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New Delhi: In the dim glow of a single string of fairy lights strung across a cramped apartment in Delhi, Mary (32, name changed) sometimes breaks down recalling how she used to celebrate Christmas with her family back home in Manipur.

It’s December 24 and outside, the city pulses with the joy of the season, with carols blaring from passing cars, families bundled in shawls hurrying towards church and vendors hawking glowing Santa Claus hats under neon-lit malls. But inside Mary’s rented space, shared with her two younger brothers, the mood is of quiet endurance.

A small Christmas tree, bought from a roadside stall, leans precariously against the wall, its branches adorned with a handful of ornaments. No bonfire crackles in the courtyard, no chorus of carols rises from the neighbourhood. Just the occasional ping of a WhatsApp message from relatives scattered across relief camps and distant cities.

Mary glances at the messages on her phone, marking the third Christmas since the night that shattered her world. “In Manipur, it was a feast for the soul,” she says. “The whole community would gather, singing under the stars, dancing around fires that lit up the hills like beacons. We’d feast till dawn, laughing over plates of delicious food. Now, this is survival, not celebration.”

John’s (30, name changed) ritual mirrors Mary’s. He lives in Delhi with his younger brother and their Christmas is a phone call to parents in a remote Manipur village interrupted by a spotty network, and a shared prayer for peace that feels as distant as the air of Churachandpur.

This is the fractured reality of thousands of Kuki-Zo survivors like Mary and John, exiled in India’s capital and several other states after ethnic violence tore through Manipur in May 2023. What began as a protest over land rights and tribal status has morphed into a festering wound, claiming over 260 lives, displacing more than 60,000 people and carving buffer zones through once-integrated neighbourhoods.

For the Kuki community that is predominantly Christian and hill-dwelling, the clashes with the Imphal valley-based Meitei majority have not just destroyed homes but eroded the very fabric of trust, belonging and festivity. Christmas, a cornerstone of Kuki culture blending colonial legacies with indigenous revelry, now evokes ghosts of feasts past.

Can words mend what mobs and indifference have broken? For Mary and John, the answer is etched in their refusal to return, even on this holiest of days. Photo: Syed Abubakr.

As President Droupadi Murmu concluded a two-day visit to the state just two weeks ago, paying homage to women warriors at the Nupi Lan Memorial amid a shutdown by civil groups, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his long-delayed first trip in September – over two years after the ethnic violence began – urging ‘healing’ and........

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