India–Myanmar border

Water divides and rivers

The line goes back to the peace treaty signed at Yandaboo in 1826 and an agreement of 1834 on the Kubo valley. A boundary agreement signed in Rangoon on 10 March 1967 followed the traditional line while fixing two formerly vague areas. Almost 60 percent of it follows water divides and nearly a third the middle of rivers, from low mountains in the south to high ridges near the Himalaya; few people live along it.^[1]

Ending free movement

For centuries peoples of India’s northeast have lived on both sides of the line. In the Mizoram village of Zokhawthar, residents say they and neighbouring Khawmawi in Myanmar’s Chin State operate as a single village. From 2018 a free movement regime let border residents cross 16 km into the other country with a one-year permit. Since Myanmar’s 2021 coup, tens of thousands of refugees have crossed; Mizoram alone hosted about 40,000 in 2023.^[2]

In February 2024 India scrapped the regime, Home Minister Amit Shah said, to ensure internal security and maintain the demographic structure of the border regions, and it planned to fence the border. Many in the northeast saw political motives, and villagers said it would divide their families.^[2]

“The people of Zokhawthar and Khawmawi operate as a single village”^[2]