Fearing the Kartarpur corridor, Maharaja of Patiala Captain Amarinder Singh plays less the role of Chief Minister of Punjab and more as the clapper boy of India’s security establishment.

In the last three decades, Amarinder Singh has had a fair share of flip flops for being with the Akalis, against the Akalis and being pro-Sikh state through his signature on the Amritsar Declaration proposing a confederation of independent states in South Asia to being a part of the Congress which he bade goodbye post-June 1984.

Turning full circle, in his new avatar, this scion of the Patiala royal family and a former Captain in the Indian army is the new clapper boy for India’s security establishment.

He fired the first salvo when he refused to meet the Defense Minister of Canada Harjit Singh Sajjan on his maiden visit to Punjab on the flimsy grounds that Canada supports a section of Sikhs who raise their voice against human rights violations in Punjab and also stand up for the Sikh right to self-determination in Punjab. He lost the golden opportunity to persuade the Canadian delegation to invest in Punjab and strengthen people to people contact between the two countries.

With the Kartarpur corridor, Amarinder Singh has been uncomfortable for the wrong reasons. At first he doubted his own minister Navjot Singh Sidhu. Then he wrote to the India’s foreign minister Sushma Swaraj to expedite the case of the Kartarpur corridor. When the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi announced it as part of the celebrations of 550 years of Guru Nanak, he changed stance and became holier than thou. He asked his minister Navjot Singh Sidhu who had started to hog the headlines not to go to Pakistan for the groundbreaking ceremony there. It is another matter that he did not ask Navjot Singh to be present at the ceremony in Gurdaspur.

At the Dera Baba Nanak ground breaking ceremony on 26 November, he showed his bravado and spent more time like a wounded soldier and a feudal lord with a superiority complex than a humble Sikh whom history had afforded the opportunity to be part of the historic occasion of the two Punjabs finally coming together even if through a corridor.  Not satisfied with this, in his interview with Vir Sanghvi of CNN- News 18 and in his recent press release he now sees the Kartarpur corridor as the game plan of the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan.

The World Sikh News commends the front page rebuttal of leading Punjabi newspaper -Daily Ajit, whose editor Barjinder Singh Hamdard has shown the mirror to the Punjab chief minister and asked him not to become a stumbling block to the wishes of the millions of Sikhs.

The Kartarpur corridor has not happened merely because of the magnanimity of Pakistan and India, but because of the force of prayer of millions to God and Guru Sahib which instilled good sense on both sides to take action on the 550th anniversary of the First Master –Guru Nanak Sahib.

Amarinder Singh will do well to acknowledge this remarkable development to Guru Nanak Sahib and have faith in his divinity to bring about peace and prosperity rather than keep hankering upon unfounded fears.