Congress’ historical indifference to Sikhs and their shrines

With the laying of foundation stone of Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, the Bharatiya Janata Party has given a gift to the Sikh community that had been denied to them by the Congress for the past 70 years. Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib is considered to be a religious place by the people of Sikh community. It is said that the first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak Dev Ji lived there for almost 18 years before breathing his last in the place.

The corridor that is being built today, whose foundation stone was laid by Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu a week ago would not have been required if the Congress had put in some efforts during the time of partition or after the 1965 and 1971 wars to get it in the Indian territory.

The Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah rightly pointed this out during an interview to India Today and said that the Congress government didn’t give heed to the fact that Kartarpur Sahib which is a religious place to the Sikh community just being 3-4 kilometres away from the Indian side could have been brought under the Indian territory during the time of partition.

I’m happy for the fact that Modi government realising the importance of this place is now all set to construct Dera Baba Nanak-Kartarpur Sahib road corridor, he further added.

Shah was right on his stance, during the time of partition Kartarpur was in Gurdaspur district which was handed over to Pakistan. Further, there were controversial changes to the boundary line which brought parts of Gurdaspur to India but Kartarpur went into the Pakistan territory. The holy shrine remained closed and abandoned for over fifty years due to the negligible number of Sikhs in Pakistan.

The partition of India, back in 1947 was the first instance when Kartarpur Sahib could have been brought under the Indian territory, the second and third time that the Congress government could have brought the holy shrine under its territory was in 1965 and 1971 wars.

The Indian troops reached till Lahore in both the wars, the question arises that what stopped the Congress government from getting Kartarpur Sahib under its territory when its just 3-4 kilometres from the Gurdaspur district which was by then a part of India. It was in the year 1999 that the NDA government proposed the Kartarpur Sahib corridor while as then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee took a bus ride to Lahore. Furthermore, the Congress party ruled the country for 10 years but didn’t find it important to build this corridor and disregarded the sentiments of the Sikh community.

On the occasion of 550^th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, that was celebrated just a week ago, Prime Minister Modi’s cabinet gave approval for building the corridor from Dera Baba Nanak to the Pakistan border.
The Kartarpur Sahib Corridor was a long-standing demand by the Sikh community, the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee and political leaders had been putting forth their demands for building a corridor that would bridge Baba Dera Nanak and the Kartarpur shrine. This bridge that is all set to be constructed now will allow the pilgrims to visit the holy shrine and return the same day.

The bridge needs to be constructed over the river Ravi and furthermore, pilgrims will not require passports or visas which in turn will prove to be an easy access to the place. The committee that has been set up now by the Central government will be chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and the committee will regularly monitor and review the implementation of the activities of the corridor.

In the end, if the Congress would have understood the sentiments of the Sikh community and worked towards getting the Katarpur Sahib in Indian territory the chaos could have been avoided.