Hundreds of Indian Sikhs yesterday began a historic pilgrimage to Pakistan, crossing through a white gate to reach one of their religion’s holiest sites under a landmark deal between the two countries separated by the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent.
Among the first pilgrims to cross over into Pakistan’s Punjab Province from the town of Dera Baba Nanak in India was former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, who told Pakistani state media that it was a “big moment.”
Buses were waiting on the Pakistani side to carry the pilgrims to the shrine to Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak, which lies in Kartarpur, a small town just 4km inside Pakistan where he is believed to have died.
The secure visa-free land corridor is a rare example of cooperation between the arch-rivals, and even inspired a singular message of gratitude from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to his Pakistani counterpart.
“I would like to thank the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, for respecting the sentiments of India. I thank him for his cooperation,” Modi said in televised comments earlier yesterday.
For up to 30 million Sikhs around the world, the white-domed shrine is one of their holiest sites, which for Indian Sikhs has remained tantalizingly close, but out of reach for decades.
When Pakistan was carved out of colonial India at the end of British colonial rule in 1947, Kartarpur ended up on the western side of the border, while most of the region’s Sikhs remained on the other side.
Since then, the perennial state of enmity between India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars and countless border skirmishes since independence, has been a constant barrier to those wanting to visit the temple.
The proximity of the shrine, known in Sikhism as a gurdwara, is such that Indian Sikhs can stand at the border and gaze across the divide at the building’s four cupolas.
“Our lifetime wish has been fulfilled, we never imagined this,” said Manees Kaur Wadha, an Indian pilgrim who came to Pakistan last week after managing to secure a visa, and was already at the shrine early yesterday.
“Since childhood, our elders had told us so many stories of Pakistan. They left [migrated] from here. But we never imagined we would ever be able to see it and have these feelings,” she said.
Pilgrims on both sides of the border expressed hopes that the corridor might represent something else — a thawing in the relationship between India and Pakistan.
“Life is short,” said Wadha’s husband, Davinder Singh Wadah.
“Everyone has to go ... so why not to enjoy life and make this world a heaven, and I think this initiative is the beginning of it.”
At least 700 pilgrims were expected to pass through the corridor yesterday, and more in the coming days.
The opening of the land corridor came just days ahead of the Guru Nanak’s 550th birthday on Nov. 12 — an anniversary of huge significance for the global Sikh community.
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