More than four-and-a-half years after Myanmar’s February 2021 coup, violence shows no sign of abating. Over 83,000 people have fled into neighboring India, mostly to Mizoram State, where displacement intersects with deep historical, cultural, and political ties. While local solidarity has allowed refugees to survive, shrinking resources and fractured resistance politics increasingly determine who receives support and who is left behind. This highlights not only the fragility of borderland humanitarianism, but also how Myanmar’s crisis reverberates into one of South Asia’s most at-risk frontiers.
Displacement in a Borderland Context
The India-Myanmar borderlands are home to communities divided by colonial-era boundaries but united by kinship, language, and faith. Mizos in India and Chins in Myanmar share long-standing ties, making Mizoram a natural refuge when conflict escalates across the frontier. After the coup, churches and local civil society groups mobilized quickly to provide food, housing, and schooling for the displaced.
For decades, the Free Movement Regime (FMR) acknowledged these cross-border ties by allowing residents living within 16 kilometers of the boundary to travel freely for up to two weeks without a visa. The arrangement reflected the reality that the border cut through historically continuous communities. Yet the space for such movement is shrinking. The FMR has already been suspended in Manipur and Nagaland amid security concerns, and New Delhi faces growing pressure to tighten controls in Mizoram as well. While Mizoram’s government has resisted, citing its ethnic and cultural links with Chin refugees, the trend is clear: state security priorities are increasingly overriding borderland solidarities.
These restrictions compound the vulnerabilities of displaced populations. India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and offers no legal protection to those fleeing Myanmar. As a result, refugees exist in a precarious gray zone – tolerated but not recognized, reliant on overstretched local actors, and caught between India’s domestic politics and Myanmar’s internal conflicts. The narrowing of the FMR illustrates how postcolonial borders, once softened by kinship networks and historical continuity, are being reinforced in ways that undermine both community resilience and humanitarian response.
A border crossing bridge connecting Myanmar and India, photographed from the Myanmar side. Resistance forces took full control in 2023 after driving SAC troops away. Photo by Yan Naing Aung.
A Shrinking Humanitarian Space
India’s regulatory framework constrains external assistance. The Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) tightly controls foreign NGO activity, restricting international aid flows. Since the Zoram People’s Movement took office in Mizoram in December 2023, policies have increasingly emphasized border security and alignment with the federal government in New Delhi.
At the same time, humanitarian budgets are shrinking. U.S. funding cuts in 2024 suspended $39 million in aid for Myanmar, exacerbating resource shortages across the borderlands. For displaced populations in Mizoram, this has meant dwindling rations, overcrowded shelters, and reduced access to education and healthcare. Local willingness to help remains strong, but with limited means, aid often becomes selective.
Resistance Politics and Humanitarian Fragmentation
Humanitarian assistance in Mizoram is not only under-resourced, it is also fractured along political lines. Chin politics has long been shaped by internal factionalism and shifting alliances, a pattern that has intensified since the coup. Today, more than 20 Chin armed groups operate in Myanmar’s northwest, many formed in the aftermath of the 2021 military takeover. The result is a complex web of loyalties and rivalries that reverberates into aid delivery.
The most significant fault line lies between the Chinland Council, led by the Chin National Front (CNF) and its armed wing, the Chin National Army (CNA), and the Chin Brotherhood, a coalition of six resistance groups aligned with the Interim Chin National Consultative Council (ICNCC). The ICNCC was initially established in 2021 to unite CNF/A leaders, elected representatives from the 2020 polls, and civil society actors. Yet ideological divisions soon surfaced: federalists clashed with those pressing for greater Chin autonomy. The CNF/A ultimately withdrew from the INCC, forming the Chinland Council, which pursued a unilateral Chinland Constitution and sought to consolidate political authority. In response, the Chin Brotherhood emerged as a counterweight, building alliances with local defense forces, including People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) and, in some areas, the Arakan Army (AA).
In February 2025, the Chinland Council and the ICNCC signed an agreement to form a unified administration, the Chin National Council, with a pledge to draft a Chin National Charter. On paper, this appeared a breakthrough. On the ground, however, violence persisted. In July 2025, intra-Chin clashes escalated dramatically: the Chin National Defense Force (CNDF), a founding Brotherhood member, seized Rihkhawdar from the Chin Defense Force-Hualngoram (CDF-H), displacing more than 4,000 civilians into Mizoram. The next day, the CNA retaliated by overrunning the CNDF’s headquarters. For civilians, this meant fleeing not only junta assaults but also fighting between their own ethnic resistance groups.
These political rivalries directly affect humanitarian access. As a camp leader in Lawngtlai district recalled in November 2024:
Before the [ICNCC and Chinland Council] split, the situation was peaceful, and we received regular support from organizations for both education and humanitarian aid. However, since the division, assistance has ceased entirely. I heard that camps supporting the Chinland Council still receive aid, but we have received nothing because this is a Chin Brotherhood-affiliated camp.
His camp of nearly 400 residents reportedly received only one 30-kilogram bag of rice over four months, while around 100 children were denied entry to Chinland Council schools. In practice, humanitarian relief now mirrors political loyalties, with aid channeled along factional lines and vulnerable groups left without support.
Kinship Networks: Strengths and Exclusions
Local humanitarian organizations navigate the highly fragmented landscape, finding creative ways to adapt. Groups such as the Chin Health Organization have responded by developing quiet, localized strategies, partnering with township-level community organizations trusted on the ground. Organizations with stronger cross-border networks or historical ties can attract more international and diaspora support, while smaller or unaffiliated communities rely on overstretched local structures, leaving them particularly vulnerable to shortages in food, shelter, and medical care.
Similarly, with a high proportion of Christians in this region, churches often act as the first responders. Yet non-Christian and less connected ethnicities frequently go without. Support tends to flow to those with established ties, leaving others with far less access, and without transparency or oversight.
Community-driven aid remains the backbone of support in Mizoram. Diaspora remittances, church networks, and volunteer-run groups provide food, shelter, and health services. These structures can act quickly and flexibly, bypassing bureaucratic hurdles that slow international organizations. Yet these same networks also reproduce exclusion. Assistance often flows along ethnic, religious, or political lines, privileging dominant groups while marginalizing others. Non-Christian minorities or politically unaligned refugees frequently find themselves sidelined. Similar dynamics have appeared elsewhere: in South Sudan, for instance, the United Nations withdrawal from Protection of Civilians sites in 2022 left aid distribution to national actors, reinforcing ethnic hierarchies and deepening inequality.
Short-term access through trusted networks can mask deeper exclusion, privileging dominant groups while marginalizing minority or politically unaligned communities. Understanding these dynamics is critical for designing interventions that provide equitable and sustainable support, particularly in a context where formal refugee protections are limited and local networks carry much of the operational responsibility.
A civilian helps another climb out of a bunker after taking shelter during a military aircraft flyover, part of Operation Mindat in Mindat town, Chin. November 2024. Photo by Yan Naing Aung.
Implications for India and the Region
The humanitarian crisis in Mizoram cannot be separated from wider geopolitical currents. For New Delhi, refugee inflows are entangled with concerns about insurgency, security along the Northeast frontier, and relations with Myanmar’s military regime. India’s reluctance to recognize refugees reflects a broader balancing act: supporting democratic forces risks antagonizing the junta, while hardline policies risk alienating Mizoram’s local population.
At the regional level, the crisis underscores ASEAN’s limited leverage over Myanmar’s conflict and China’s growing cross-border influence through infrastructure and security ties. Western disengagement compounds the problem: U.S. aid cuts reflect shifting priorities toward other global crises, reducing external support for Myanmar’s displaced. For India and its neighbors, this creates a volatile mix of local insecurity and diminished humanitarian capacity.
Toward More Equitable Responses
Supporting displaced communities requires more than stopgap relief. Sustainable responses demand long-term international funding, socially aware host policies, and strong coordination between formal humanitarian actors and local networks. Kinship based networks can be effective in getting support to people in need in a timely manner without top-down bureaucracy. However, in Mizoram the humanitarian response must move towards an intersectional, community-driven approach that accounts for political, ethnic, and relational dynamics.
Even without formal refugee recognition in India, several measures are possible: flexible international funding, inclusive state coordination, and monitoring mechanisms. Donors can adapt funding streams to support local actors while ensuring oversight mechanisms prevent politicization of aid. Mizoram authorities can broaden participation in aid planning, incorporating diverse community voices rather than dominant factions alone. Finally, independent monitoring can help ensure aid distribution follows humanitarian need, not political allegiance.
Conclusion
Myanmar’s displaced in Mizoram live in precarity: tolerated but unprotected, supported but selectively. As the crisis drags into its fifth year, the combination of shrinking aid, political fragmentation, and restrictive host policies risks deepening humanitarian inequities.
How India, local actors, and international donors navigate this complex terrain will shape not only the fate of tens of thousands of refugees, but also regional stability in South and Southeast Asia. The coming months will reveal whether fragmented solidarities can be transformed into more sustainable and equitable support or whether Myanmar’s borderland refugees will remain trapped between contested loyalties and dwindling resources.
This article was written by Lotty Clare, with contributions from Yucca Wai, drawing insights from on original research, “Fragmented Aid & Resistance along the India-Myanmar Border,” conducted by Exile Hub, a feminist organization supporting Myanmar human rights defenders.