In this third and final part of the series, we focus on the serious issue of the normalisation of military-grade weapons in the day-to-day civic life of Manipur and Mizoram and a separate Christian Nation in-the-making. It is very difficult to identify, trace and locate the criminals involved in arms smuggling, due to tacit non-compliance of the public and shielded as they are by corrupt local politicians, bureaucrats, top insurgent leaders, and security personnel. A study conducted by ground activist Vladimir Adityanath in collaboration with Hindu Voice had identified at least 8-9 suspected independent weapons contractors along the Indo-Myanmar border, besides missionary agents and other criminal gangs. The same study had also listed the names of a few Eastern European operatives, combat veterans, and drone specialists who were supposedly working alongside a major training camp opposite the border town of Champhai in Mizoram.

They were allegedly providing training in FPV kamikaze drone operations, improvised aerial payloads, sniping techniques, advanced military technology transfer, etc. to anti-Junta forces in Myanmar’s Chin State near the Mizoram border. Camp Victoria, located across the Tiau River near Champhai, has emerged as one such reported training site. Despite heightened surveillance, key corridors along the mountainous India-Myanmar frontier continue to facilitate the movement of arms into the North-East, and Manipur in particular. The end-goal is both political and ethno-religious, i.e. to prepare a covert army for initiating regime change in Naypyidaw and Yangon, and later establish an American base in and around the North-East to not only counter Chinese influence in Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal but also ensure that China doesn’t find an axis to the Indian Ocean.

The end-goal is to exploit the region’s massive human (market) and natural resources at the optimum possible level. For this purpose, Christian missionaries first built a system in collaboration with the deep state, involving militant elements supported by powerful US Baptist networks. After this, they train the different terror groups of the region in drone warfare and other military techniques, to trigger large-scale, structured violence on the North-Eastern borders. This would eventually speed up the process of carving out a ‘Unified Christian Nation’ (KukiLand, Zale’n-gam, Greater Mizoram, ZoLand, etc.) from the Christian-dominated states of the North-East, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. During his visit to Indianapolis and Maryland in September 2024, Chief Minister Lalduhoma had himself called for the unification of the Zo people under one administrative unit.^[1]

Lalduhoma had also advocated for a separate Christian nation with the help of America. The fact that the Kuki-Zo diaspora is vocal in the US adds a lobbying dimension to the issue. Other Mizo politicians like Julie Lalruatfeli (Mafeli) Hlawndo, daughter of Rev. Zaichhawna Hlawndo, have repeatedly talked about the “Kuki-Chin-Mizos” being one people and sharing a common “Kuki Ancestry” or Zofate/Zoland. In order to prove the so-called “historicity” of their fictitious claims and origins of the Zo tribes, their culture and traditions, evolution of their languages and the impact of Christianity on their social structures, a book titled Zofate Chanchin was published in 1995 by the Myanmar-based Hualngo Literature and Cultural Association.

Lalruatfeli’s father, Hlawndo, a Pastor himself, had left Mizoram in 1988 to work as a preacher. He says that it was in 2012 that he received the ‘message’ from God in Birmingham, where he had been working as a Pastor for 10 years. God, as he says, had instructed him to pave the way for the establishment of their Kingdom, i.e. a Christian Nation for the Kuki-Zo people. It was not Hlawndo alone who received the so-called “God’s message”, his two daughters did too. Accordingly, Lalruatfeli says that the creation of a “God’s Chosen Nation” or “God’s Own Kingdom” is justified only then they can freely worship Christ.^[2] The speech (available on YouTube) she delivered on September 13, 2023, may be referred to for this purpose.

In her speech, Lalruatfeli can be seen to clearly indicate that this ‘Nation for Christ’ shall neither coexist with nor respect the religious freedoms and human rights of non-Christians. Chin-Kuki militant outfits and reunification groups have been organised for several decades and their singular aim is to carve out a Kukiland/Zale’n-gam from parts of India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar via illegal immigration and demographic engineering. Many such groups are active in social media and consist of members from across the three countries (pictures attached below). Their meetings are generally held in Churches where people holding positions of power and authority such as Chiefs and pastors, provoke members of these tribes while promising their dream of the establishment of a separate Kukiland. This vision challenges India’s territorial sovereignty and federal structure.

A Report published in Deccan Herald on July 14, 2023, had claimed that Western intelligence agencies based in Thailand have kick-started a full-fledged guerrilla war against the Junta regime in Myanmar by training their cadres, supplying funds and weaponry, and rendering operational advice to the insurgents.^[3] It was also reported that several Western nations, including the United States and Great Britain, are conspiring to create a Christian state in the North-East, by taking in different areas of Bangladesh, Myanmar, and even India. To fulfil this notorious agenda, they have secretly joined hands with various Bangladesh-based Kuki militant groups and top militant leaders of the North-East. The fact that the US wants to use Bangladesh as a playground for dominating India by establishing a naval base or airbase in Bangladeshi soil is no more a secret.

In 2003, then-US Ambassador Mary Ann Peters ruled out media speculation that Washington was desperate to lease a military base from Dhaka to station its forces somewhere between the Far and Middle East.^[4] China remains wary of any ethnic consolidation near its borders. Beijing’s strategy is dual-track – maintaining ties with the Myanmar Junta while simultaneously engaging with ethnic armed groups like the Arakan Army or Wa State, to protect its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments. While China’s role in stoking insurgencies in the North-East has been rightly called out, the role of the US-backed evangelical Churches and the American deep state has not received enough attention from Indian think-tanks and policy makers. Mostly, it has been sidelined or not given adequate importance.

For several years, Christian missionaries, in collaboration with Western NGOs, have been secretly working in the border areas of Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar, such as Teknaf, Khagrachhari, Rangamati, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arakan Province, etc.^[5] Their objective is to convert the local Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and ethnic minorities into Christianity to prepare the ground for a Christian state comprising lands belonging to Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar. Christian missionary publications have been carrying out a well-orchestrated propaganda campaign peddling false narratives of “Christian persecution” in these areas. They even attempt to connect the tribal population of Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar by stating that the “Chin-Kuki-Mizos” are a Mongol people, and today “they speak related but distinct Tibeto-Burman languages.”

A country with abundant natural reserves of gas and rare earth metals, Myanmar is a part of one of the corridors of the Chinese New Silk Route. It is an absolutely important strategic location for China and the entire zone of ASEAN countries as a whole. For long, the US has been trying to follow a policy of ‘divide-and-rule’ amidst the raging civil war in Myanmar, with the long-term objective of creating a situation of total destabilisation in not only Yangon but also the rest of ASEAN and North-East India. The Government of India has also invested in important infrastructure projects in Myanmar. An example here may be cited of the India-Myanmar-Thailand (IMT) Trilateral Highway – a 1,360 km strategic road project connecting Manipur’s border township of Moreh to Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar. It is meant to serve as India’s land corridor to Southeast Asia.

Clearly, Pakistan and China are not the only threats to India’s national security. If we still think so, we are living in a geopolitical illusion. If Western powers can destabilise Myanmar through a well-orchestrated plan, they can eventually cut off an important trade route for Chinese and Indians alike. Unfortunately, discussions on the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor – a proposed road, rail, water, and air link connecting India and China through Myanmar and Bangladesh as a corridor and a part of the original Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China launched in 2013, are not heard anymore. It is because for the moment, everything is stalled. Upon completion, it would have been a fantastic initiative to unite two BRICS countries on the same strategic Corridor, i.e. India and China, on the one hand, and Bangladesh on the other.

Myanmar, among all, stood to economically profit the most from the BCIM Economic Corridor. Obviously, therefore, this is one of the key unstated goals of the West – to ensure by all means possible that the Corridor is sabotaged and never built at all. This is certainly not an internal domestic conflict, but a sophisticated foreign-backed and foreign-funded proxy war to destabilise Bharat that warrants a detailed investigation by our security agencies. Foreign operatives are secretly funding insurgencies right inside our borders. Can anything be more dangerous than this?  But what we are seeing at present is only the extremist elements, only a microscopic minority that have been arrested. They are only one form of a very deep, well-entrenched and well-developed ecosystem controlled from the West that has its own proxies within local Church denominations in the North-East.

The Churches have often been accused of peddling the agenda of the West, with the sole objective of “Soul Harvesting” and committing mass genocides of non-believers. However, the rot is far deeper because it is no longer simply an American issue. America is the puppet-master, and at least 70 per cent of the Western nations are its puppets. Of late, there has been a wide dispersion of Western people coming into Bangladesh and Myanmar. In Bangladesh, they are trying to secure a foothold through official agencies and in Myanmar, there are strong indications of active US involvement in the civil war. Many areas of Bangladesh, such as Cox’s Bazaar, have an infamous history of serving as a training ground with embedded infrastructure for different armed militias of the North-East. They are many evidences on this.

Western secret operatives are now using a two-front axis – one in the Chittagong Hills Tracts (CHT) area of Bangladesh, where they are trying to establish their foothold via Islamic radicalisation by putting pressure on various tribal groups, such as the Parbattya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti, Shanti Bahini, etc. to Islamise. In such a scenario, Chakmas and other tribes are slowly losing their land, rights and identity, facilitating the way for Islamists to create further instability in the North-Eastern borders. The second axis is through Myanmar. Recently, terror attacks and other forms of violence in the regions controlled by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) have shot up drastically. In fact, Hindu Voice and Parbattya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti had prepared a detailed report on the same, documenting over 200 atrocities such as fake cases, custodial deaths, etc.^[6]

The trend of America using secret operatives in North-Eastern India and across the borders of Bangladesh and Myanmar to secure its geopolitical interests is not new. The case of Matthew VanDyke should not be seen in isolation; it rather serves as a warning against continuous foreign interference and intelligence-linked networks in a region as sensitive as the North-East. The digital footprints of people like VanDyke need to be mapped so that local facilitators in Assam and Mizoram, who play a key role in providing logistical support, can be traced and identified. We should not forget that VanDyke and his team could be caught by the Indian authorities only when they were trying to cross the international border. But they had entered India much earlier. What have they actually been doing?

It means foreigners can enter, operate, and stay in the country very easily since there is no active internal monitoring, checking or geo-tagging of foreigners who arrive on tourist visas, especially in border regions like the North-East. The fact that many Evangelical Baptist Church denominations in the North-East are headquartered in the USA and receive funding from American organisations cannot be ignored. Numerous allegations have been repeatedly raised against the Church and its role in funding conversions and militant activities in the North-East, using the region and its people as geopolitical pawns. Therefore, several uncomfortable questions are bound to arise, reflecting on the Government’s role. India can no longer afford to be complacent about the problem. Decisive action must be taken now.

Special permits must be issued to foreigners visiting the North-East. If possible, their visit to the region, especially the remote border regions, should be made difficult for some time, if not completely impossible. When they visit, they need to be subjected to heavy surveillance. Any foreigner, whether posing as a journalist, filmmaker or activist, found loitering anywhere in the region should be dealt with strictly by the internal law enforcement agencies concerned. After all, their presence in the region poses a proxy threat that demands a resolute, unified response to dismantle criminal and insurgent networks operating in the region. The Indian government should have a comprehensive national registry of foreigners entering the country to continuously monitor their activities.  

At the same time, the entire Inner Line Permit (ILP) system requires a thorough overhaul. This needs to be accompanied by stronger border controls, heightened vigilance, counter-drone technologies, intelligence on mercenary flows, and diplomatic pressure, which is essential since geopolitical competition is increasingly intersecting with regional security dynamics. At the same time, the history of separatism in the North-East and who initially funded it all, beginning with the days of Phizo in Nagaland, should be made popular through state-backed awareness campaigns. Anyone who thinks separatist sentiments in the North-East have died down needs to reconsider their opinion on the subject. Instead of armed conflicts, militants are pursuing their agenda through political manoeuvres, with the Church playing a key role in this dangerous cocktail of drugs, conversions, and arms.