Kartarpur Corridor — A headache for India; Did you hear that?
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Kartarpur Corridor — A headache for India; Did you hear that?
Tejinder Singh Bedi
@tsinghbedi
It is strange that our newspapers of the stature of the Economic Times and the Times of India have carried captions like ‘India’s Kartarpur Headache’ in their recent prominent coverage of the developments on the envisaged corridor, in some of their issues of the week gone.
Equally amusing is the fact that a section of our media too seems hell bent upon creating an impression in the country that the opening of the corridor is nothing but opening avenues for fanning terrorism further in our part of the land.
If there is so much of a fear psychosis that a mere opening of a passage to the borders for allowing devotees of Sat Guru Nanak Dev ji to be able to visit one of our holiest shrines and piece of land under all surveillance of the mighty IB, RAW, CID wings of our States besides the BSF and other paramilitary forces available to check and screen every movement 24x7, as carried out at all of our airports too in a foolproof manner without an iota of an infringement of the right of personal freedom of any human being, can still endanger our sovereignty, then why don’t we stop issuing and exchanging visas even for business and government travel to and from Pakistan with immediate effect?
Who knows which ‘Khalistani spirit’ may enter our country through the capitalist biz persons, traders, and even government officials allowed to commute between the two partitioned nations for diplomatic or other reasons even without this corridor having been opened-up?
And the write-ups cited have carried this caption after a very crystal clear assurance by Rajni Kant Mishra, the present Director General (BSF) that the corridor can not pose any security challenges to BSF; which is the main and the first security-guarding ring across this border. I feel that our leading national newspapers like the Economic Times and The Times of India can, in fact, play a more positive and pivotal role to allay any of such misgivings in the society and educate citizens and media persons unduly deliberating on all issues to let at least our sacred institutions like the Armed Forces and other para-military forces and agencies like the RAW & IB to keep doing their jobs undistracted. We also need to appreciate that the decision to lay the foundation stone for corridor by no less than the incumbent Vice President of India and to send two Union Cabinet Ministers to Pakistan to enjoin the ceremonies there had not only the approval of our Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi ji but his entire cabinet too. I feel sometimes we get too carried away in voicing our opinions on duly deliberated decisions of the governments and more than often choose to look the other ways when some follow off-the-cuff. Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amrinder Singh had also promised all support to the development of the corridor while only and very rightly highlighting the need to stay alert on all security related issues with Pakistan, which is just as necessary and unavoidable even if the corridor was not to come up and on top of that not as a free for all passage for anybody sans any security controls and surveillance exercised on all our borders. While it is necessary to keep all vigil and which is possible, it is grossly wrong to pass off the move as a headache for the Government. And as a matter of fact, if it materializes eventually, it is only going to create a ‘virtual border’ until the doorsteps of Gurdawara Kartarpur Sahib, still under all security controls as monitoring the Wagha border or even stronger than those to overcome misplaced fears — what should be left to the best judgment and prudence of our governments of the day.
I am sure our media czars have enough on their plates to do justice to honest journalism if they stick to the deeds or misdeeds of our politicians, mafia dons, corrupt sections of our bureaucracy, internal communal issues, the state of the economy of the country, growing disparities and inequalities in the society and other basic amenities plus how best we can strengthen governments of the day to ensure that the fundamental rights of all citizens, especially the poor, deprived and marginalized are not allowed to be compromised or exploited ever.
