Moreh: An eerie silence hangs over Moreh, the once bustling, small trading town on the Indo-Myanmar border, a year and a half into violent ethnic clashes that have rocked Manipur.
These days, the rifle-toting Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) personnel from the Assam Rifles, Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Rapid Action Force (RAF) far outnumber the locals on the town’s streets.
The Indo-Myanmar Friendship Bridge in Moreh—via which traders from across the border came to sell their goods sourced not only in Burma but also in Thailand and China—has long fallen silent. The bridge connects India to Kalewa town in Myanmar’s Sagaing division.
Several businesses have closed shutters, battering the economy of this border town, seen as India’s gateway to South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Located nearly 110 km from Imphal, Moreh was the second place after Churachandpur to flare up in the ethnic clashes that broke out between the predominantly Hindu Meiteis and the tribal Kuki community on 3 May last year over the former’s demand for a Scheduled Tribe status. So far, the violence has killed 256 people and displaced 60,000.
The violence has thrown life out of gear for people across the state. However, the impacts appear starker in Moreh, the commercial hub sharing a 390 km border with Myanmar.
Armed groups have attacked and burnt Meitei houses in this multi-ethnic town, home also to the tribal Kukis, Nagas, Tamils, Biharis, Sikhs, Nepalese, Bengalis and Odiyas, among others.
The violence has forced the town’s entire civilian Meitei population to flee Moreh. They either took refuge in Imphal Valley, where most community members live, or moved to the neighbouring states, such as Guwahati, Mizoram and Meghalaya.
Today, the Meiteis in Moreh mainly constitute the Manipur Police commandos. Their number, however, has also gone down following the January 2024 attack launched by armed groups on the police camp.
And it is not just the Meiteis who have fled the town. With border trade, the mainstay of Moreh’s economy, coming to a halt, many people from the other communities that had businesses in Moreh have moved out, some temporarily, till normalcy returns.
A senior official in the security establishment posted at Moreh told ThePrint that roughly 35,000 people lived in the town before the violence broke out in May last year. “Approximately 60 percent of the shops have shut down since January this year,” the official added.
“There is nothing to do…. It has become so difficult to make ends meet. I have my own house and a small grocery shop here, but sales have fallen by half compared to a year and a half ago. Prices of almost everything have gone through the roof,” Holmang Mate, 65, a resident of the Lhangkichoi village in Moreh, told ThePrint.
Mate retired as a non-commissioned officer from the Army 26 years ago and is currently chairman of the ex-servicemen association of the Tengnoupal district, including Moreh.
“Till a year-and-a-half ago, I used to buy petrol from across the border at Rs 50 per litre. But after the border trading stopped, I now buy it at Rs 120 per litre. Moreh remains broken and battered today,” he said.
Kaikholal Haokip, president of the hill tribal council in Moreh, said the situation was horrible when the conflict peaked, but things are relatively calmer now. “We are trying to ensure that things improve so that people in Moreh town get back to their business and students get back to their schools.”
Haokip said, “People of Moreh depend on trade and business normally. I will say 95 percent of the people. Some 4-5% of the people depend on farming on the hillside. People are going through hard times, trying to recover from the hardships that have affected their livelihoods.”
Once-thriving commercial hub
With India and Myanmar signing the free movement regime (FMR) in 2018, trade along the 1,643 km international border between India and Myanmar—passing through the four states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh—got a boost. Manipur, which shares a 398 km border with Myanmar, was also one of the beneficiaries.
Illegal cross-border trading of not only timber, betel nuts, and gold but also smaller items such as cosmetics, apparel, electronics, liquor, food items, etc., had been rampant at the Indo-Myanmar border before the Centre, in 2018, announced the FMR to facilitate informal, cross-border trading between Myanmar’s Tamu and Manipur’s Moreh, a senior official from the security establishment posted at Moreh said.
FMR allowed the tribes living on either side of the international border to travel up to 16 km inside each other’s countries without visas, sell their wares, buy goods, and go back. The bustling border market at Namphalong, opened a little after the completion of the Indo-Myanmar Friendship Bridge. According to the state government data, the Moreh land port, located along the international border between India and Myanmar, facilitated trade worth Rs 355 crore in 2019-22.
In the formal sector, Myanmar’s exports to India via Tamu-Moreh increased from US$ 11.28 million in 2005–06 to US$ 154.00 million in 2020–21, according to a report compiled by the Lands Port Authority of India. India’s exports to Myanmar via Moreh-Tamu increased from US$ 4 million in 2005–06 to US$ 32.45 million in 2020–21.
India’s major exports to Myanmar are high-speed diesel, wallpaper, wheat flour, methyl bromide, and fertilisers. Imports from Myanmar inlude betel nuts, fresh vegetables, and fruits. Most of the trade between the two countries happens informally.
The once booming border trade, which sustained the economy of Moreh, took a bad hit when border trade was suspended—first during COVID-19 and then after the military coup in Myanmar in 2021. And trading has remained closed since then, the security official quoted earlier said.
The 3 May 2023 violence was the final straw. “It finished whatever little trade was going on,” the official said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced the suspension of the FMR later in February this year.
To keep the economy in Moreh running, the government, however, made an informal arrangement, allowing people from places such as Myanmar’s Tamu—mainly small-time hawkers—to cross the Indo-Myanmar border and enter Moreh to sell their goods between 4 am and 12 pm daily as part of an informal market. At Holenphai near Moreh, Assam Rifles made a makeshift gate for their entry. Moreh hawkers sell their goods at the market too.
The market, which sits daily, is nothing compared to the earlier bustling vibrant Namphalong market. Nearly 60-70 people from Myanmar collect there daily to earn a living, selling vegetables, dry fish, spices, clothes, footwear, food items, etc.
A second official from the security establishment told ThePrint, “It is just an informal arrangement to help the locals on both sides of the border. Otherwise, it will be difficult for them to make ends meet.”
Now, outside the informal border market, only a few businesses remain. There are a handful of small grocery shops dotting one of the main thoroughfares of Moreh, selling mostly Burmese products, from cheap liquor with names such as Glan Master, Formula, Freedom, Old Made Rum, and Myanmar Rum to soaps, biscuits and Godzilla mosquito repellent.
The shop owners, most non-Manipuris, are wary of new faces and reluctant to engage in conversation. “Abhi yahan ke mahaul theek nahin hai (The environment here is not right now),” Jyoti Mudali, a roadside small shop owner in her 30s, said when asked about the situation in Moreh.
Born in Moreh, Jyoti, a Nepali woman, is married to an Odiya man. “My parents came from Nepal and settled here.
With a little prodding, she opened up a bit.
“We are somehow making ends meet. It is not easy. The earnings from the shop are barely enough to run my family and pay my children’s school fees. We are living here because we can’t afford to go anywhere else,” she said.
Kaikholal Haokip said he hopes the central government is trying its best to make things right. “There are so many things involved… political demands are there from both sides. We hope and pray that things get peaceful and normalcy returns as soon as possible.”
Locals also speak in hushed voices that while informal cross-border trade remains suspended, authorities have turned a blind eye to the ongoing illegal trading of drugs, timber and betel nuts—running into hundreds of crores.
A second official from the security establishment said that that is not entirely untrue. “While illegal trade has reduced along the Moreh border, it has not stopped completely. Until the entire fencing is complete, you cannot stop it entirely. It is a porous border. As and when we get information, we raid smuggled goods and seize them,” the official said.
The official said amid the central government’s renewed push to fence the border, the smuggling route has also shifted to other areas, such as Namli-Wangli in the Kamjon district and certain pockets in Chandel. “It is an open border helped by the vast mountainous track and jungles,” added the official.
Border fencing
The central government renewed its push to fence the 1,643 km international border after the Manipur conflict broke out last May. The move, however, has become its bone of contention with the Mizoram government while the Nagaland government has openly opposed it.
In Moreh too, the fencing of the border from Kamjon to Moreh, Chandel, and Churachandpur is being resisted by locals.
“We have our people on the other side of the border, and it has been like this always. If you fence it, how will our family members come?” asked Naining Guithe from Kanang Veng, one of the Kuki women protesting the fencing.
While work to fence the 398 km border that Manipur shares with Myanmar started way back in 2008, the project has been inordinately delayed for a host of reasons. As of date, only 10 km has been fenced, a security official posted at the Moreh border said.
Amit Shah announced in September last year that the Centre will be spending Rs 31,000 crore to fence the border. However, the ongoing violence is further delaying the fencing work.
India has, on the other hand, been expediting infrastructure development along the Moreh border for over a decade now. The 1,360 km Indo-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway, which will connect Moreh with Mae Sot in Thailand, linking the Northeast with Thailand via Myanmar and facilitating trade and commerce, is currently under construction.
“Moreh can become the golden goose for Manipur. It has so much potential. But for that to be realised, peace needs to return. It can’t happen in an environment like this,” Mate said.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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