WSF says no to border fencing
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 27 2025: The Shillong based Wesean Student Federation (WSF) has condemned the Central Government's decision to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) and to push ahead with border-fencing and biometric mapping of border communities.

WSF, in a press release, said that the FMR was not a bureaucratic convenience but recognition of living human ties - kinship, marriage, livelihood, ritual and memory that ignore the artificial lines drawn by States.

Saying that scrapping FMR will sever families, extinguish livelihoods, and criminalise ways of life that have existed long before modem borders were imposed, it added that the decision to end FMR was announced by the Centre in 2024 .

The rollback of FMR will not only harm the Nagas but will deeply wound the Zos, the Kachins, the Meiteis, and dozens of communities whose social, cultural and economic life has been woven across this frontier for centuries, the Federation maintained.

"Already, tens of thousands of our neighbours from the other side have been mapped and registered under new biometric arrangements, a process presented as 'security' but which in practice surveils and separates families and communities," WSF said and added that they reject the logic that treats 'our borderlands' as a laboratory for mass registration while ignoring the human cost.

"We remind the Government of India, loudly and clearly, that these peoples had identities, histories, and relationships long before modem India "became a thing," it further said.

Continuing that they will not accept the erasure of those histories in the name of a narrow security calculus, the Federation added that any polity that claims to treat the people of the North East as full citizens must respect their cross-border connections, their customary rights, and their dignity.

If the State claims to care for Northeastern citizens, it must restore the FMR.

halt fencing that cuts through village lands, and engage in meaningful, accountable consultation with community institutions, the WSF said.

Demanding an immediate, transparent explanation from New Delhi about its posture toward the junta in Myanmar, it called on the Government of India to publish full, verifiable information about any security cooperation or transfers that could be used to arm a regime accused of grave human-rights abuses in the neighbouring country and to immediately cut any such ties.

The WSF endorsed the stance of the United Naga Organisations and others opposing border fencing and the scrapping of the FMR.

Asking where India was when Manipur burned, the Federation said that the Government of India has more interest in mapping critical minerals in the North East.

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