‘We are both victims’: Kuki and Meitei students in Delhi invoke shared Manipuri ties to keep peace

Lhingkhonei Mate, a doctor-in-training at Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, lives in a buzzy students’ enclave on Delhi University’s North Campus. Most of her immediate neighbours are university students from her home state of Manipur. Many of them are from the Meitei community. Mate, 27, is Kuki.

After the two communities violently clashed in Manipur last week, leaving at least 65 people dead, Mate has had to contend with an anxiety that she thought would never bother her in the capital. For a person from the North East, life in Delhi can be tough, but the campus was supposed to be a safe space, filled with people from home.

Feeling the tremors

Indeed, as Manipur was convulsed by violence, the shockwaves seemed to have travelled as far as the capital. Mate referred to an incident from last week when a group of Kuki students at the university were allegedly attacked by some Meiteis. “Students used to go to the central library at night and sometimes return at 3 am,” she said. “But they can’t think of doing that in the current environment.”

It has been an equally distressing time for her Meitei neighbours.

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