NEW DELHI, Feb 14: A coordination body of five non-government organisations in Mizoram has requested the Centre to reconsider its decision to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the 1,643 km India-Myanmar border.
The FMR agreement entailed the border residents of both countries to travel up to 16 km within each other’s territory without any visa. The union home minister Amit Shah a week ago had announced the Centre’s decision to withdraw the FMR because of security concerns arising out of the ongoing civil war in Myanmar and the ethnic conflict in Manipur.
Manipur is one of four north-eastern States bordering Myanmar. The others are Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland. “Being a signatory of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007, we believe that our country (India) would have taken measures to assert the rights of indigenous peoples who are divided by international border, as stated in Article 36 of this declaration,” the NGO Coordination Committee said in a memorandum to Mr Shah.
“But we are astonished by the government of India’s decision to scrap the FMR as well as its attempt to fence the border instead of maintaining and developing relations between the peoples living on both sides of the border,” the committee said.
The constituents of the committee are the influential Central Young Mizo Association, the Mizo Upa Pawl (association of senior citizens), Mizo Hmeichhe Insuikhawm Pawl (women’s federation), Mizo Zirlai Pawl, and Mizo Students’ Union.
The committee said the FMR had been a crucial mechanism in maintaining ethnic and cultural linkages between the people belonging to the Zo ethnic group residing on both sides of the border. It said the abolition of the FMR and fencing the border would have a debilitating effect on the community.
The Mizos of Mizoram, the Kuki-Zomis of Manipur, the Chins of Myanmar, and the Kuki-Chins of Bangladesh are ethnically related.
(Manas Dasgupta)