Renowned Sikh writer T. Sher Singh, com­mu­nity ac­tivist Gurmeet Kaur and oth­ers re­cently met with Gov­er­nor Chaudhry Muham­mad Sar­war of Pun­jab, Pak­istan un­der the aegis of the Amer­i­can Sikh Coun­cil and shared their con­cern over the de­struc­tion of the Sikh her­itage due to new con­struc­tion over the fields and forests at Kar­tarpur Sahib, as­so­ci­ated with Guru Nanak Sahib.

US-based com­mu­nity ac­tivists, un­der the tute­lage of the Amer­i­can Sikh Coun­cil, pre­sented its con­cerns to the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment re­gard­ing con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ties in and around Kar­tarpur Sahib.

 

T. Sher Singh told the vis­it­ing dig­ni­tary that the onus of pre­serv­ing the Sikh her­itage in Pak­istan was on the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment. He said that this her­itage is an as­set to Pak­istan and by be­ing fore­sighted “they may make Sikhs who al­ready love this land, their friends for­ever.”

Com­mu­nity ac­tivist Gurmeet Kaur dis­cussed the cur­rently pro­posed plans to cater to the grow­ing num­bers of ex­pected vis­i­tors and how an at­tempt to make their stay easy is likely to de­stroy the 500-years old her­itage by do­ing ir­re­versible dam­age to the sa­cred fields of Baba Nanak where he farmed for 18 long years.

“Con­struct­ing on this acreage de­stroys the sanc­tity, the spirit of the sa­cred site and any chances of arche­o­log­i­cal re­vival of the lost her­itage as­so­ci­ated with Baba Nanak,” she stated.

She nar­rated the ASC ef­forts to reach out to the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Im­ran Khan, the Pak­istan Sikh Gur­d­wara Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee and the Pak­istan High Com­mis­sion for the last four months, with­out any re­sults.

She men­tioned that this cam­paign has a back­ing of over 17,000 pe­ti­tion­ers world­wide, the ASC rep­re­sent­ing 74 gur­d­waras in the USA, the Global Sikh Coun­cil (GSC), the Supreme Sikh Coun­cil of Aus­tralia, other or­ga­ni­za­tions and in­di­vid­u­als in­clud­ing the Pak­istan PTI MPA Mom­ina Wa­heed.

At the meet with the vis­it­ing Pak­istan Gov­er­nor, the Prin­ci­pal of the Khalsa Com­mu­nity School Rip­so­dak Singh said, “We are ask­ing that Kar­tarpur be set up as an eco­log­i­cal her­itage vil­lage of Baba Nanak and all new con­struc­tion be done at least a kilo­me­ter away from cur­rent Gur­d­wara, out­side of Baba Ji’s fields and align with the Guru pe­riod ar­chi­tec­ture and not be in the form of mod­ern, un­sightly ho­tels and shop­ping malls that de­stroy the spirit of the space.”

Gurmeet Kaur stated that they had chron­i­cles stated 200+ other Sikh her­itage sites that may be dis­turbed in the name of re­li­gious tourism.  She said it was ironic that the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment is bank­ing on the Di­as­pora Sikhs to be part of the re­li­gious tourism cir­cuit but has cho­sen not to re­spond to them. 

She showed ev­i­dence of two his­toric Gur­d­waras in Nankana Sahib that were re­cently de­mol­ished to the ground in the name of beau­ti­fi­ca­tion and ex­pan­sion and raised con­cerns that sev­eral oth­ers would go through the same fate if they were not pro­tected as na­tional her­itage sites.

Harpreet Kaur, an ed­u­ca­tor and an ac­tivist made every­one emo­tional, point­ing to her two year old son and de­clar­ing that she would love to bring him to Kar­tarpur only to touch and feel the soil of Baba Ji if his fields were pre­served and the na­ture which he re­vers in Gur­bani was ho­n­oured and not to touch their fore­head to the mar­ble slabs that cov­ered our real her­itage.

Harpreet Singh, Prin­ci­pal of the Khalsa Montes­sori School brought a folder full of let­ters of heart­felt ap­peals by chil­dren from his school to share with the Gov­er­nor in which they had pleaded the Prime Min­is­ter to save the her­itage fields of Baba Nanak for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Pak­istan Pun­jab Gov­er­nor Chaudhry Muham­mad Sar­war ac­knowl­edged the con­cerns of the Sikh del­e­ga­tion but ap­prised them that he was a new ad­min­is­tra­tor over the de­vel­op­ment work at Kar­tarpur and that he would take up the mat­ter with his gov­ern­ment and Prime Min­is­ter Im­ran Khan.