Through a closely spaced local network of seismic stations in northwestern and northeastern India, supplemented by worldwide P-wave first-motion data, the fault mechanisms of fourteen recent earthquakes (1975–1977) which occurred near the northern boundary of the Indian plate, extending from the Owen Fracture Zone to Burma through the Himalayas, have been determined and their mechanism style discussed in the light of the concept of Himalayan plate tectonics. The new solutions reveal that thrust-type faulting with predominance of pressure axes acting at right angles to the northern boundary of the Indian plate, is more common. In the eastern sector the occurrence of both normal and thrust-type earthquake faulting points out the complexity of deformation in the region. The mechanism style of normal faulting is best explained in terms of lithospheric bending and the strain-ellipsoid concept. Fault mechanism studies are, by and large, consistent with the northward thrusting of the Indian plate. However, orientations of pressure axes, as obtained from present and earlier mechanism solutions, suggest that the dominant northward driving force of the Indian plate is resolved into differential forces in various directions along the Indian-Burmese plate boundary.