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.