NEW DELHI: Indian government on Friday refused to comment on former prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s visit to Kartarpur next month to mark the inauguration of the corridor that connects two Sikh pilgrimage places located in India and Pakistan.
The corridor connects Durbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan, the birthplace of the first Guru Sikh with Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur, India, the resting place of the Guru.
The 4.7-kilometer-long corridor holds great significance for the Sikh community all over the world.
India’s External Affairs Ministry in a press briefing on Friday said New Delhi was committed to the corridor project, though it was waiting for an “appropriate response” from Islamabad about some of the issues, such as the “waiver of fee proposed by Pakistan” and “modalities of travel.”
“Only when we get an appropriate response, we will decide the composition of the delegation, [see] who will participate [in it] and [turn to] the issue of permission,” said Ravish Kumar, the ministry’s spokesperson.
On Thursday, former prime minister Manmohan Singh accepted an invitation by Chief Minister of Indian Punjab Amarinder Singh to participate in an all-party delegation that will be present at the opening ceremony of the Kartarpur corridor in Pakistan.
Singh’s acceptance of the invitation comes a day after a similar invitation was extended to him by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.
“Former PM Dr Manmohan Singh accepts @capt_amarinder’s invite to join 1st Jatha to Sri Kartarpur Gurdwara on Nov 9, will also attend Sultanpur Lodhi main event @550yrsGuruNanak”, tweeted Raveen Thukral, the chief minister’s media advisor.
However, the Indian delegation will require political clearance from the administration in New Delhi to visit Kartarpur.
The Punjab chief minister also invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian President Ramnath Singh to participate in the opening ceremony of the corridor on November 12 at Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur.
The foundation stones of the corridor were laid in November 2018 on both sides of the border almost simultaneously. The inauguration of the project will also mark the 500th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak.
The visit of the Indian leader, who is a prominent politician of Congress party and remained his country’s prime minister for ten years, could lead to the first significant engagement between the two South Asian nuclear-armed neighbors after the escalation of tensions between both nations in the aftermath of the abrogation of the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian government.
In February this year, both nations came close to a war after a suicide attack in the Pulwama district of Kashmir claimed more than fifty lives of Indian paramilitary personnel.
Some political analysts see Dr. Singh’s likely visit as a significant development.
“The opening of the corridor comes as a breath of fresh air at a time when both the neighbors are engaged in a bitter war of words,” Professor Ronki Ram of the Panjab University told Arab News.
“It’s a people-to-people engagement in the name of their common heritage and culture and that holds out some promise of normalization of relationship at a time when everyone was losing hope. So, Manmohan Singh’s visit has raised new hopes,” Ram said.
Vijayan MJ of the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy also maintained that “opening of the Kartarpur corridor is a great gesture by Pakistan.”
He blamed the media for creating controversy about Dr. Singh’s visit and applauded “the gesture of the former PM.”
“It is a very humanistic gesture and people should support such gestures at a time when the tension is so high in the subcontinent,” he said.
However, Pranay Kotasthane of Bangalore-based think tank Takshashila Institution says that “the visit of Dr Manmohan Singh does not in any way change the more significant determinants underlying India-Pakistan relations.”
“People-to-people relations can at best smoothen the rough edges in the India-Pakistan relationship but are unlikely to change the equation by themselves”, he told Arab News.
A Punjab-based journalist, Ravinder Singh Robin, said that “nothing is going to change on the ground with the visit of the former PM to Pakistan. The equation between India and Pakistan will remain the same. Both Imran Khan and the Congress leaders in India are trying to cater to their domestic constituencies.”
