View: India’s Kartarpur headache

View: India’s Kartarpur headache

News:

Article discuss about the controversy surrounding the Kartarpur corridor.

Important Analysis

• Background of Kartarpur Corridor:
  • Guru Nanak, who founded Sikhism, used to live in this area. He died in 1539 and a shrine was built in his memory. This shrine is their holiest site, and visiting it is considered a religious obligation.
  • The demand for Kartarpur corridor had gathered pace in 1995, and leaders from both sides, including Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Benazir Bhutto, had pushed for it.
  • The visa-free corridor is aimed to facilitate pilgrims from India to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur on the banks of the Ravi river in Pakistan, where Shri Guru Nanak Dev spent eighteen years.
  • The Kartarpur corridor will be implemented as an integrated development project with Government of India funding, to provide smooth and easy passage, with all the modern amenities.
• The project, which involves the construction of a road and a bridge, is a diplomatic masterstroke by the state of Pakistan. However, Indian Prime Minister, has not responded warmly to this gesture because of the following criticisms.

Criticism over Kartarpur Corridor:

• In the past gurudwaras in Pakistan have been used for a pro-Khalistan campaign.
  • Sikh pilgrimage routes and Gurudwaras in Pakistan display hoardings of ‘Sikh Referendum 2020’, Khalistani flags, and boards with names and photographs of Sikh radicals.
• Pakistan’s intent also remains suspect, as the corridor can be misused by both state and non-state actors in that country.
  • To incite tensions and militancy in Punjab, Pakistan, as the first line of attack, targeted Nirankari, who are at odds with mainstream Sikhs as they believe in a living guru and reject the militant brotherhood of the Khalsa.
  • Narcotics and arms smugglers, separatists and saleable politicians can mingle with pilgrims streaming into Pakistan through Kartarpur Corridor.
  • A reverse flow from Pakistan to India should also be expected, to include radicals, preachers and terrorists, including some disguised as Sikhs, under pretext of visiting religious places in India.
• The corridor, if it opens, will likely become a major security headache for India.
  • Gurdaspur is home to the Tibri Cantonment while the neighboring district of Pathankot houses one of Asia’s biggest ammunition dumps, the Mamun Cantonment and the Air Force base.
  • Pakistani mischief in Jammu and Kashmir has been consistently escalating since 2013.
  • Terrorist incidents in Punjab over the past years, including two major Islamist terrorist attacks (Gurdaspur and Pathankot), link back to Pakistan.
  • There are no rational grounds, no dramatic shift in the security situation or the support of Pakistan’s state agencies to terrorist formations targeting India, no conducive atmosphere which could justify forwarding of the long pending Kartarpur
• India Choose the 10th anniversary period of the four-day Mumbai terrorist attacks for the corridor’s cornerstone laying ceremonies in India and Pakistan. This not only conveyed a regrettable message that India lacked a sense of remembrance, but also handed the 26/11 perpetrator, Pakistan, a propaganda coup.

Conclusion:

• The Kartarpur Corridor may be a small initiative to create some goodwill and ease one pressure on both states, and with success this may create the momentum to identify and sooth another problem in the future.
• India-Pakistan relations are complex and influenced by global players and developments. Therefore, the Kartarpur Corridor will not resolve the conflict between the two countries, However, one hopes that one day both countries will burn the bitterness of the past and become friendly neighbors.