India has strongly criticized Pakistan’s action of transferring the management of the Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara from a Sikh body to a different trust. India stressed that this step reflects the antagonism towards the religious sentiment of the Sikh community in Pakistan.

Ministry of External Affairs stated that India had received representations from the Sikh community speaking about deep concerns over the decision to transfer the management and maintenance of the Gurudwara from the Pakistan Sikh Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee to the administrative control of the Evacuee Trust Property Board, which is a non-Sikh body.

The two countries opened the corridor connecting Dera Baba Sahib in Gurdaspur, India to Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara in Shakargarh, Narowal in Pakistan in a memorable people-to-people initiative. The MEA said that this unilateral decision by Pakistan is extremely deplorable and runs inimical to the essence of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor. It also, the MEA stressed, is disrespectful to the religious sentiments of the Sikh community at large. MEA also mentioned that “such activity only displays the real face of the Pakistani government and its leadership’s tall and fake claims of upholding and defending the rights and welfare of the religious minority”.

Pakistan has been called upon to abrogate this absolutely arbitrary decision to deny the Sikh community its right to the direct affairs of the Holy Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib. The Holy Sikh site is located in Pakistan’s Narowal district across the river Ravi about 4 km from the Dera Baba Nanak Shrine. This is the final resting place of the founder of the Sikh faith, Guru Nanak Dev, who had spent the last 18 years of his life in Kartarpur.

In the backdrop of the contentious Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan, the Kartarpur corridor was catapulted to international attention. The relation between the two countries had nosedived after India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5 last year, and reorganized/divided it into two union territories. Due to the COVID19 pandemic, the corridor was shut down in March this year.

The author is a member of Amity centre of Happiness