Kartarpur – a corridor to lasting peace?

For the first time in a long time, neighbours and arch-rivals Pakistan and India have come to an agreement on something which would positively impact people living on both sides of the border and has offered a sliver of hope for attaining lasting peace. Following signals from Islamabad, New Delhi this week approved the development of the Kartarpur corridor up to the international border with Pakistan. This corridor will see Indian Sikh Yatrees granted visa-free entry into Pakistan for the pilgrimage of Sikh religious and historic sites such as the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur.

The Indian government’s approval of the corridor has been welcomed by Pakistan with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi stating that Prime Minister Imran Khan – who called for peace between the two neighbours apart from enhancing trade in his first official speech after taking the oath of office – would lay the foundation stone for building the corridor on the Pakistani side later this month.

Pakistan’s readiness to open the border first came to light when Indian cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had been invited to Pakistan to attend the oath-taking ceremony of his cricketing friend PM Imran, blurted it out following his now-famous warm embrace of Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. As per Sidhu, his source for the news was the COAS.

Gen Bajwa, for his part, reacted to recent events along the troubled border and provocative comments from senior Indian military officials by urging our eastern neighbours to “place their stock in peace and progress through dialogue”. Pakistan and India not only share a border but also history, language people, culture and religious sites. Allowing people from the other side to visit, if only for pilgrimage, is a key first step to peace because it creates space for the ordinary folk on either side to interact with each other. It thus lets people learn about not only what makes them so different from those living across wired and guarded borders, but also what makes them similar.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.