What bet­ter gift to the Sikhs on the eve of Gur­purab of Guru Nanak Sahib than the pub­lic an­nounce­ment that the Kar­tarpur Sahib cor­ri­dor will soon be a re­al­ity as an­nounced by the In­dian gov­ern­men­t’s cab­i­net de­ci­sion. The prayers of the Sikhs since decades has been an­swered and Sikhs look for­ward with tears in their eyes and prayer on their lips to go­ing bare­foot on the cor­ri­dor path to the house of Guru Nanak.

On the eve of the Parkash Purab -birth an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of the founder of the Sikh faith, First Mas­ter Guru Nanak Sahib, in a rather un­ex­pected an­nounce­ment, likely to send a wave of sym­pa­thy and ac­knowl­edge­ment amongst the Sikhs for the Bharatiya Janata Party gov­ern­ment, In­dian Home Min­is­ter Ra­j­nath Singh in a state­ment to the me­dia has an­nounced that the In­dian cab­i­net has agreed to open the Kar­tarpur Sahib cor­ri­dor. 

Gurinder Singh Ba­jwa, who has been con­duct­ing Ar­das -prayers for open­ing of the cor­ri­dor from Gur­d­wara Dera Baba Nanak to Gur­d­wara Kar­tarpur Sahib, where Guru Nanak Sahib spent more than 12 years of his life has wel­comed the move. Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to the World Sikh News on the phone, Gurinder Singh Ba­jwa said, “Since April 2001, we have been con­duct­ing Ar­das -prayers, every month with­out a break, seek­ing the bless­ings of Akalpu­rakh so that the two gov­ern­ments agree to this long-felt de­sire of the Sikh com­mu­nity.

He fur­ther told WSN that the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment has agreed long back but the In­dian gov­ern­ment has ei­ther been dilly-dal­ly­ing since decades. It is good that they have now agreed to take up the pro­ject on the eve of the thresh­old of the 550 year cel­e­bra­tions of Guru Nanak’s ad­vent in this world.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, Gurinder Singh Ba­jwa had gone to Dar­bar Sahib Am­rit­sar for the suc­cess of his mis­sion which is ex­tremely grat­i­fy­ing for the Sikhs.

The gov­ern­ment of In­dia would be lay­ing the nearly one kilo­me­tre track from Gur­d­wara Dera Baba Nanak to the Indo-Pak­istan bor­der and the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment would be lay­ing a nearly four kilo­me­tre road from the bor­der to the Gur­d­wara Kar­tarpur Sahib.

As elec­tions of 2019 come call­ing, it is ex­pected that the gov­ern­ment of In­dia will com­plete all for­mal­i­ties, re­quir­ing the as­cent and re­lo­ca­tion of mil­i­tary camps in the area pretty soon whereas it may take some time more for the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment which has more work to do on the pro­ject.

The Pak­istan gov­ern­ment has an­nounced that the Prime Min­is­ter of Pak­istan Im­ran Khan will lay the foun­da­tion stone of the Pak­istan side of the cor­ri­dor on 28 No­vem­ber 2018.

For­mer Deputy Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab Sukhbir Singh Badal has wel­comed the de­ci­sion of the BJP gov­ern­ment, with which the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal has an elec­toral al­liance.

The Pak­istan In­for­ma­tion and Broad­cast­ing Min­is­ter Fawad Chowd­hary has wel­comed the In­dian gov­ern­men­t’s de­ci­sion and called it a vic­tory of the peace lobby in both the coun­tries.

Un­doubt­edly, this will be a slap on all those who ridiculed Navjot Singh Sidhu who em­braced the Pak­istan army gen­eral Qa­mar Javed Ba­jwa who of­fered to speed up the work of the Kar­tarpur Sahib cor­ri­dor. Sidhu must be amused ear to ear as he has had the last laugh.

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It will be a red let­ter day in the his­tory of the con­ti­nent when the two Pun­jabs join hands, even if through a cor­ri­dor.