An apex body of Manipur Nagas has stuck to its decision to enforce an indefinite ‘trade embargo’ across all Naga-majority areas of the State from September 8, 2025 midnight, less than a week after the Centre announced the “reopening” of a crucial national highway.
The United Naga Council (UNC) had announced the ‘trade embargo’, expected to affect all forms of trade and transportation of goods, after a meeting between its team and officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs on August 26, 2025 was inconclusive. The meeting was on the twin issues of the Centre’s move to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR), and fence the 1,643-km India-Myanmar border.
The FMR, agreed between India and Myanmar, allows transboundary movement of residents within a certain distance from the line dividing the two countries. India unilaterally reduced the free travel distance from 16 km to 10 km less than a year ago.
The UNC is opposed to the border fencing as Nagas believe the boundary was imposed by the British to divide the Naga homeland straddling Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Nagaland, and Myanmar’s Sagaing Division. It claims that the Naga territory extends up to the Chindwin river in Myanmar.
“The trade embargo to protest the Centre’s rigidity on the twin issues will be in force until further notice,” a UNC leader said, declining to be named.
