From protection to punishment: Rethinking PAP in India’s border States

Dr Raj Singh
In December 2024, the Government of India quietly reimposed the Protected Area Permit (PAP) regime on Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram – the states where the requirement had been lifted since 2011. Officially, the decision was rooted in national security concerns. Unofficially, it has opened a Pandora’s box of confusion, inconvenience and unintended isolation. What is obvious is the government’s sovereign right to regulate foreign entry. What is less obvious, and far more damaging, is how poor administration and inter-agency disconnect have turned a security instrument into a developmental impediment.
The Obvious: Security, Sovereignty, and the State’s Right
No Nation compromises on border security. The PAP, originating in the post-Independence era, was designed to regulate foreign access to sensitive frontier regions – the areas marked by international borders, insurgencies, ethnic complexity and fragile ecosystems. From this perspective, the government’s logic is defensible. The Northeast shares long and porous borders with multiple countries, and periods of instability have periodically necessitated tighter oversight.
Seen narrowly, the reimposition of PAP is an assertion of sovereignty. It signals that the Indian State retains the right to decide who enters, where, and under what conditions. In an age of global insecurity, this is neither unusual nor unreasonable. Many countries operate similar regimes for borderlands and indigenous territories. But governance is not merely about what the state does; it is equally about how it does it.
The Less Obvious: Administrative Chaos Masquerading as Policy
The real crisis triggered by PAP is not the restriction itself, but its ill administration. Today, foreign travellers, especially diaspora populations from Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram holding foreign passports, find themselves trapped in a bureaucratic maze that defies logic.
There is no single, authoritative source of updated information on PAP. Websites of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs, Indian Missions abroad, State Governments and FRRO authorities either remain silent, outdated, or contradictory. As a result, travellers plan journeys based on incomplete or obsolete information, only to be stopped at Indian airports.
The contradictions deepen. The FRRO portal, the sole official platform for PAP application, cannot be accessed from many foreign countries. Yet applicants are told they can apply “only after arriving in India,” while simultaneously being instructed to apply “15 days before entering the protected States.” This is not merely inconvenient; it is administratively absurd. Compliance becomes impossible by design.
Add to this the compulsory minimum group requirement (a group of no less than two travellers), which bars individual travellers, elderly parents, widowed relatives, researchers, or solo diaspora members from applying at all. A Manipuri living in Canada who wants to attend a parent’s funeral, or a Mizo missionary returning home briefly, is treated on par with a leisure tourist, and often worse.
Airports as the New PAP Offices
The predictable outcome of this incoherence is chaos at airports. With the Central Government largely unresponsive, state officials and immigration staff are forced into ad-hoc crisis management. Tired travellers, after transcontinental flights, are made to sit for hours inside immigration halls while officials help them fill out online forms that should never have been inaccessible in the first place. Hosts wait outside terminals, anxious and helpless.
This is governance by improvisation. It burdens frontline officials, humiliates visitors, and quietly damages India’s reputation as a country that values its diaspora.
Diaspora: The Invisible Casualty
Perhaps the most overlooked victims of this policy are the diaspora communities from these States. Over the last four decades, thousands from Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram have settled abroad as professionals, academics, caregivers, missionaries and entrepreneurs. They remit money, fund schools, sponsor students, and return periodically to sustain cultural and emotional ties.
For them, PAP is not a tourism regulation; it is a barrier to belonging. When such visitors are made to feel unwelcome, the message is unmistakable: your contribution is valued, but your presence is suspect.
This has long-term consequences. Diaspora engagement is a proven driver of development - knowledge transfer, philanthropy, and global networks. India celebrates the “Pravasi Bharatiya Divas” every year for the same reason. A poorly administered PAP regime risks cutting these States off from precisely the global connections they need most. Diaspora visitors deserve a separate and simplified category, distinct from tourist groups.
Economic and Knowledge Blackout
Tourism, academic exchange, cultural festivals, research collaborations - these thrive on ease of movement. Nagaland’s international festivals, Mizoram’s faith-based networks, Manipur’s cultural and sporting exchanges all depend on foreign participation. The current PAP regime sends a chilling signal: visiting these states is risky, unpredictable, and bureaucratically hazardous.
In an era where connectivity defines growth, such isolation amounts to an economic, social and knowledge blackout. Poor states risk becoming poorer, not because of security threats, but because of administrative inertia.
Beyond the Obvious: The Governance Failure
The deeper issue here is inter-departmental disconnect. The Home Ministry frames policy. The External Affairs Ministry runs Indian Missions abroad. FRRO manages digital platforms. State Governments handle ground realities. Yet these arms of the state function in silos, leaving travellers to bridge the gaps.
Good governance demands coordination. Security policy cannot be executed in isolation from mobility, diaspora policy, tourism strategy, and digital governance. When these conversations do not happen, citizens and visitors pay the price.
Remedial Actions: From Control to Coordination
The solution may not lie in scrapping PAP altogether, but in reforming its administration:
1. Allow PAP applications from outside India, including through Indian Missions abroad.
2. Enable global access to the FRRO portal, aligning it with the reality of international travel.
3. Create a separate, simplified PAP category for diaspora visitors, distinct from tourist groups.
4. Relax or remove the minimum group requirement, especially for family, cultural and academic visits.
5. Issue uniform, updated guidelines across MHA, MEA, FRRO and State Government platforms.
6. Establish a single-window coordination mechanism to prevent airport-level ad-hocism.
Security and compassion are not mutually exclusive. In fact, humane administration strengthens security by building trust.
The Real Question
The question before the Government is not whether PAP should exist, but what kind of Nation India wishes to be. One that guards its borders while honouring its people, at home and abroad? Or one that allows bureaucratic blind spots to undermine its own developmental aspirations? Beyond the obvious lies a simple truth: policies fail not only because they are wrong, but because they are poorly thought through. The PAP regime, as currently administered, is less a shield and more a straitjacket.
If India truly believes in engaging its peripheries, empowering its diaspora, and integrating the Northeast into global flows of ideas and opportunity, then PAP must be reimagined, if not abandoned - humanized.