India on Tuesday said that, from Wednesday, it will reopen the Kartarpur Corridor with neighbouring Pakistan. Federal Home Minister Amit Shah made the announcement on Twitter.
India imposed curbs on movement through the corridor in March 2020, citing the COVID-19 situation at the time.
The Kartarpur shrine is located about 4.5km from the state of Punjab, which lies on the India-Pakistan border. India's Punjab state borders the Pakistani province of Punjab although the two parts were unified before partition at the time of Independence from Britain in 1947.
The decision to open the gates of the corridor comes just before the anniversary of the birth of Sikhism’s founder, Guru Nanak, on 19 November.
Sikhs make up nearly 57 percent of the population in India's Punjab state, which makes the corridor’s reopening a truly emotional issue for the public because of the religious associations.
The announcement has been welcomed by India's main federal opposition party Congress, which is in power in Punjab state. State chief Charanjit Singh Channi, a Sikh himself, has said that his entire cabinet would be travelling to Pakistan on 18 November to pay their respects at the Kartarpur shrine.
Sikh politicians in India, including those from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had been urging the federal authorities to reopen the corridor for some time before Home Minister Shah made his announcement on Tuesday.
On Monday, a delegation of BJP politicians from Punjab met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked him to reopen the corridor.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Asim Iftikhar, said last week that the corridor had already been opened from their side, and he urged New Delhi to allow Sikh pilgrims to travel to Pakistan.
Pakistan Prime Minister, Imran Khan, said on 9 November that his support for the Kartarpur Corridor reflected his government’s commitment to “inter-faith harmony” and “minority rights”, while accusing the Indian government of carrying out “systematic persecution” of Muslims and other minorities.
The inauguration ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor in November 2019 was presided over by Khan himself, with prominent Indian Sikh leaders in attendance. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also attended the ceremony.
Up to 5,000 Indian pilgrims can travel through the corridor on normal days, although the limit has been set at 15,000 for special occasions such as the upcoming Sikh festival. The Indians travelling to Pakistan using the corridor are required to return on the same day, according to Pakistani rules.
Strained Ties Between Pakistan and India
The Kartarpur Corridor's inauguration ceremony in 2019 was held just a few months after India withdrew the semi-autonomous status from Jammu and Kashmir and split the former state into two union territories.
Pakistan, which administers a part of Jammu and Kashmir region, rejected India's decision and downgraded its diplomatic ties with New Delhi in the wake of its Kashmir decision.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Khan has even accused the Indian government of trying to alter the Muslim-dominant demography of Jammu and Kashmir by trying to re-settle people from other religions in the region.
Islamabad has said that it won’t restore bilateral ties with India until the Modi government reverses its August 2019 decision.
For its part, New Delhi says that anything to do with Kashmir is an “internal matter” and Pakistan has no locus standi, or right to have an opinion, on the decision.