The 550th birth anniversary celebrations of founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak Dev, fall this year on 12th November; it will be a gala event at Kartarpur, Pakistan, where Guru Nanak had spent his last years in the 16th century. Hundreds of Sikhs from India are gearing up to visit Darbar Sahib Gurdwara, as the Kartarpur shrine is known, and pay their obeisance to their first Guru. Pakistan government has accepted India’s request to facilitate their pilgrimage through Kartarpur Corridor on the auspicious occasion.
India is committed to complete all the modalities for the corridor in time. The commitment was reiterated by the highest authority in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a recent letter to his Pak counterpart, Imran Khan, who sent a message of congratulations on his latest electoral triumph. Modi also called for Kartarpur Corridor’s “early operationalization, which is functional all the year round”. According to Foreign office in New Delhi there have been three technical-level discussions and India is awaiting clarifications from the Pakistani side.
Work on the corridor was inaugurated at the Indian end by Vice President Muppavarapu Venkaiah Naidu on the 26th of November last year. Two days later Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan started the work from the Kartarpur end across the River Ravi. It is not a long corridor; it is hardly five kilometers long from India-Pak border to Kartarpur. But it will bring great relief to the Sikh pilgrims who now have to travel for over 100 km inside Pakistan.
On the Indian side, close to the border is Dera Baba Nanak town of Punjab’s Gurdaspur district. It is one of the most sacred places of the Sikhs. Situated on the Ravi, it is home to three shrines – Sri Darbar Sahib, Sri Chola Sahib, and Tahli Sahib.
Guru Nanak visited the town after his first Udasi (tour) in December 1515 to see members of his family, who were then staying with his father-in- law, Lala Mool Raj, a Patwari (revenue official) at a nearby village. The town has many lanes and houses that have been preserved since the time of Guru Nanak. After partition of British India in 1947, Dera Baba Nanak acquired a new significance for the devout Sikhs, who could not visit Kartarpur Gurudwara. Darbar Sahib Gurdwara is visible from here; and they gather every day in large numbers at an elevated spot to have a glimpse of Guru Nanak’s final resting place through binoculars.
To the dismay of the faithful, work on laying Kartarpur Corridor is going on at a slow pace. On the Indian side, the road length is about two kilometers from Dera Baba Nanak to the international border and on the Pakistani side it is about 4.7 kilometers from the border point to Kartarpur. An 800 meter long bridge would have be constructed across the Ravi in Pakistan as an all-season facility. Also required is a multi-utility terminal for issue of special permits after verification of identification documents and biometric checks, immigration and customs check points, and security checks. The site for the terminal is yet to be identified.
Service lanes for use by security forces and concertina wire fencing would also be required on both sides of the corridor in order to ensure that there is no sneaking away of any pilgrim and mixing with the local population as people on both sides of the border have common culture, language and appearance.
By the first week of November, Kartarpur will have to be ready with temporary accommodation, utility services and community kitchens as a large number of pilgrims are expected to visit Darbar Sahib Gurdwara for the Parkash Utsav (550th birth anniversary of the Guru).
There appears to be differences in perception of the two countries on the number of pilgrims to be allowed to visit the holy shrine on a single day, opening the corridor the year round to facilitate devotees to pay their obeisance without hindrance, the type of special permits to be issued to the pilgrims, immigration and customs clearance and consular access to the pilgrims by Indian diplomats apart from measures needed to allay apprehensions about terrorists mingling with the pilgrims.
Guru Nanak Dev belonged to the entire humanity and is revered by the Sikhs and the Hindus alike. It is for this reason Punjab Chief Minister Amrinder Singh has been saying that visit to the holy shrine of Darbar Sahib Kartarpur should not be restricted to Sikhs alone. Guru Nanak was a Hindu Khatri by caste from birth and his ideology is not confined to Sikhs alone.
Many sub castes in Punjab like Bedi, Sodhi, Sethi, Kheterpal and even Sharmas belong to both Hindus and Sikhs and follow the traditions according to their faith. But whether turbaned or non-turbaned, all Punjabis visit Gurudwaras to pay their obeisance. One can find a large number of Hindu devotees visiting and standing in the queue for hours at the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, Sri Harmandir Sahib Gurudwara at Amritsar in Punjab.
Chief Minister Amrinder Singh is not happy at the Pakistani proposal to restrict entry to 500 pilgrims in a day. Moves to make passport mandatory for the pilgrims also has not gone down well with him and many others. Not everyone in Punjab has a passport. For that matter even in India as a whole. Even in Pakistan as well.
Had India had its way, discussion on modalities of Kartarpur Corridor could have been held soon after the work was inaugurated. India proposed a February date for the first meeting but it took place a month later on Pakistan’s insistence Pakistan’s decision in March to constitute a committee to oversee Kartarpur became a red herring. It was because of the presence of a leading Khalistani protagonist Gopal Singh Chawla; he is known to be close to terrorist master mind, Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jammat-ud-Dawa, (JuD). So, on March 29, India conveyed its strong objection to Pakistan over the Chawla factor.
The West-based Khalistani elements had sought to propagate their ‘Referendum 2020’ during the visit of Indian pilgrims to Nankana Sahib Gurudwara (Pakistan) on the auspicious occasion of Baisakhi in April. New Delhi also expressed its concern to Pakistan over this development as well.
The relations between India and Pakistan are at the lowest ebb after the Balakot air strike on a JeM terrorist camp. The IAF airstrike was a retaliation for the JeM ambush of a paramilitary convoy near Pulwama, which claimed forty precious lives. Islamabad has been throwing overtures for resuming the dialogue process since Imran Khan took over as Prime Minister but New Delhi is unwavering on a “verifiable and irreversible action against terrorism” as a precondition. India is however willing to go ahead with Kartarpur Corridor type of religious diplomacy.
Pakistan should address India’s security concerns and ensure foolproof ways to check that Khalistani elements or terrorists are not allowed to sneak into and vitiate the minds of the pilgrims. It is also highly imperative that the Kartarpur Corridor is opened to Hindus and Sikhs alike to visit Darbar Sahib. Otherwise, instead of generating goodwill, it is bound to have political ramifications and leave a negative impact on the minds of large sections of the people in India and abroad
Like the Samjhauta Express and Delhi-Lahore Bus Service, Kartarpur Corridor is a positive step to enhance people – to – people contact and goodwill. So much so, India and Pakistan will do well to create the infrastructure and put in place all the modalities with operational staff in position on both sides by the end of October 2019 if the Parkash Utsav is to be celebrated on a grand scale as the occasion demands.

—By Rattan Saldi