Listen to this article:

Twice a year, Vanmawithang loads up bags of medicine, clothing, and farm equipment and begins the journey home.

Home, for now, is a refugee camp called Chandmari Kanan about two kilometres from Lawngtlai, where the 36-year-old has lived for nearly three years since fleeing military dictatorship in Myanmar. But another home is in Matupi, a town 555 miles away by road, across the border in Chin State, where his relatives wait for the supplies that have become nearly impossible to obtain under a military blockade.

“My relatives pool their money, and I buy in bulk,” Vanmawithang said.  “I am the only source of aid at this time of emergency.”

A glimpse of the Chandmari Kanan Camp, about two kilometres from the town of Lawngtlai. Photo: Aatreyee Dhar

Thousands like Vanmawithang who live along the Indian state of Mizoram’s 510-kilometre border with Chin State have been living in a state of emergency since the military junta severed supply lines from central Myanmar to Chin State. The blockade – a response to the armed resistance against military rule – left towns like Matupi completely cut off from essential goods. Vanmawithang obtains temporary passes to cross at Zawngsling, the border checkpoint in the southernmost district of Mizoram, carrying the supplies that have become his family’s lifeline.

But each crossing feels more uncertain than the last.

When he first fled the military’s raids in Myanmar, Vanmawithang left his identification papers behind. Indian paramilitary forces stationed at the border – the Assam Rifles – let him through as scores of refugees poured across. While many underwent document checks, he was among those waved through without identification.

Indian authorities have continued to tighten restrictions in the past year, effectively curtailing a longstanding policy regarding the Myanmar border: the Free Movement Regime (FMR). First established in the 1970s, the FMR is a system allowing members of hill tribes living within a certain distance of the border – on either side – to cross without restriction.

Following the outbreak of Covid in 2020 and the Myanmar military’s seizure of power a year later, India incrementally tightened restrictions on the India-Myanmar border for national security reasons. Two of India’s three friendship gates in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh have remained closed since then. Only the gate in Zokhawthar, Mizoram remains open since the restrictions prompted by the pandemic ended.

India’s Ministry of Home Affairs announced in February 2024 that it would scrap the FMR, citing internal security concerns and a need to preserve the demographic composition of northeastern states along the border. The announcement also came on the heels of an eruption of ethnic conflict in the neighbouring state of Manipur.

Amit Shah, the Indian home minister, recommended immediate suspension of the agreement as the country’s Ministry of External Affairs began taking steps to end it formally, characterising the decision as consistent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to securing India’s borders.

Ever aware of these fast-moving changes, Vanmawithang is afraid his lack of documentation and inability to communicate with the armed officials in Hindi could strand him on either side of the border, depriving his relatives of access to the medicine and other necessities for which they depend on his twice-yearly trips.

These new uncertainties and fears mark a sharp departure from the borderlands of his childhood. People like Vanmawithang remember when the border was nothing more than an invisible line, and the checkpoints and documentation requirements that have emerged are wholly new.

“I remember there were no such checks when I was young,” he said.  “I hope we return to the same old days.”

Vanmawithang (right) is the sole supplier of medicines and essential goods for his relatives in Chin State. Photo: Aatreyee Dhar

Vanmawithang first crossed into Mizoram at age 6, then again at 13, staying with relatives in Aizawl, the state capital. His family tried to build a life in India but later returned to Myanmar. Back then, crossing the border was routine. The Chin people of Myanmar and Mizo people of India share deep ancestral ties, their communities divided only when British colonial administrators drew a line between them.

During previous influxes of refugees in the 1980s and 2000s, New Delhi had embraced a humanitarian approach, accepting displaced people despite the absence of a formal refugee policy or binding international treaty obligations.

Under the incumbent Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, however, the challenges for people seeking refuge from neighbouring countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh have been immense. Deportations have been on an uptick, with hundreds expelled this year alone, including many with Indian citizenship.

Many on the Myanmar side recall how the Chin helped Mizo people escape atrocities, which were perpetrated under the authority of India’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act during the Mizo National Front insurgency from 1966 to 1986. In Mizoram, state government officials and rights advocates still said they view humanitarian work with refugees as an opportunity to repay that previous generosity.

Nandita Haksar,........

© The Wire