Pakistan PM Imran Khan lays foundation stone for Kartarpur corridor

On Wednesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated a new visa-free corridor between the gurdwara at Kartarpur and the Indian town of Dera Baba Nanak, about six kilometres away.

Sikh pilgrims will be able to travel freely between the two holy sites without visas for the first time since the border was established here in 1947 when India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain.

Imran Khan, inaugurating the project, which will see the construction of a new road and bridge that would link the two sites, spoke of wanting to open a new era of relations between India and Pakistan.

“There have been mistakes on both sides [in the past], but we will not be able to move forward until we break the chains of the past,” said Khan. “The past is there only to teach us, not for us to live in.”

Also present on the occasion were Indian federal ministers Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Hardeep Singh Puri, and provincial Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu.

The inauguration in Pakistan follows a similar event on the Indian side of the border earlier this week, attended by the chief minister of India’s Punjab province and the country’s vice president. The corridor will formally open next year, in time for the 550th birth anniversary celebrations for Guru Nanak.

It marks a rare moment of positivity in relations between the two South Asian nations, who have fought three wars since gaining independence and between whom dialogue has been stalled for years.

With the opening of the corridor – a long-standing demand of the Sikh community and one which Pakistan proposed to be followed through with earlier this year – the Pakistani government says it is showing that it is prepared to take concrete steps to ease tensions.

“The story of Kartarpur is as old as the history of Pakistan and India’s independence itself,” Fawad Chaudhry, Pakistan’s information minister, told Al Jazeera.

“We have groups on both sides of the border, some who are pro-peace, and many who do not want [talks] to occur. It is for the government to decide who to support. With this step, we have shown where we stand.”

For Sikhs in the area, the opening of the corridor is the culmination of a long-held dream.

Today, I am getting to go to a place where the guru spent 18 years of his life. For me, this is an emotional moment, which has come through because of the prayers millions like me have been saying for 70 years way before I was even born.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal

“We have been asking for this for years,” said Ramesh Singh Arora, a Sikh community leader in Narowal who tends to the gurdwara.

“It will make it a lot easier for people to come from India and then return to their country.”

With the inaugurations this week, work will now begin on a fenced-off road between the gurdwara at Kartarpur and the gurdwaras on the Indian side of the border, which will allow Sikhs to access both sites without a visa.

Previously, Arora says, pilgrims were forced to cross the border at the Wagah/Attari crossing, a journey of more than 200km that involved dealing with a restrictive visa regime and travelling by road for hours.

“It’s a sense of homecoming. This is an emotional moment for the community,” says Bhabishan Singh Goraya, 67, a Sikh resident of nearby Amritsar, in India’s Punjab province. “We have been demanding this for so long.”

Sidhu walks away with Kartarpur credit

Even in the presence of Union ministers Harsimrat Kaur and Hardeep Puri, Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu seemed to walk away with all the credit for the opening of the Kartarpur corridor.

Speaker after speaker at the event applauded Sidhu’s role with a Pakistan minister even declaring that if there were more hugs between Sidhu and Pakistan army chief Qamar Bajwa, several other outstanding issues between India and Pakistan could get resolved.

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