On February 27 this year, K Vanlalhvena, a Mizo National Front (MNF) Rajya Sabha MP, had breakfast at Farkawn, a Mizo village close to the Myanmar border. He then crossed the Tiau river, through which runs the India-Myanmar border, and soon entered Chin State.
Across the border on Myanmar territory, Vanlalhvena was welcomed by a team of armed Chin National Front men, who led him to a community hall in the town of Chinlung, where some senior representatives of the Chinland Council, a ‘General’ and ‘three to four ministers’ met and garlanded him.
After an hour-long speech, Vanlalhvena met CNF fighters at Chinlung which, the MNF MP said, was built after the February 2021 coup d’etat by the Myanmar military junta who deposed democratically elected members of the then-ruling National League for Democracy.
“I was escorted to the CNF headquarters and Victoria training camp, a technical unit, schools and churches and hospitals,” Vanlalhvena told Northeast News over the phone as he described his attempt to “invite the Chinland Council and its military wing, the CNF, to join the Indian Union”.
This was not Vanlalhvena’s first border crossing into Myanmar. In 2024, he secretly travelled to Myanmar’s Rakhine State where he engaged with the Arakan Army, which is now in full control of the region, barring three townships, including the strategically and economically important Kyaukpyu.
Vanlalhvena’s revelations come at a time when the Union Home Ministry is exercised over reports of attempts by certain “external forces” to carve out a separate Christian homeland for populations who follow this religious persuasion in Chin State, Mizoram, and Bangladesh.
Recently, Union Home Minister Amit Shah was in Mizoram where he met with MNF representatives as well as senior Indian security officials.
The MNF Rajya Sabha MP said that some Arakan Army men, including a few “leaders” of this outfit, have been “living in Aizawl for the past three years”.
After addressing about 100 CNF fighters and the Chinland Council ministers at Chinlung, Vanlalhvena was served lunch where he offered the hosts a proposal to join the Indian Union as the military junta “never quite liked the Chin people”.
However, Vanlalhvena sensed that “they were afraid and apprehensive about joining the Indian Union since the CNF was part of the National Unity Government that is among several insurgent groups that are fighting the Myanmar military junta.
Vanlalhvena then left the Chinlung community hall to deliberate with insurgents belonging to the Hualngo Army whose men also belong to the larger “Mizo tribe”.
“I also offered them the proposal to join the Indian Union and they seemed to be agreeable,” Vanlalhvena said.
He said that 18 armed groups operate in Chin State and “more than half of them want to join the Indian Union”. Besides, at least “nine to ten armed outfits under the Chin Brotherhood operate in the Chin State,” the MNF MP said, adding that “seven groups under the Chinland Council are hesitating to join the Indian Union.”
The insurgent groups in southern Chin State have been collaborating with the Arakan Army.
When asked whether he had kept North Block informed of his efforts to engage with the rebel groups in Myanmar’s Chin State, Vanlalhvena said “I don’t know about MHA.”
Vanlalhvena’s plan now is to visit the Rakhine State to continue his engagement with the Arakan Army “after the budget session of Parliament ends”.
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He said, “Last night (March 17) I spoke over the phone with some Arakan Army representatives who are my friends, and I told them my intent to visit their camps in the Rakhine State.”
