DEC 31, 2025 (IMPHAL): As the sun sets on a year etched in both blood and bravery, and the first light of 2026 breaks over our hills and valleys, we do not merely mark a calendar date. We stand at a historic barricade. Our Motherland, a civilisation of millennia, has been scorched by the fires of communal fracture since 2023. Let it be known that Manipur is not a graveyard of dreams, but the cradle of a coming revolution, the President of the All Manipur Students’ Union (AMSU), Bruce Pebam, said in a message to the beloved people of Manipur.
The AMSU, the oldest student body of Manipur, also wished all people, stating, “Let 2026 be the year Manipur chooses Life over Death, Reason over Rage, and Sovereignty over Subservience. Let the tears of our past water the seeds of a relentless, peaceful, and prosperous tomorrow.”
The student body, in the message, also expressed its profound respect for all the innocent souls lost to the flames of ethnic discord. It said that before marching forward, they ground themselves in the soil of their martyrs.
“To the world, they may be statistics, but to us, they are the eternal flame of our conscience. Their sacrifice is a haunting indictment of the status quo and a reminder that the price of political failure is paid in the lives of the people. We do not just mourn them; we carry their unfulfilled aspirations into the heart of our struggle,” the extract from the message said.
True revolution is not found in the deepening of trenches or the echoes of gunfire. The most radical act in a time of hate is the courage to forgive and the will to coexist. Our survival is not a zero-sum game, the AMSU President’s message said.
“The division of our people is a weapon used by those who thrive on our weakness. We will no longer be satisfied with the politics of identity; we demand the politics of development. We, the students, refuse to inherit a fractured legacy. We pledge to be the bridge-builders of a new era. We will dismantle the architecture of prejudice and replace it with the logic of progress and the empathy of brotherhood,” the message said.
