Kuki National Organisation spokesperson removed from DU Lit Fest panel 

Seilen Haokip of the Kuki National Organisation. Photo: Special Arrangement

Seilen Haokip, spokesperson of the Kuki National Organisation (KNO), was removed from a panel at the Delhi University Literature Festival (DULF) that he had been invited to on Sunday, the third day of the festival, which is being held at SRCC in New Delhi. He said he was asked to leave 15 minutes before the panel was scheduled to begin, after being informed that his participation had been “politicised”.

Kuki National Organisation is part of the umbrella groups of Kuki-Zo insurgent groups that are in a Suspension of Operation pact with the Centre.

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Mr. Haokip received an invite signed by Festival Director Swapan Dasgupta on January 15, asking him to be a part of a panel discussion titled ‘The Great Game East: The Northeast Cauldron’ at the Delhi University Literature Festival 2025.

Mr. Haokip told The Hindu that he flew to Delhi from Aizawl on February 20 as per the travel that had been arranged for him by the organisers. “After I arrived at the venue in SRCC, we were mingling with the other guests on the panel when I was informed.”

He said, “I was politely pulled out of the room by moderator Shiv Kunal Verma and asked to step out. He said, ‘The whole matter has been politicised. It has gone out of hand. We don’t want DU Literary Festival to get a bad name.”

“I said I didn’t want to impose if they wanted me to leave. So I left then,” he added.

Officiated by the university and run by its students and alumni under the leadership of Mr. Dasgupta, former Rajya Sabha member and BJP leader, and writer and economist, Sanjeev Sanyal, the festival is one of the largest student-run literature festivals. The festival featured a lineup of speakers that included Union Ministers S. Jaishanker, Hardeep Singh Puri, Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Mizoram Governor V.K. Singh, former ministers, bureaucrats, journalists, and lawyers.

Mr. Dasgupta did not respond to The Hindu’s questions regarding the matter. A university official on Sunday evening said the matter had not reached the administration yet. The organisers too did not comment when reached.

Initial schedule

In the initial festival schedule, Mr. Haokip was scheduled to speak with two other speakers and the moderator from 1 p.m. to 1.50 p.m. on Sunday, the third day of the event. However, the schedule posted on social media by the organisers on Sunday had omitted his name from the panel.

Mr. Haokip said that days before coming to Delhi, he was informed that the posters for his panel had disappeared in places. When he reached out to the organisers, he didn’t hear from them and proceeded to Delhi as scheduled, he added.

Mr. Haokip said he was aware of opposition to his participation in the panel. “Imphal-based COCOMI was raising hue and cry about it. But my point is that I represent a political organisation that is in political talks with the Centre, unlike the valley-based groups which don’t engage with the government,” he said.

Writer Shiv Kunal Verma, the moderator of the event, said the decision to remove Mr. Haokip was his own and absolved the university of any responsibility, adding that the last-minute notification was a result of “miscommunication”.

Mr. Verma said, “I had decided to remove him because he was trying to hijack the conversation”. He explained that the talk was not intended to be just about a Kuki-Meitei confrontation.

He said that this was where the conversation was seemingly headed after social media users started framing the panel as one where “one Kuki” was being “pitted” against hostile parties.

Mr. Verma insisted that while agitation had broken out on campus over Mr. Haokip’s presence on the panel, “the decision was taken solely by me even before the controversy [over his presence] erupted.”