Malik M Ashraf
WHILE Pakistan has shown unflinching resolve to peaceful co-existence with her neighbours, particularly India and shown remarkable restraint in the face of her aggressive and persistently provocative stance, there is no let up in the Indian efforts to precipitate animosity with the former. It does not let go any opportunity to pursue that hostile course. The Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement last Thursday said we have seen reports about Pakistan transferring the management and maintenance of the Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib away from the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabhandhak Committee ( PSGPC), a body run by the minority Sikh community, to the administrative control of the Evacuee Trust Property Board, a non-Sikh body. This unilateral decision by Pakistan is highly condemnable and runs against the spirit of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor as also the religious sentiments of the Sikh community at large”.
Pakistan rightly rejected the Indian claims as a fallacious propaganda and clarified that the management and maintenance of the Gurdwara Kartarpur was still with the PSGPC which remained responsible for carrying out rituals at the Gurdwara including Kartarpur as per ‘Sikh Rehat Maryada’—code of conduct and conventions for Sikhism. What has happened is that the Government of Pakistan has created Project Management Unit under the Evacuee Trust Board with the ostensible purpose to assist and facilitate PSGPC in carrying out its management functions at the holy site. It is noteworthy that PSGPC which is currently managing the affairs of the Corridor and Gurdwara, itself has rejected the Indian claim. Pakistan therefore stands justified in terming the Indian statement as a malicious propaganda and simply an attempt to malign the “Peace Corridor” initiative by casting mischievous aspersions against the interests of the Sikh community and to detract attention from India’s own reprehensible human rights violations of minorities in India.
It is pertinent to recall that the corridor was inaugurated in November last year by Prime Minister Imran Khan on the eve of 550th birthday of Baba Guru Nanek, the founder of the Sikh religion. It was indeed a historic event for the 140 million Sikh community in India and the Sikh Diaspora in other countries around the world, who for the last seventy two years had persistently prayed and hoped for their free access to one of their holiest places in Pakistan i.e. Kartarpur where the Guru spent last eighteen years of his life. Their prayers were finally answered.
The elation and gratitude of the Sikh community over this unprecedented initiative by Prime Minister Imran Khan and the COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa was immensely evident from the remarks made by Navjot Sidhu on behalf of the Sikh community and their other leaders. The implementation of the project by Pakistan Government in spite of initial reluctance by the Indian Government in regards to its implementation is in the best Islamic traditions of religious tolerance and interfaith harmony. The step taken by Pakistan Government in the absence of any reciprocal gesture by India and in spite of the Indian atrocities in Kashmir and the unpalatable decision of the Indian Supreme Court to award the Babri Masjid land to Hindus reinforced the credentials of the country as a religious tolerant entity wedded to its humanitarian ethos.
The move was widely appreciated by the international community. Pakistani nation could rightly feel proud of it. UN Secretary General Gutteres during his visit to Pakistan in February this year, also went to the Gurdwara. This is what he had to say about the corridor “ I was honoured to visit Pakistan’s newly opened Kartarpur Corridor – a corridor of hope, connecting two key Sikh pilgrimage sites. This is a welcome symbol of interfaith harmony”. In that context it also represented a diplomatic triumph for Pakistan. It was genuinely hoped that the opening of the corridor could well become a milestone for peace and may even set new trends for granting people of faith a free access to their sacred spaces, which incidentally is denied to the people of Kashmir right now who are under siege since 5th August 2019.
The inauguration of the Kartarpur corridor in a way was also a gesture towards India for burying the past and making a new beginning for peaceful co-existence by resolving the mutual disputes including the core issue of Kashmir which have bedeviled relations between the two countries at the cost of regional peace and security. Prime Minister Imran Khan was right on money while addressing the ceremony to urge Modi to do justice to the people of Kashmir to create conditions for peaceful co-existence and peace in the region which is so essential to fight poverty and changing economic profile of teeming millions on both sides of the border.
This region badly needs peace and amity between the two nuclear neighbours. Continued hostility between them is fraught with dangerous consequences. Kashmiris are fighting for their right of self-determination as enshrined in the UN resolutions. Their movement for independence cannot be suppressed through decrees ending special status of the state and barrel of the gun. They are fighting for their independence and right to self-determination since 1989 and the Indian forces have not been able to kill their spirit despite assassinating more than one hundred thousand Kashmiris. That is a reality staring the Modi Government in the face. The BJP regime must change course and realize that her hegemonic designs, the continued denial of right of self-determination to the people of IO&JK and hostile posturing towards Pakistan, would eventually prove harmful for India itself besides jeopardizing peace and security of the entire region.
— The writer is freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
