As we all celebrate Shapawng Yawng Manau Poi today, I write to you—with longing, with sorrow, and with an unyielding fire that refuses to be extinguished.
How cruel is the fate imposed upon us, that we must seek permission to stand beside our own? How unjust is a world where the Kachin Wunpawng—one blood, one spirit, one family—are divided by lines drawn by outsiders who neither know our history nor respect our unity? Why does a piece of paper called a visa dictate whether I can visit Myitkyina?
But hear me, my brothers and sisters: these borders are not ours. They have never been ours. They were forced upon us, carved into our lands by those who neither saw our past nor cared for our future. The Free Movement Regime (FMR) was the last fragile bridge that allowed us to reach across these imposed barriers, to embrace our kin. And now, even that has been stripped away—severing families, isolating communities, and caging people who were once free.
But we are Kachin! We do not forget. We do not surrender. No law, no government, no foreign decree can erase what is written in our blood. For centuries, our ancestors roamed these mountains and valleys, not as citizens of different states, but as one nation, one people, united under the wisdom of Shapawng Yawng.
And so, I say this with certainty—a day will come when we are whole again. A day will come when no border divides us, when we will walk freely across our ancestral land, not as strangers but as ightful sons and daughters of this land. A day will come when we stand under one flag, one administration, one future—our own.
The world may call us Burmese, Indian, or Chinese. They may try to fit us into their maps, their governance, their rules. But we know who we are. We are Kachin! And we will not remain scattered and divided forever.
To every Kachin heart—whether in the hills of Kachinland, the valleys of Arunachal, or the far corners of the world—rise! Do not let their borders weaken our bonds. Do not let their laws make us strangers to our own. We must find ways to defy these chains, to preserve our unity, to keep the dream alive for the day when we will reclaim what is rightfully ours.
That day is coming. And when it does, no fence, no law, no decree will stop us from embracing our destiny.
May the spirit of Shapawng Yawng guide us. May the bonds of our ancestors remain unbroken. And may we never stop fighting until our people stand as one.
Ayong Singpho
Unification Coordinator,
KWSA (India)