Adil Najam
More than 10,000 Sikh yatrees from India, Europe and North America converged on Nankana Sahib on Sunday to celebrate the 538th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, and the first of its ten Gurus. This was reportedly the largest Sikh gathering at Nankana Sahib since 1947.
Earlier in the week about 4000 pilgrims from India had arrived in Lahore on the train Samjhota Express to participate in the celebrations. Others arrived at Janam Isthan by the Amritsar-Nankana Punj Aab bus service. The pilgrims arrived at the Sacha Soda Gurdawara in 125 buses on Saturday morning and returned to Janam Isthan in the evening.
According to Amir Mir, writing in Gulf News (6 November, 2006):
Nankana Sahib, a sacred city for the Sikhs and located in the Pakistani province of Punjab, has come to life as nearly 10,000 Sikh pilgrims from India, Europe and America are attending the birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak. According to the chairman of the Pakistan Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (PGPC) Sardar Mustan Singh… in an unprecedented gesture of goodwill, the Pakistan government had issued visas to more than 10,000 Sikh pilgrims from India, Europe and America to visit Pakistan and participate in the three-day celebrations of the birth anniversary of the founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak.
Sardar Mustan Singh said that free food is being provided to all the Sikh pilgrims and they have been provided accommodation by the Punjab government close to the Gurdwara Janam Asthan, the birthplace of Guru Nanak. The markets of Nankana Sahib have been specially decorated and special stalls were set up to feature traditional food and apparel and books and cassettes on Punjabi poetry and the Sikh religion.
Sikhs in other parts of Pakistan (see here for earlier post) also celebrated the occasion. For example, in Karachi, according to The News, “a large number of Sikh community members got together at Rama Sawami Temple, which is situated at M A Jinnah and performed their religious rituals there and at some other places like Ranchor Line and Kikri Ground.”
To put things in perspective, out of total population of 160 million today, the number of non-Muslim population in Pakistan does not exceed 5 million. That number is less than the total population of metropolitan Lahore. For a country of the size of Pakistan it should not be hard to protect and safeguard religious minority population of less than 5 million, particularly when these minorities consist of indigenous stock. Non-Muslims in Pakistan are minority only in the religious sense otherwise they are non distinguishable from the rest of the population. Dr. Adil Najam is doing a great service to Pakistan by being inclusive towards non-Muslims in an otherwise religiously Muslim chauvinistic society where majority religion is often put ‘up in your face’. By speaking out about the religious minority rights in Pakistan at ATP he is only doing the right thing. But lets keep things in balance here. Lets move on beyond religion. Lets move on to the secular world of Pakistan where we speak in terms of Pakistan and not necessarily in terms of our religion. Lets put religion in private and not in public domain.
Let me add that there is great political (in the good sense of the term) benefits of this opening up. The wounds of the carnage of 1947 tends to be particualrly deep and personal amongst the people’s of the two Punjab’s and there is clearly a desire on both sides of the Punjab to begin healing those wounds. Such exchange provides teh opportunity and the venue for beginning to heal those wounds and beginning the conversations that are needed for this to happen. This will not and cannot happen overnight, but it will never happen if small steps are not taken. Hence, all the more reason to encourage such openings on both sides and find more opportunities for people-to-people interaction.
On a related note, for those interested in the subject, there is a fascinating and detailed article titled Imagining Punjab in the Age of Globalization on Bhupinder Singh’s blog.
There is a travel company based in the UK, TravelPak (www.travelpak.co.uk) that does trekking and hiking tours in the Northern Areas.
They are currently working on a tour/pilgrimage of Sikh temples that would allow Sikhs (and of course, anyone else who is curious) all over the world to easily access their holy places in Pakistan.
From what I hear they might be beginning this tour in summer of 2007.
Congraulations to our Sikh friends on this happy occasion.
There is an economic angle to this… Pakistan can effectively build its tourism industry around Hindu and Sikh tourism…
For Non-Pakistani Sikhs and Hindus Visa numbers should be increased from 10 000 to 100 000… maybe we can learn from the Haj and Saudi experience with global religious tourism and do the same vis a vis Nankana Sahab, Hassan Abdal and Ketas Raj areas…