Students in Delhi and Mumbai, from India’s eight north-eastern states, have organised donation drives for those affected by violent clashes that have rocked the north-eastern state of Manipur.
The students, who are organising under the umbrella of the Northeast Students’ Forum (NESF), include those who come from the Kuki and Meitei communities in Manipur. The groups are at loggerheads over the majority Meitei community’s bid for official tribal status that would allow them to settle in traditional tribal lands.
Reports say at least 60 people have been killed and 35,000 people displaced in the ongoing violence.
Students at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai held a candlelit vigil for the dead and to raise awareness about the Manipur clashes. They collected donations online which were given to The Rural Women Upliftment Society which will provide relief materials and food, specifically to women, lactating mothers, and children.
Ronica Vungmuankim, a Kuki doctoral student at TISS and NESF member said: “I would very much like to do the relief work, but I can’t go home. So, the only way we don’t feel so helpless, sitting hundreds of kilometres away from home is by helping in raising funds, the amount does not matter, at least we’re doing something, to give back to our communities.”
Meanwhile, NESF members at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi set up donation booths on campus, covered in posters and photos showing aid camps and the evacuation of Manipuri residents. The money collected was donated to four relief camps in Manipur.
Yari Nayam, a research scholar at JNU and the convenor of the university’s NESF JNU said: “We didn’t want to help only one community, because both are affected, and we want to continue to help everyone as much as we can.”
The violence erupted on 3rd May following a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’’ against the Meitei’s quest to gain legal Scheduled Tribe status, which they say would help them preserve their land and culture. Members of Manipur’s hill-tribes believe such a status would give the majority Meitei community more power and dominance than they already have in the state.
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