Symptomatic treatment
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: September 20, 2024 -

AS they say in Hindi, "Der Aaye Durust Aaye', whose English equivalent is 'Better late than never,' it is good to know that the Government of India has, at last, finalised the plan to fence the entire 1,643 km Indo-Myanmar border, which is notorious for smuggling of arms, ammunition and narcotics.

After Union Home Minister Amit Shah posted through his social media handle X on February 6 last announcing, "The Modi government is committed to building impenetrable borders" and "It has decided to construct a fence along the entire 1643-kilometre-long Indo-Myanmar border," the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) of the central government is learnt to have given the green signal to go ahead with construction of border fencing and roads along the porous international boundary at an estimated cost of Rs 31,000 crore.

This is something everyone should appreciate as securing the long porous border with the civil war-torn Myanmar is essential to combat not only illegal immigration, but also smuggling of arms, ammunition and narcotics, which are at the root causes of the ongoing conflict between the Kuki-Chin and Meetei communities in Manipur since May 3 last year.

At the time of announcing the government's decision to fence the Indo-Myanmar, which traverses through Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh; the Union Home Minister had also assured a patrol track along the border would be paved to facilitate better surveillance and two pilot projects of fencing through Hybrid Surveillance System (HSS) covering 1 km each in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur are under execution.

Subsequent to this, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had also announced its decision of scrapping the Free Movement Regime (FMR) between India and Myanmar, which allows people living on either side of the international border to enter up to 16 km into each other's territory without needing a visa and to stay for up to two weeks.

Even though one has been made to believe that all these measures - fencing of the border and the scrapping of FMR - have been taken up "to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of India's North Eastern States bordering Myanmar," the decision of Government of India to pause the fencing work in Kuki-Chin dominated areas in Manipur has come a big surprise.

News agencies reported that a recent meeting of the top officials of Home Ministry concluded that the fencing work in a few hill areas where the Kuki-Chin populations reside would be done later while fencing work will continue in other parts of the Indo-Myanmar border.

This is rather confounding, and it is all the more so after reading the explanation given by a top-level official, who is quoted to have said that the focus of completing the border fencing has been shifted to areas with Naga populations as Kuki-Chin organisations have opposed the fencing of Indo-Myanmar border, claiming it dents the free movement regime.

This bizarre explanation has not only raised some serious questions on the intent of the government of India to secure its entire border with Myanmar and stop free movement of people but also on its approach of handling the over 16 months long violent conflict between the Kuki-Chin and Meetei communities in Manipur, which has so far led to loss of hundreds of precious human lives and displacement of thousands of families on both sides of the clash divide.

The decision of Government of India to pause the border fencing in Kuki-Chin dominated areas, where all the cross-border illegal activities are taking place, and focusing on completing the work in areas with Naga populations, is a classic case of "treating the symptom and ignoring the disease".

This symptomatic treatment without addressing the underlying causes is not going to help in resolving the conflict in Manipur at all.