The Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor -a sym­bol of faith and bonds, is a land­mark achieve­ment in con­tem­po­rary his­tory and por­tray­ing the same on the face of the Year 552 Nanakshahi cal­en­dar, Dal Khalsa launched the al­manac in its orig­i­nal form as adopted by the Sikh com­mu­nity in 2003, from the por­tals of the Akal Takht Sahib. The party has said that the cur­rently pro-ac­tive Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib -Gi­ani Harpreet Singh must take steps to undo the dam­age done to the sanc­tity of the cal­en­dar by his pre­de­ces­sor un­der pres­sure of Badal Dal and forces in­im­i­cal to Sikh iden­tity.

COUN­TER­ING ANTI-PAK­ISTAN AND ANTI-MUS­LIM NAR­RA­TIVE HEAD­LONG,  Dal Khalsa launched the Year 552 Nanankshahi cal­en­dar with aplomb fea­tur­ing the im­ages of Pak­istan Pre­mier Im­ran Khan un­veil­ing the Kar­tarpur Cor­ri­dor opened a few months back and ex­press­ing grat­i­tude through a big and bold ‘Thank You Pak­istan’ on the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar launched in Am­rit­sar.

Cock­ing a snook to those at­tempt­ing a di­vide be­tween the Sikhs and Mus­lims and the Pun­jab po­lice chief who ate hum­ble pie by with­draw­ing his state­ment about ter­ror­ists be­ing nur­tured in Kar­tarpur Sahib, the Dal Khalsa lead­er­ship launched this year’s cal­en­dar from the ram­parts of the Akal Takht Sahib and pro­claimed, “the ball is in the court of the Jathedar Akal Takht Sahib. The wrong of the past has to be cor­rected and rec­ti­fied. The cal­en­dar as de­signed and pre­pared by al­manac sci­en­tist Pal Singh Pure­wal must be re­stored.”

“The SGPC and its ap­pointed Jathedar must re­al­ize their role and re­spon­si­bil­ity to end the dis­cord on the cal­en­dar is­sue within the Panth,” said party spokesper­son Kan­war Pal Singh.

“The Sikh com­mu­nity will not rest till the cal­en­dar -demon­strat­ing the dis­tinct iden­tity of the Sikh peo­ples is re­stored to its pris­tine glory,” said party leader Harpal Singh Cheema, while speak­ing to the me­dia in Am­rit­sar.

“This cal­en­dar is a be­fit­ting re­ply to all those, who not only nur­ture bad-feel­ings about the cor­ri­dor but also ha­tred against Sikh-Mus­lim bonds,” read the Dal Khalsa state­ment.

Party pres­i­dent Harpal Singh Cheema said, “the Nanakshahi cal­en­dar was the iden­tity marker for the Sikh com­mu­nity and re­vert­ing back to Bikrami has trig­gered a lot of un­nec­es­sary con­fu­sion. All faiths and com­mu­ni­ties have their own cal­en­dar as a mark of their dis­tinct cul­tural iden­tity.”

The cal­en­dar re­leased to­day not only has Gur­purab re­lated hol­i­days but also dates re­lat­ing to the con­tem­po­rary Sikh strug­gle.

“With the Kar­tarpur cor­ri­dor be­com­ing a re­al­ity on 9 No­vem­ber 2019, all de­signs and moves by the peo­ple in power that nur­ture ha­tred against Sikh-Mus­lim bonds stand de­feated,” af­firmed Dal Khalsa.