“Of course she won the bout,” said Ms. Kom, in a hotel suite not far from the presidential palace in New Delhi, asserting that the referee cheated, wanting to advance a Korean candidate to the finals. “We are always facing the same problems. Sarita was facing internationally. I was facing nationally.”

Some say Ms. Kom has used her grievances to her advantage, and they have certainly added color to her underdog story. But they have also isolated her, limiting her impact on India’s sporting culture.

“What is the use having a women’s boxer like Mary Kom?” said S. Sabanayakan, a sportswriter who has followed Ms. Kom’s career. “I hardly see Mary Kom talking to other boxers, giving tips. She only wants to be Mary Kom. Mary Kom is an iconic figure in Indian women’s boxing. Why can’t she motivate all the boxers in India? Why only Manipur?”

The Indian Boxing Federation suspended Ms. Kom for unsportsmanlike conduct in 2009, after a tied bout was awarded to her opponent, Pinky Jangra, from the north Indian state of Haryana. Ms. Kom used “foul language” with the judges. She lost to Ms. Jangra again in 2014, in a qualifier for the Commonwealth Games.

Her opponent, she said, had “never, ever beaten me. But the referees don’t favor me, they don’t give any points to me.”

Ms. Kom added, “In India, there is this problem facing most of the boxers from the Northeast.”

INDIA has struggled to contain multiple insurgencies within its cluster of northeastern states, thinly tied to the mainland by a 14-mile stretch of land in West Bengal. Most of the states are dominated by tribal populations with ethnic ties to their Southeast Asian neighbors. When they come to Delhi or Bangalore for school or work, many complain of discrimination.

Ms. Kom is no exception. On a Sunday several years ago, Ms. Kom was walking to church in a South Delhi neighborhood with friends, all Koms. A bus pulled up beside them, and the conductor called them Nepalis, implying, she said, that they were part of a migrant servant class. She does not remember who threw the first punch, but before she knew it, her male friends were fighting with passengers, while others fled.