HEART OF PUNJAB: In Dera of Guru Nanak, Kartarpur corridor fails to get off the ground

Ravi Dhaliwal

When we work, we work. When we pray, God works. In the fall of 2018, the Pakistan government decided that devotees from India can visit the final resting place of Guru Nanak Dev through a 4.6-km long meandering passage called the Kartarpur corridor. With this gesture, the prayers of millions of ‘Nanak Naam Leva’ Sikhs were finally answered. The bonding of the Sikhs with their Guru indeed defies borders.

The move represented a rare instance of cooperation between two parts of an ancient civilisation. Unfortunately, the project, which had received widespread national and international acclaim when it was conceptualised, has failed to get off the ground. The governments on both the sides of the Radcliffe line have imposed certain conditions. These, in fact, are acting as an impediment in the free movement of pilgrims.

While the Indians made the requirement of a passport mandatory, the Pakistanis levied a service fee of $20 on the pilgrims. What further dampened the spirits was the complicated online registration mechanism.

The passport requirement irked the Sikh clergy. It contended that not many people in rural areas held the travel document. Former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh knocked the doors of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in Delhi, but to no avail.

On the other hand, the Pakistani government insisted that it had spent a lot of money on a project that offered absolutely no benefit to it. And, more importantly, it did little to fill its coffers. Hence, it decided to impose service fee “to compensate for the expenses incurred on building their side of the project”.

Several Sikh delegations met union ministers in New Delhi to put a freeze on this fee. However, they failed to elicit a response.

Pakistan said people should have a “smooth passage through the passage.” It insisted the Indian government should waive off the passport obligation. However, the Indian government said keeping in view international laws, passports were definitely required.

Come rain, sunshine or sleet, the passage was meant to cater to 5,000 pilgrims daily. The figure was arrived at after prolonged discussions between the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Punjab government helmed by Capt Amarinder Singh.

Both the MHA and the Captain seem to have got their arithmetic wrong, as only 150-200 devotees cross over on a daily basis. This figure increases to 500-600 on days when Sikh religious festivals are observed, still far away from the initial estimates. This piece of statistics clearly proves the corridor has yet to come of age even after five years of its inception.

The corridor draws parallels to the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service across the Line of Control (LoC). This service is passport free and travel is through entry permits. Kartarpur-bound devotees say their visits, too, should be based on entry passes instead of passports. They are oblivious to the fact that LoC does not constitute a legally recognised international boundary and is just a de-facto border. People can cross it on the basis of entry permits. On the other hand, the administration of the international border is the responsibility of the MHA, which means international rules and laws have to be respected. And these include the compulsory requirement of a passport.

Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa plans to take up the passport issue in Parliament. It is unclear whether his voice will be heard or not, but at least somebody will be taking the first step. Sometimes, these first steps can develop into strides.

The MHA had envisaged that the young and the elderly would constitute a major portion of the pilgrims. The young, erroneously believing that a Pakistani visa stamped on their passport will be a detriment to their applications of other visas for western countries, have mostly begged off. Most of the elderly, as may be expected, don’t possess passports. The fact is that the Kartarpur visa is not stamped although details of the passport are uploaded on the immigration software — that’s because it is not a Pakistani visa, simply one for Kartarpur only.

Not many know, or remember, the story of how the corridor came about. In August 2018, Imran Khan took oath as Pakistan PM. He promptly announced that a passage linking the two countries would be built. With general election due in six months and secure in the knowledge that Sikhs form a formidable vote bank, PM Modi was left with no option but to play ball. In November 2018, the Vice-President at the time set the ball rolling by laying the foundation stone at Dera Baba Nanak. Hospitality honchos from as far as Pune, Goa and Mumbai visited. Land prices increased manifold. Real estate sharks from outside Punjab started eyeing land in the vicinity of the corridor, like many have since done in Ayodhya. Grandiose religious tourism plans began to unfold.

The cog had fallen into place and the wheels had started moving.

Amid all this, politician Navjot Singh Sidhu firmly secured his 15 minutes of fame. Then Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa informed him of his country’s intentions to build a “path-breaking passage” during Khan’s oath ceremony. Sidhu came back and used every conceivable platform to tell the world that he had convinced Imran Khan to establish a corridor!

Once the project was inaugurated, voices to get a waiver on the passports and the service fees got shriller. However, with the MHA unable to bend international laws, these voices died a natural death, leaving the corridor gasping for breath. These days, the devout still stand on this side of the border and hear the ‘gurbani’ from the gurdwara where Guru Nanak spent the last several years of his life. They could use the Kartarpur corridor to go across, but the pitfalls are too many. For the time being at least, a good idea has gone to seed.