When the ethnic conflict in Manipur erupted with devastating force in May 2023, the world's attention quickly polarised around two primary communities: the valley-dominant Meitei (predominantly Hindu) and the hill-dwelling Kuki-Zo (predominantly Christian). Villages burned, thousands were displaced, and the fault lines of ethnicity, religion, and land rights tore open the social fabric of one of India's most culturally layered states. Yet in the architecture of this tragedy, one community has remained persistently invisible - the Pangal, the Muslim of Manipur. The Pangal occupy a paradoxical position in the ongoing crisis. Ethnically, linguistically, and culturally bound to Manipur, they share the valley, the mother tongue, and many of the social customs of their Hindu counterparts. And yet, as Muslims, they are viewed with suspicion by segments of their own ethnic community, while remaining outside the fold of solidarity extended to Kuki or Naga. They belong everywhere and nowhere - a community whose very existence complicates the neat binaries that partisan narratives of the Manipur crisis prefer. This paper seeks to examine the distinct vulnerabilities, political marginalisations, and quiet acts of survival that define the Pangal experience within the current conflict. It argues that understanding their position is not peripheral but essential to any honest reckoning with the deeper crisis of belonging, citizenship, and pluralism in Manipur.
