What was meant to be a som­bre func­tion of lay­ing down the first layer of stone and earth to start build­ing the In­dian side of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor be­tween Dera Baba Nanak and the In­dian bor­der lead­ing to Gur­d­wara Dar­bar Sahib at Kar­tarpur de­gen­er­ated into a ver­bal del­uge of typ­i­cally In­dian “Tu-Tu Main-Main”  be­tween the lead­ers on the stage.

The first salvo was fired by Sukhjin­der Singh Rand­hawa who did not like the names of Akali lead­ers Parkash Singh Badal, Har­sim­rat Kaur Badal on the plaque of the in­au­gu­ra­tion stone. In protested by black­en­ing his own name and that of Chief Min­is­ter Pun­jab Amarinder Singh Badal. 

Har­sim­rat Kaur Badal, not known ever to be diplo­matic and  suave, nar­rated the role of the Con­gress in No­vem­ber 1984 killings. 

Cap­tain Amarinder Singh, un­der pres­sure from the so­cial me­dia, could not help but ex­plain him­self. He spent 10 out of 15 min­utes, chal­leng­ing Pak­istan army chief Qa­mar Javed Ba­jwa, in a chal­leng­ing tone like a boxer in a ring or a sol­dier on the bat­tle­field who has lost the first round. He went on and on to talk about vi­o­lence in Pun­jab and rel­e­gated Guru Nanak Sahib and his con­tri­bu­tion to a minute at the be­gin­ning of his speech and a minute or so at the end. His anger knew no bounds and he had to come again to an­nounce what his gov­ern­ment pro­posed to do in Gur­daspur and Dera Baba Nanak.

He urged the Roads min­is­ter Nitin Gad­kari to al­low the Pun­jab gov­ern­ment to build a gate called Kar­tarpur Dwar on the In­dian side to which the min­is­ter read­ily agreed. How­ever, the Chief Min­is­ter will do well to note that Sikhs are deeply an­gry with him and they have cat­e­gor­i­cally stated on var­i­ous face­book posts that, “Sikhs should not take any grant from the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab to build any por­tion of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor.  The Sikh San­gat is ca­pa­ble of con­tribut­ing bit by bit, as taught by Guru Nanak and build the whole cor­ri­dor through Kar Sewa.”

Bal­ram Jakhar for­got that he was sup­posed to do the thanks­giv­ing and be­ing the host he had to be grace­ful. He went ham­mer and tongs against Har­sim­rat Kaur Badal. 

The Sant Samaj led by Baba Sarab­jot Singh Bedi -a de­scen­dant of Guru Nanak Sahib, should have shown more grace and in­ter­vened but tilted to­wards the side of the Chief Min­is­ter and against the for­mer Chief Min­is­ter. Walk­ing out from such a func­tion was rather un­called for. 

From amongst the gath­er­ing, the Con­gress peo­ple heck­led the Akali lead­ers and the Akali work­ers re­paid back in the same coin when they got an op­por­tu­nity. On the Akali side, led by Ma­jithia, noth­ing more could have been ex­pected. 

The Roads min­is­ter Nitin Gad­kari stuck to his do­main and like a de­vout Maratha said that “it is my priv­i­lege and that of my min­istry to be ini­ti­ate this his­toric work.” 

Though the In­dian Vice Pres­i­dent who laid the foun­da­tion stone of the High­way that will be con­structed there at huge costs, did men­tion about the threat from Pak­istan, his speech con­tained sub­stan­tial ref­er­ence to Gur­bani and the con­tri­bu­tion of Guru Nanak Sahib and was metic­u­lously trans­lated from Eng­lish to Pun­jabi.

In the pres­ence of Sikh San­gat and lead­er­ship of the rul­ing Con­gress party of Pun­jab and the rul­ing party lead­er­ship of the Badal Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Vice Pres­i­dent of In­dia Venka­iah Naidu laid the foun­da­tion stone of the Pun­jab side of the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor at Vil­lage Mann in the Dera Baba Nanak area of Gur­daspur dis­trict.

Ex­tolling the work and con­tri­bu­tion of Guru Nanak Sahib, the Vice Pres­i­dent re-an­nounced the slew of pro­grammes, ac­tiv­i­ties and memo­ri­als that the gov­ern­ment of In­dia in co­op­er­a­tion with the gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab would be tak­ing up with SGPC as the knowl­edge part­ner. 

May Guru Nanak shower wis­dom to the Sikh san­gat to con­cen­trate on the Kar­tarpur Sahib cor­ri­dor and ig­nore every one of these lead­ers who are out to de­mean the Sikhs and de­value the legacy of Guru Nanak.

Dream­ing for peace and threat­en­ing war, talk­ing about Kar­tarpur Sahib cor­ri­dor and bring­ing in 1984 and vi­o­lence in Pun­jab is dis­as­trous. 

Let it be known that none of these lead­ers have achieved this cor­ri­dor. God in his gra­cious­ness has made this hap­pen to be­stow warmth and joy to the Sikhs on the eve of Guru Nanak’s 550th birth an­niver­sary.

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The Sikh San­gat does not need crores of ru­pees tainted with abuse and lies, we need love and hu­mil­ity. We need you to live by the ideals of Guru Nanak oth­er­wise all those who have in­flated egos will all be con­signed to the dust­bins of his­tory.

Gur­daspur, 26 No­vem­ber 2018, WSN News Desk