Social and Cultural Identities of Lois and Yaithibi in Manipur: A Scheduled Caste of Manipur

Abstract

This article examines the social and cultural identities of the Lois and Yaithibi, two historically marginalized communities associated with the Scheduled Caste population of Manipur. The study asks how historical processes of exclusion, ritual ranking, spatial separation, and religious change shaped the social location of these communities and how they maintained continuity in kinship, ritual, and collective identity. Methodologically, the article adopts a qualitative documentary approach based on historical accounts, monographs, journal articles, census materials, and secondary scholarship on caste, Meitei society, and social exclusion in Manipur. The analysis shows that the Lois and Yaithibi cannot be understood only through the language of deprivation. They were certainly subjected to stigma, unequal incorporation, and forms of symbolic and social distancing, especially after the strengthening of caste boundaries in the valley. At the same time, they sustained resilient institutions of marriage, ritual, religious practice, and community memory. The article argues that the social history of Manipur remains incomplete unless these communities are brought from the margins to the centre of analysis. Their histories illuminate not only caste and exclusion, but also adaptation, resilience, and the cultural persistence of subordinate groups in a region more often discussed through ethnicity and tribe than caste.