Nagas in the frontier districts of Manipur and Nagaland took to the streets on Wednesday (April 2, 2025) to oppose the Centre’s move to fence the 1,643-km India-Myanmar border, and demand the restoration of the free movement regime (FMR).
The residents of the border areas demonstrated in several places, but the protest was most intense in Manipur’s Ukhrul town and Longwa village in Nagaland’s Mon district.
Apart from villagers, MLAs Leishiyo Keishing and Khashim Vashum, members of civil society organisations, and students took part in the demonstration in Ukhrul.
The protesters condemned the “artificial border” imposed by British rulers in the 1940s, calling it a “treacherous act” that continues to undermine Naga identity and unity. They accused the Centre of perpetuating the “colonial injustice” to keep the Naga communities physically and emotionally segregated for decades.
Speakers at the rally said the fence, if erected, would trap the border communities like “wild animals” behind iron enclosures.
Many Naga communities, such as the Tangkhul and Konyak, inhabit large swathes on either side of the India-Myanmar border. The Tangkhuls dominate the Ukhrul district, while the Konyaks are a majority in the Mon district.
“There comes a point when patience wears thin, when endurance reaches its limit, and when silence is no longer an option, people rise and cry ‘enough is enough’. Such a situation has come today, and we are here to voice our disagreements and anger against the policy of the governments of India and Manipur,” N.G. Lorho, the president of the United Naga Council, said.
‘New era of surveillance’
“The scrapping of the FMR is a calculated move to suffocate the Naga people. The real agenda of the government of India is justifying military occupation under the guise of development and national security,” Rosemary Dzuvichu, the Nagaland-based co-convenor of the Global Naga Forum, said.
“The plan to fence the border is a classic example of the politics of enclosure, the dispossession of a people, and a new era of surveillance and control. If we do not resist now, we will perish as a people,” she added.
A memorandum was later submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi through the Ukhrul’s Deputy Commissioner, urging him to restore the FMR immediately and stop the border-fencing move.
The Mizos of Mizoram, a community divided by the international boundary, are also opposed to the plan to fence the border and scrap the FMR. The decision on the FMR and border fencing was largely influenced by former Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh’s call for a mechanism to stop the entry of “infiltrators” from Myanmar.
