Credit: Avishek Bhattacharjee
As the car climbed up the hill towards Longwa, a village on the India-Myanmar border in Nagaland, Atoi Konyak shouted, “Are you looking for the king’s house? It’s up there.”
A weaver from the Konyak Naga tribe, Atoi was busy at her loom in her bamboo thatched hut. Perched on a hillock, the brown ‘ahng ghor’, or king’s palace, is distinct from the other houses in the village. And it straddles the India-Myanmar border. Another prominent structure that catches your eye is a camp of the Assam Rifles. India’s oldest paramilitary force, it guards 1,643 km of unfenced borders with Myanmar in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.
Longwa has nearly 600 households and a population of a little over 5,000. All families are Konyak, one of the 16 major Naga tribes living on either side of the border.
“You are sitting in Myanmar right now,” Tonyei Phawang, the chief ahng (Nagamese for ‘king’) of Waayen, told me, as we began chatting inside the palace. Waayen is a region dominated by Naga tribes in both Nagaland and Myanmar. Longwa is one of the villages that are located within the region.
The wooden table around which we sat was on line zero. Phawang sat on the border while Nahlak Wangnao, a leader of the Longwa students’ union, Students’ Union, sat on the Indian side. The distance between Phawang and me was less than a metre.
All pictures by Avishek Bhattacharjee
Phawang, who has subjects both in Nagaland’s Mon and in the Sagaing province of Myanmar, is upset. In December 2023, the Indian government decided to fence the border with Myanmar.
“If the fence comes up, it will be right here,” Phawang said, pointing to the corridor leading to his kitchen and fireside hall. It was around 4 pm on a Tuesday (March 11) and the temperature was going down.
The yellow-green-red Myanmar flag with a white star in the middle was painted on the left of the porch. ‘Sagaing, Myanmar’ was inscribed in white under it. On the right was a painting of the tricolour with the words ‘Nagaland, India’. The iron door in the middle was ajar. The pillars of the wall are the border posts separating India and Myanmar. The border was demarcated in 1970-71.
The palace used to be a bamboo-thatched wooden house until 2016, when Neiphiu Rio, the current Nagaland chief minister (a Lok Sabha member back then), got it reconstructed. The wooden walls of the 120x40 ft house are adorned with carvings depicting the rich culture, history and valour of the Konyak Nagas. A wooden statue depicting the old practice of head hunting welcomes visitors to the palace.
“They (government of India) want to break the house without the permission of its owner,” Phawang, aged about 50, told me, anger and unhappiness writ large on his face. His anger springs from both cultural and economic reasons. He is still dependent on the contributions from his subjects living in at least 35 villages — 30 are in Sagaing and five in Nagaland. Longwa, Phomching, Lwasa, Wetting and Nyahnuh are the five Indian villages that come under Phawang. The villagers would earlier send a portion of the paddy and vegetable produce, and the heads of the animals they hunted down in the jungles, as tax to the ‘king’. “They can’t come now due to the restrictions imposed by the Assam Rifles,” he said. The restrictions were imposed after the Centre decided to fence the border.
“This palace is our heart. Fencing this will mean piercing the hearts of the Nagas. We are all Konyak brothers living as a family for generations. The border forced on us in 1970-1971 divided our land. But people on either side still consider this their land. The people on the Myanmar side depend on Longwa for rations, medicines and the education of their children,” Wangnao, the students’ leader, said.
Manipur fallout
The border between India and Myanmar was demarcated following the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826, in the wake of the first Anglo-Burmese War. It was fought between the British and the Konbaung dynasty of Burma, following which Burma (present day Myanmar) became part of the British empire. The border posts in the hilly and remote locations of the border were put up later. But the Nagas, Mizos and Kukis refused to accept the border, saying it was demarcated without the consent of the communities and was separating them from their “ethnic brethren.”
The government did not put up a fence, in deference to the demand for barrier-free movement for the local communities. The Narendra Modi government in 2018 introduced a mechanism called Free Movement Regime (FMR) under its Act East Policy which allowed local communities to travel up to 16 km on either side without any travel documents.
But the conflict between the Meitei and the Kukis in the neighbouring state of Manipur has complicated matters. The decision to end the FMR was announced in December 2023 by Home Minister Amit Shah. It was preceded by the Meiteis’ demand for fencing the 1,634 km border. The Meiteis, who make up 53 per cent of Manipur’s population, say the open borders encourage Chin-Kuki communities and drug traders to sneak into India and settle in Manipur. Meiteis, including Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, said “demographic invasion by Chin-Kuki illegal migrants” was at the root of the conflict. Since May 2023, the conflict has resulted in the death of more than 260 people, and displaced over 60,000.
“But this is not Manipur, and there is no conflict here,” Phawang said. “People want to live as one family, one society.”
Myanmar has been witnessing conflicts since the military takeover in 2021 but Sagaing state has remained by and large free of violence. Northeast India’s Nagas, Kukis and Mizos, who favour barrier-free movement, have now stepped up their protests against the Centre’s decision.
“Nagas will keep fighting to stop the fencing just as they have in the past. People in Longwa were unaware of the implications of a border when it was forced on us. But now we all know what is wrong,” Matpai Konyak, village headman at Longwa, said. For visitors from across the border, it is now mandatory to get a travel pass issued by the Assam Rifles. “But villagers don’t want to come with a travel pass,” he said.
Many Nagas, including insurgent groups such as National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN), claim the Nagas were never a part of India or Burma (now Myanmar). The NSCN-IM (Issac Muivah), the biggest Naga insurgent group fighting against the government since 1947, has been following a ceasefire since 1997. A final solution hasn’t yet materialised mainly because of NSCN-IM’s insistence on a separate Naga flag and Naga constitution, called Yehzabo.
“If the fencing is deemed necessary, it should follow the traditional boundary lines of the Konyak Naga community and not the artificial lines drawn by the colonial and post-colonial authorities. The Konyak community will not accept any forceful division of its land and people,” Konyak Union, a body of the Konyak tribe said in a memorandum submitted to Nagaland Governor, La Ganeshan, on February 3.
An Assam Rifles soldier at Longwa said the restrictions had curbed cross-border smuggling. When I told Phawang about it, he said, “We have no problems with legal action being taken against anyone involved in crime.”
A lonely church
The Longwa Baptist Church, downhill from the king’s palace, is another testament to the shared culture in Myanmar and Nagaland. Like the king’s palace, the border passes right through the middle of the church. Villagers from both sides would sit side-by-side for the Sunday mass. Those from Nagaland would sit on the left pews while those from Myanmar sat on the right. “Now the pews on the right are mostly vacant,” the pastor, Yona Konyak, said.
The next morning (March 12), the pastor and several others gathered at the palace. Ganeshan was to meet Phawang to discuss the fencing proposal. Top officials of the district, police and paramilitary forces sat around the fire and sipped tea, while the rain poured down heavily. The governor did not turn up — the inclement weather had prompted him to cancel his trip. This was the second time since February a meeting had had to be called off. “It seems the weather Gods are not happy with the government’s decision to build the fence,” said Gangpai Konyak, a local students’ leader.
Fencing tourism
Longwa looked greener after the overnight downpour. More than its natural beauty and fresh air, the unfenced borders have become an attraction for tourists. “People come to see the border passing right through Phawang’s house and the church.
If the fence comes up, Longwa will lose its tourist attractions,” said Aphotai Wangshu Konyak, a woman who runs Escape Homestay. At least half a dozen homestays have come up at Longwa, thanks to an increase in tourist footfalls in the past few years.
Mantoh Taiwangshu, who runs a shop on the Myanmar side of Longwa, has already seen a drop in business. “There were lots of customers from Myanmar villages earlier. But my business has been severely hit since the restrictions were imposed on their movement,” he said.
Motorcycles popular in Myanmar are common in Longwa households. Models such as Kenbo (made in China), which costs Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000, are popular. They say these bikes can bear about 100 kgs in the hilly and uneven terrain unlike the Indian bikes. “We used these bikes while travelling to the Myanmar side,” he said. They, however, can’t use them on the Indian side as they are unlicensed.
Headhunting
Longwa has another attraction. The village is home to at least eight old Konyak Naga warriors, who practised headhunting during their younger days. Those with the most number of heads held more power and respect in their society. Their targets used to be “enemies” from other tribes and invaders in the ancient times.
The tribe gave up the practice decades ago, but the surviving headhunters continue to attract tourists and researchers. Clad in traditional war attire and armed with dao (a sharp iron weapon) and spears, Naiwang and Tombi, aged 80 and 85, were waiting to meet me at the gate of the homestay where I was spending the night.
“Pay first and then click photos,” said Tombi as he juggled his spear and chanted a traditional war cry.
“They are among the only seven or eight headhunters alive now. After them, this will remain only in museums,” the students’ leader Wangnao said.
As we drove back to Sonari in neighbouring Assam, about 140 km away, Konyak Naga women dotted the highway, selling oranges, ginger and the famous bhoot jolokias, once rated the hottest chillies in the world. Mon district is famous for such organic crops too.
Drawing lines
l India decided to fence its 1,643 km border with Myanmar, amid the Meitei-Kuki conflict in Manipur, in
December 2023.
l The border passes through Nagaland (215km), Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km) and Mizoram (510 km).
l Of the 1,643 km, a demarcation of 1,472 km has been completed.
l Two pilot projects with hybrid surveillance systems (mainly cameras) covering 1 km each in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, are in progress.
l The fencing on a stretch of 9.2 km, along Moreh in Manipur, has been completed.
l The Centre has allocated Rs 31,031.9 crore for fencing 1,610.2 km and construction