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Ravi Dhaliwal in Dera Baba Nanak
Every month, for 18 long years, come rain, sunshine or sleet, former Nakodar legislator and Akali stalwart Kuldeep Singh Wadala organised prayer meetings near the Zero Line at Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur. With hands folded in reverence, he and scores of devotees would seek to see and feel — from a distance — the place across the border in Pakistan’s Kartarpur where the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak Dev, assembled a commune and spent the last 18 years of his life until his death in 1539.
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Wadala passed away on June 5 last year and 20 months later, the first batch of pilgrims is all set to cross over to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, fulfilling his wish. The Punjab government, in a touching tribute, has decided to name one of the roads leading to the corridor after him.
Indian officials at the construction site, who often meet their Pakistan counterparts in technical review meetings, are fond of recounting how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank asked Prime Minister Imran Khan “to show something good done by his country” if they had to give him the greenbacks. The premier could not have thought of a better goodwill gesture than announcing that his country would open the passage to Kartarpur to mark the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. New Delhi had to quickly start planning the venture on the Indian side following Imran’s well-disguised political googly.
When the first JCB started flattening the sugarcane fields in Dera Baba Nanak, a month after Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh laid the foundation stone in November last year, there was no shortage of sceptics. “One more attack like Dinanagar or Pathankot and the JCB machines will go back” was the consensus.
However, this uncertainty slowly evaporated into thin air once the land acquisition process got underway. There were regular protests from farmers demanding more price than what was being offered. Finally, sensing that things could go off on a tangent, Capt Amarinder dispatched his ‘Man Friday’ and local MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa to negotiate.
“Faith can move mountains and doubts can create them. There was a lot of scepticism but when we told the farmers that they would get 100 per cent solatium (money given as compensation), they stopped protesting and readily agreed to part with their landholdings,” said Randhawa. On February 14, the Pulwama attack took place, followed by the Balakot airstrikes, but fortunately, the corridor work stayed on track.
Ironing out differences with Pakistan
Round one had been won once the process to acquire land was completed without much ado. Then came the technical part. The main question was how to evolve a consensus on ‘zero-point’ — the exact place where roads coming from India and Pakistan would converge.
This question was answered during the first technical review meeting. Unanimity emerged that Pakistan would construct its side of the passage, a little more than 3 km long, while India would build the rest and the roads would meet somewhere near where the fencing has been erected.
Finally, it was decided that the passages would meet just adjacent to the raised platform constructed by the Border Security Force to facilitate devotees to have a glimpse of Kartarpur gurdwara through binoculars.
With the Lok Sabha elections barely months away, it was imperative that Prime Minister Narendra Modi took an avid interest. He ordered the Surface Transport ministry to take charge. The ministry’s nodal agencies — National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI) — were tasked with the construction process.
Keeping in view the religious implications involved, as also the emotive appeal, the Surface Transport ministry was given Rs 538 crore and was told that more money would flow in. At another level, Capt Amarinder asked his officials to immediately sanction Rs 170 crore for the beautification of Dera Baba Nanak.
After several rounds of confabulations between India and Pakistan, the decks were finally cleared for construction of one of Sikh community’s most prestigious projects in Independent India.
Division of work
NHAI was given the responsibility of constructing the road, including a 100-metre-long bridge, and also to widen all the four roads leading to the Integrated Check Post (ICP), and consequently to the corridor. Likewise, LPAI was entrusted with the work of building the ICP, also called the Passenger Terminal Building.
NHAI contracted Ceigall India Limited, a Ludhiana-based firm, for construction of the road and the bridge. LPAI asked Mumbai-based conglomerate Shaporji Pallonji, which has built many of Mumbai’s famed landmarks, to construct the ICP.
Interestingly, when work commenced, Punjab’s mining mafia reared its head. Sand and gravel prices suddenly spiralled. The mafia, very shrewdly, had cut off supply while demand, for both the passage and the ICP, was increasing with every passing day.
A livid Randhawa made an overnight dash to Chandigarh and asked the CM to intervene. On his part, Capt Amarinder was quick to warn the mafia to mend its ways or face the music. Hours later, the mafia relaxed its grip and mining material started flowing again.
Away from the glare, the Army too was at work. With Pulwana and Pathankot at the back of their minds, officers wanted to secure the 100-metre bridge with explosives to make sure the structure could be demolished in the eventuality of an attack.
“This is a normal procedure with the Army. It always fits bridges with explosives built near the borders. Not much should be read into it,” said an officer.
The Pakistanis threw a spanner into the works by insisting that they could not on their side build a bridge which was to connect with the Indian bridge at ‘zero-point’. Their reasoning was that it does not suit them in the event of an Indian strike.
According to the agreed terms and modalities, the Indians were to establish a 100-metre bridge while Pakistan was to construct a 300-metre one in its area. Both the over-passes would then connect at the ‘zero-point’. This would have guaranteed a two-bridge corridor. The bridges were necessitated due to the Ravi river flowing in a zig-zag way on both sides of the Radcliffe Line. There was an impasse, and Kartarpur was slowly becoming a bridge too far.
Days stretched into weeks as officials from across the border insisted on a causeway rather than a bridge. Minister Randhawa pointed out that if a causeway would come up, the entire town of Dera Baba Nanak would be submerged during monsoon.
“With the causeway blocking the natural flow of water when the Ravi river would be in spate, it would be but natural that all the water flows back into India. This would have meant that not only Dera Baba Nanak, but about 60 villages in its vicinity would also have to bear the brunt of the floods,” maintained Randhawa.
Breakthrough on construction
On August 29, in the technical meeting held at Zero Line, a breakthrough was achieved. The Pakistanis saw logic in the flooding argument put forth by Randhawa and the Indian officials. They agreed to construct a bridge, but with a rider. Their bridge would be built only after the corridor was operationalised. “Instead, they were willing to provide a service road to facilitate the movement of pilgrims. They said they would establish the bridge at a later date. This definitely has taken some sheen away from the corridor,” said Jeetendra Singh, vice-president of Ceigall India Limited.
The Kartarpur corridor may well turn out to be a catalyst to normalise ties, and can also act as a bulwark against mutual trust deficit. And if that happens, credit should go to believers like Kuldeep Singh Wadala.
THE VAJPAYEE INITIATIVE
Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee first suggested that the passage be opened to devotees when he took a bus trip to Lahore in 1999. Later, Gurdaspur MPs Partap Singh Bajwa and Vinod Khanna, too, made efforts, but nothing tangible happened in the name of “national security”
Finally, at a Cabinet meeting chaired by PM Narendra Modi on November 22 last year, the Kartarpur corridor was approved
During Imran Khan’s swearing-in ceremony, then Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu was caught on camera hugging the Pakistan army chief and exuding confidence that the corridor could become a reality. Capt Amarinder Singh was less charitable to Pakistan. “Which army teaches to send people to attack Pathankot and Amritsar? This is sheer cowardice. Sidhu may have his reasons to go to Pakistan, I don’t approve them,” he said.
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