Corridor of hope

After remaining closed for several months due to Covid-19 pandemic, the Kartarpur Corridor was reopened for the 552nd birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak. The corridor, leading to Dera Baba Guru Nanak, was inaugurated in 2019, and raised optimism about easing of tensions between Pakistan and India. Thousands of Sikhs from all over the world, including neighbouring India, converge on the gurdwara to pay obeisance to Baba Guru Nanak Devji, founder of the Sikh religion, every year in the month of November. Born in Nankana Sahib, now in Pakistan, Guru Nanak settled in Kartarpur from where he continued his missionary work.

A 21-member delegation of the BJP from East Punjab, led by Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, was among those who arrived in Pakistan to pay respect to the founder of Sikhism. The fact that a strong delegation of the ruling party from India has crossed over into Pakistan through the corridor indicates the thawing of frozen relations between Pakistan and India.
Addressing the inauguration ceremony of the corridor in 2019, PM Imran Khan had underscored the need for close economic cooperation and trade relations between the two neighbours, emphasising that both countries need to make joint efforts to alleviate and eradicate poverty. The biggest challenge in the two countries is the problem of poverty, and they need to tackle it successfully. To quote PM Imran, the two neighbours have long been spending large chunks of their scarce resources on defence, and it is time to divert these funds to welfare and development programmes.

By fulfilling the Sikh community’s longtime demand to re-establish the corridor and providing them visa-free access to their holy site, Pakistan has in fact extended an olive branch to India. It’s now for New Delhi to reciprocate this peace gesture by easing restrictions on Pakistani visitors willing to visit the revered shrines in India. Such religious tourism has a whole lot of potential to ease hostilities between the two countries and pave the way for peace, amity and friendly bilateral relations.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2021.

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