoram’s Chief Minister, Lalduhoma, and Nagaland’s Deputy Chief Minister, Y Patton, are brazenly saying that scrapping the FMR and erecting a border fence is solely “unacceptable”. Lalduhoma, specifically, has already articulated his objections instantly earlier than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, House Minister Amit Shah, and Exterior Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. Apparently, Lalduhoma is a former Indian Police Service officer and Jaishankar, an ex-Indian International Service officer, is his 1977 batch-mate; they did the inspiration course collectively in Mussoorie.
Two weeks in the past, in a serious escalation, the legislative assemblies of the 2 northeastern states adopted hard-hitting resolutions — chopping throughout get together traces — in opposition to the suspension of the FMR and the choice to fence the border, bringing their variations with the Centre to a boil and setting the stage for a head-on confrontation within the coming days. Notably, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh additionally share a boundary with Myanmar however are in sync with the central authorities.
