Along the border, FMR a boon for some, a bane for some others

The verdant hills of Mizoram's Champhai district hold many treasures -- pristine rivers where the sun's rays bounce off the clear blue of the water, a trove of animals and birds, and long stretches of virgin forest illuminated only by the silver slats of moonlight at night.

- Prawesh Lama

What it does not have in abundance are good schools.

Khamlun knows this. The principal of the local Baptist English School spends the first half of his day teaching in his school in Mizoram, and then walks a kilometre down a rolling mountain road to a restaurant, where children gather by nightfall, eager to learn the alphabet and arithmetic. The man, in his 40s, has made this journey every day for five years now -- unremarkable except for the fact that he crosses an international border twice during his minute commute.

"I teach children in Myanmar inside the restaurant on the other side to each a little extra cash," he said.

In his village of Zowkhatar, he is not the only one for whom the India-Myanmar international boundary is only an incidental line, marked not by the usual flurry of documents, armed guards and tense wait that characterise most border crossings across the world, but only a forlorn check post.

Sauma, another resident of the village, said that locals cross the border to attend funerals and weddings twice every month. "In border villages of Mizoram, people get married or have relatives across the border...we have people here who buy chicken in India and sell it in Myanmar just to earn 100 extra and make a little profit. We share the same ties," he said.

This is the norm in the 1,643km porous border between India and Myanmar where the free movement regime (FMR) allowed thousands of families to nurture ties between members separated by an international frontier and communities to hold on to shared traditions and customs. People shared tribal allegiances, ethnicities and often bloodlines across the border. Recognising this, FMR introduced in 2018 as part of India's effort to boost the region's economy by encouraging trade with Southeast Asian nations -- eschewed the compulsory inspection of travel documents and fostered hassle-free travel.