The scenario on the north-eastern frontier of India and Myanmar is fast degenerating into what is now being widely referred to by many experts as a silent war and which is threatening to become as other experts put it, a mirror image of the long-running Kashmir dispute in its concealed casualties, state secrecy and a never-ending spiral of violence. The densely wooded and hilly tract extending through Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram is turning into the theatre of frequent bloody clashes between the Indian security forces, particularly the Assam Rifles, and the well-trained and well-armed insurgent outfits based in the sanctuaries in Myanmar.
Events in the recent past indicate that this border is no longer a low-level issue that can be swept under the carpet by policymakers in New Delhi, but a time bomb that can erupt into a full-blown conflict unless it is defused at the earliest. It is already the third major attack that has taken place in the region in the course of three weeks only, and new blood has been shed, and more questions remain unanswered regarding the casualties on both sides. June 5th witnessed a major gun battle in the longding district of Arunachal Pradesh when Indian forces undertaking an operation in the region were heavily fired upon by the insurgents who took the advantage of the thick jungle as a natural cover and then sneaked back across the border into Myanmar– absolutely unimpeded.
On the very next day, two militants of the banned National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Khaplang-Yung Aung faction (NSCN-K-YA) were killed in a different operation, a group that has openly defied all ceasefire agreements with India and has now turned into the new face of this growing insurgency. These are the latest in a series of two equally deadly clashes: on May 14th, an engagement in the Chandel district of Manipur left ten militants dead and a huge quantity of arms and ammunition in the hands of the security forces; and on April 27th, another operation in longding neutralized three militants. The message is loud and clear this is not mindless violence but a trend of organized and audacious insurgent action intended to bleed Indian forces and to test the boundaries of Indian administration of this troubled border state. Worse is the chilling silence on the casualties allegedly encountered by the Indian forces especially Assam Rifles.
Although fierce encounters are being reported all over, the Indian Army has not yet made any official statement concerning the loss of life or injury to its soldiers, a sharp contrast to the number of militants that have been killed and whose deaths have been faithfully announced in press releases. This has caused a great deal of speculation among military analysts and military journalists that the government is actively covering up information on its own casualties to present an image of control and military dominance, particularly in regards to how the world at large perceives them.
These suspicions are only intensified by the fact that both local and national media are strangely silent in regard to this topic. And should India be actually hiding its death tolls as it has long been suspected in the Kashmir insurgency, then the north-eastern frontier might soon become another battleground of secretive wars, with the actual price in blood and moral being kept off the record.
Many are saying that history is repeating itself, when on June 2015, tragic events occurred when insurgents ambushed an Indian Army convoy in the Chandel district of Manipur killing 18 soldiers on that day alone. That calamity compelled the military of India to recognize, first time ever, the necessity of cross-border “surgical strikes” on militant camps in Myanmar. Yet the difficulties of that bloodthirsty ambush must have been taught or learned anew in the years since, since the same tendencies toward easy targets and indifference are recurring on the same dangerous stretch of border.
What makes the situation especially serious is the epic 31,000 crore (about 3.7 billion US dollars) border fencing and road building scheme which was approved by the Indian government in September of 2024 but which, de facto, has hardly gotten past the drawing board.
Designed to form a safe, regulated border with patrolling avenues and high-tech monitoring, the venture is still on hold due to a lethal combination of geographical impediments, political indecisiveness, and violent opposition by the same societies the fence is destined to safeguard. The geography of the area consists of mountains and valleys which make any type of large-scale construction very hard and expensive, in most places heavy machinery can just not work and workers are not willing to go to zones where insurgent groups are dominant. Even worse, tribal groups along the borders of these states have loudly protested the fencing initiative, since they believe it will sever longstanding cross-border relatives, markets and cultural landmarks in Myanmar.
The ulterior motives behind these fears have been fully utilized by organizations such as the People security Defence Force (PDF) and NSCN-K-YA, which propagate the fence as a move by the Indians to cage the northeast people and kill their special cultural distinguishability. The fencing project will just be a dream, a costly promise that will moulder on paper, unless these local grievances are tackled and the security situation stabilized so that the insurgents will no longer be free to attack. The chief planner of the present round of violence seems to be the NSCN-K-YA group whose resurrection has shocked the Indian intelligence agencies.
After being believed to have been mortally crippled by internal divisions and the loss of its founding leader S.S. Khaplang, the group has recovered and now sports a deadly transnational operating ability. This branch of the NSCN unlike the other factions has out rightly denied all proposals of ceasefire and is not ready to negotiate with either the central or state governments. Based in its hideouts in the Sagaing region of Myanmar, a lawless area where the Myanmar military junta has lost authority, the NSCN-K-YA raids into Indian territory, attacks patrols, ambushes and disappears into the jungle before Indian reinforcements can arrive.
There are intelligence indications that this outfit has acquired new supplies of arms, possibly shipped in by Chinese or Southeast Asian routes, including modern assault rifles, explosives and communications equipment. Their end-game is obvious: to bleed Indian forces, wear down their morale and compel New Delhi to make political acquisitions concerning the alleged sovereignty of Naga people. In the meantime, frustrated in their inability to re-establish control and desperate to do something, part of the Indian military has reportedly gone on the heavy, handed tactics side, extrajudicial killings of civilians suspected of supporting insurgents.
These abuses, should they be true, will most likely fan the local hatred, recruit more people to join the rebels and entrench the cycle of violence that India can least afford in this volatile region. The collapse of the Myanmar government into civil war and chaos after the 2021 military coup makes the whole crisis quite peculiar and dangerous. An unwilling, yet sometimes willing partner in cross border security operations, the Myanmar state is no longer in effective control of its border areas; whole provinces have become dominated by rebel groups, warlords and ethnic militias.
It is lawlessness which offers perfect cover to Indian insurgents enabling them to establish bases, training camps and weapons store without much chance of being detected or disrupted. So long as Myanmar is fragmented and in an anarchic condition, there will be no way to fence or military action by the Indians to secure the 1,643-kilometer-long border. Moreover, the fact that the northeast insurgents of India are increasingly coordinating with the Myanmar People Defence Force fighters point to the possibility of a convergence of the revolutionary movements- a terrifying idea as it will bring vitality to the insurgency by internationalizing it into a plagued conflict.
The north-eastern frontier of India with Myanmar is no more a silent backwater or a forgotten counterinsurgency theatre, it is now a new battleground in India’s long-standing quest to guard its expansive and porous borders. The trend of ambushes, loss of life to the Indian army (perhaps going unreported) and rebel victories all indicate tendency to lead to a long-drawn-out guerrilla war unless something radical is done to change the situation. New Delhi needs to quickly employ a policy of truth, transparency, and intelligent use of force, should it want to avert another Kashmir-like quagmire in the eastern border. Barren consolations, camouflaged casualty rolls and postponed promises of infrastructure will further crisis.
The only way ahead is to be clear-eyed about the problem and swift to implement security improvements and honest political engagement with local populations. Otherwise, the woods of Arunachal, Manipur, Nagaland, and Mizoram will turn into the cemetery of even more young Indian soldiers and a new episode in the history of never-ending border conflicts will be added to the Indian national history.
