India’s eastern borders hold immense strategic and economic value, especially in the Northeast, which borders Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan, and China. These borders serve as a geopolitical bridge between South and Southeast Asia, shaping India’s internal security concerns and external diplomatic ambitions. This has prompted a dual policy approach: while the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) emphasises securing borders, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) promotes regional integration via economic, infrastructural, and cultural diplomacy.
The article examines whether India’s eastern boundaries are becoming walls through securitisation and fencing or gateways through connectivity and cooperation. Analysing historical context, current policies, and future implications, it aims to evaluate how India can reconcile these divergent approaches to craft a coherent eastern frontier policy.
Historical Context
The northeastern borders were shaped by colonial-era decisions that ignored local ethnic and cultural dynamics. After independence, India struggled to manage these boundaries amid internal insurgencies in Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram. The Kargil War and rising unrest in the early 2000s prompted a hardened border policy led by the MHA, which focused on deploying military and paramilitary forces to control insurgency and illegal activities.
Simultaneously, the MEA’s “Look East” strategy, later upgraded to the “Act East” Policy (AEP), was launched to foster ties with Southeast Asia. AEP emphasises connectivity, trade, and cultural diplomacy, positioning the Northeast as India’s link to ASEAN. However, this vision often conflicts with the MHA’s security-first agenda.
The MHA’s Border Push
The MHA’s approach focuses on the physical and legal fortification of India’s borders, especially along the 1,643 km India-Myanmar border. In 2024, Home Minister Amit Shah announced the fencing of the entire stretch and the implementation of a Hybrid Surveillance System (HSS). Concurrently, the Free Movement Regime (FMR), allowing visa-free travel for border communities, was suspended. This policy shift, aimed at controlling illegal migration, insurgency, and drug trafficking, has disrupted traditional cross-border life.
The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), granting sweeping powers to armed forces in “disturbed areas,” remains active in parts of Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh, sparking concerns over civil liberties and central overreach. Communities with familial and cultural links across borders, particularly in Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland, view these developments as alienating and oppressive.
The Meitei community, for example, supports stricter border controls due to the refugee influx following Myanmar’s 2021 military coup. Combined with polarising laws like the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), the region has witnessed social strain and suspicion.While the MHA’s securitisation narrative prioritises national integrity, it undermines people-to-people contact, cross-border trade, and cultural interactions vital for regional diplomacy. Fencing initiatives threaten to disrupt Indigenous communities like the Konyaks of Nagaland and the people of Longwa village, whose lives span across borders.
Conflict with Regional Integration
The MHA’s hardline stance undermines the MEA’s AEP, the road to the east, which depends on open, cooperative borders to implement projects like the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway (IMT) and the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP). These initiatives aim to improve connectivity and trade links between India’s Northeast and Southeast Asia. Fencing and revoking the FMR contradict the spirit of regional integration and weaken India’s soft power in ASEAN compared to China’s seamless Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments.Over-securitisation may alienate the very communities that could serve as local partners in advancing India’s strategic objectives. This fragmented policy landscape, where MHA and MEA often work at cross purposes, undermines India’s aspirations for cross-border prosperity.
MEA’s Act East Pull
The AEP envisions the Northeast as India’s gateway to Southeast Asia. It combines diplomatic outreach with infrastructure development, trade facilitation, and cultural exchange. The KMTTP, connecting Kolkata to Myanmar’s Sittwe port and onward to Mizoram, and the IMT Highway, linking Manipur to Thailand via Myanmar, are key connectivity projects.India’s engagement with ASEAN through platforms like BIMSTEC, the East Asia Summit, and the ASEAN Regional Forum enhances diplomatic and economic cooperation. The MEA fosters people-to-people ties through scholarships (ICCR, e-ITEC), academic exchanges (ASEAN-India Students Exchange Programme), and civilisational linkages (Buddhism-based diplomacy).
Moreover, regional trade frameworks like the ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) and India’s involvement in BIMSTEC underscore the economic thrust of AEP. Infrastructure partnerships with Japan (e.g., the Northeast Road Network Improvement Project), Thailand (on the IMT), and Bangladesh (e.g., the Agartala-Akhaura rail link) highlight multilateral collaboration.The MEA’s vision transforms the Northeast from a peripheral region to a hub for regional integration. However, this transformation relies on soft borders and inclusive policies, which are increasingly constrained by the MHA’s securitisation push.
Clash or Coherence?
The Northeast exemplifies a policy paradox: while the MHA fences borders and suspends traditional cross-border arrangements, the MEA seeks to position the region as a conduit for international engagement. The MHA emphasises that over 60% of Northeast India’s borders are porous and vulnerable to insurgency, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration, justifying surveillance, fencing, and stricter controls.Conversely, the MEA envisions open corridors of commerce and culture. Infrastructure like the IMT and KMTTP and forums like BIMSTEC rely on cross-border mobility and trust. In Longwa village, where houses straddle the India-Myanmar border, fencing would sever age-old kinship ties and impede informal trade crucial to livelihoods.
The securitised narrative often fosters an environment of mistrust, slowing the movement of people and goods and contradicting AEP’s aims. It risks converting the Northeast from a zone of convergence into one of containment.To mitigate this, local civil society, youth, and businesses should be integrated into policymaking. Empowering border communities ensures policies are locally grounded and support regional diplomacy.
Implications for the Neighbourhood and Northeast
The MHA-MEA dichotomy affects not just internal policy but regional geopolitics. India’s decision to fence its Myanmar border and end the FMR has angered local communities and risks upsetting diplomatic ties. In regions like Longwa and Moreh, traditional lifestyles, trade, and kinship face disruption. The humanitarian fallout from Myanmar’s civil war has already strained resources in Mizoram and Manipur, where refugee influxes have tested the limits of India’s security-centric response.
Meanwhile, the withdrawal of transhipment privileges for Bangladeshi exports has strained India-Bangladesh relations, complicating cross-border logistics and undermining trade facilitation. The emphasis on border fencing under the Border Infrastructure and Management (BIM) scheme, through roads, surveillance, and fences, ignores the Northeast’s unique social fabric.
India must balance internal security needs with external diplomacy. Fencing efforts must not come at the cost of long-term regional integration. Cross-border people-to-people interactions, local trade, and cultural diplomacy are not luxuries but essential components of India’s eastern vision.Joint coordination mechanisms between the MHA and MEA could harmonise security and connectivity goals. This includes inter-ministerial task forces and shared policy frameworks that ensure security policies do not hinder diplomatic and economic engagements.
Conclusion
India faces a defining strategic choice: Will its Northeast become an impenetrable fortress or a dynamic bridge to Southeast Asia? The MHA’s securitisation narrative and the MEA’s integration agenda currently operate in parallel silos, diluting both effectiveness and coherence. Without a unified approach, New Delhi risks squandering the Northeast’s potential to catalyse regional growth and strategic influence.
An integrated policy must treat development and security as complementary, not contradictory. Stronger inter-ministerial dialogue, local community engagement, and infrastructure that fosters, rather than fragments, regional ties are key. Borders should be reconceptualised not just as protective barriers but as contact zones, spaces of opportunity, exchange, and collaboration.
India’s future in the Indo-Pacific depends on how it treats its own eastern frontier. A securitised Northeast may appear stable in the short term but will erode long-term regional aspirations. Conversely, a Northeast rooted in connectivity, cultural ties, and economic cooperation can truly become the gateway India envisions under the Act East Policy.
Leave a Reply