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Is India compromising its border in Manipur for the sake of maintaining its friendly ties with Myanmar? While the Government of India will definitely deny such an alligation but the people of Will India compromise its border in Manipur? Manipur, particularly the villagers of Kwatha Khunou, a hamlet along the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipur’s Tegnoupal district, would say the latest development in the border village is a clear proof.
While several border villages in Manipur has witnessed encroachment by
Myanmarese military on different occasions, the latest in Kwatha Khunou is quite significant. Unlike on previous occasions where villagers flagged such incidents of border encroachments, it is the District Commissioner of Tegnoupal himself who refused to counter signed official documents after inspecting border pillar in and around Kwatha Khunou. He complained that border pillar No.81 was moved and shifted 3 km into Indian territory and now it is located just a stone throw away from the village.
Kwatha Khunou villagers collaborated the Tegnoupal DCs observation and asserted that the border pillar no. 81 should be 3 kms further away from its current location. Villagers’ claimed that India would have conceded over 3 sq km of Manipur’s border to Myanmar around the vicinity of the village, if its current position is to be accepted as official.
For the people of Manipur who have always been sensitive about its territory, an outcry erupted calling for the verification of anomaly brought forth by the DC and the villagers. However, the official stand of the government of India was that there is no border despute with Myanmar along the sector. An external affair however admitted that construction of subsidiary pillars in between a few original border pillars had taken place as per the bilateral agreement between the two neighbouring countries, India and Myanmar to plug off border ambiguity between the original pillars which were 3 km apart from each other.
Headman of Kwatha Khunou, Manihar Meitei explained that border pillar no 81 had been in its ‘disputed’ location since the early 2000s but the villagers raise no objection because they were told that it was installed there to remind villagers and border security personnel that the line of control was near. The current outcry came after subsidiary pillars were constructed on the bases of the current position of the border pillar no. 81. With subsidiary pillars in place, villagers suspect that fencing of the borders will start, conceding large tract agricultural land to Myanmar, including a stream that served as a water source for irrigation of the village and an important shrine of Kwatha Khunou.
Sunzu Bachaspatimayum
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