Chandigarh: My ancestral village of Dera Baba Nanak or DBN on the Pakistani border in Punjab and the launch point for the nearby Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara in the neighbouring country is currently much in the news for joyous reasons.
This normally somnolent and remote village in Punjab’s Majha region, where my ancestor and Sikhism’s founder Nanak Bedi spent his last 17 years farming, is buzzing once again as the 4.7 km long corridor from it to Kartarpur has resumed. Closed for nearly two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, the corridor re-opened on Wednesday, ahead of Nanak’s 552nd birth anniversary two days later.
The Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara is of special import to Sikhs as well as Hindus – and earlier even Muslims – all of who were, in equal measure Nanak’s devotees and followers of his simple but all-encompassing ‘Ik Onkar’ message that there is only one God or One Creator for all mankind. The peasant-sage also espoused the three fundamental pillars of Sikhism: Kirat karo, Nam Japo and Wand Chako or simply work honestly, meditate in God’s name and share one’s food, possessions and wealth, a maxim that espouses the now globally feted concept of langar.
The DBN of my youth abounded with many tales centred around Kartarpur Sahib’s special status, going back to September 22 1539, when Nanak passed away at the age of 70. Thereafter, his grieving followers disagreed on how to perform his last rites; Hindus wanted to cremate his mortal remains and Muslims to bury them. Eventually, a compromise was reached and a Samadhi and a Muslim grave were erected at Kartarpur to peaceably and eclectically propitiate both communities.
On frequent visits to DBN as a young boy, I recall standing on the dhusi or mud bundh overlooking the adjoining ‘No Man’s Land’ along the India-Pakistan border, and gazing quizzically across lush green fields of ripening wheat and paddy at the glistering Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara, splendid in its remote isolation. In recent years the Border Security Force (BSF) has erected a viewing gallery to look at the gurdwara, which was frequented by an incessant procession of visitors, particularly Sikhs from across Punjab who consider Kartarpur sacred.
Equally, fascinating to me in the 1960s was the sight of a small goods train that plied close to Kartarpur on a narrow-gauge rail-line, its steam engine lazily puffing its smoky passage to and from the frontier. Presumably, it travelled from the district headquarters at Narowal in Pakistan’s Punjab province and nearby Shakargarh, where nearly 50 Pakistan Army tanks were destroyed by Indian armoured columns in the fierce Battle of Basantar in the December 1971 war.
Almost a lifetime earlier, my father recalled frequently crossing the Ravi river over what eventually became the border between the newly created countries in 1947, along with other boys from DBNs Dane high school to play in the woods around the Kartarpur gurdwara.
Kartarpur (1) and Dera Baba Nanak (2) are separated by the Ravi river (3). Photo: Wikimedia maps
But in the decades after Partition, DBN frequently came alive to the sound of marching army columns, alongside the roar of tanks and the rattle of artillery field guns that camouflaged themselves in scattered mango groves, their barrels aimed across the now near-dry Ravi in successive wars against Pakistan.
Militarily for India, DBN remains the gateway to Sialkot, some 70 km away and barely 10 km distant as the crow flies, and my parents recalled that just for one day at independence, their village ended up inside newly created Pakistan, as confusion prevailed over boundary lines drawn by the British Colonial administration. Even today, many village elders recall the 1965 and 1971 wars, when all women and children were dispatched to nearby towns for safety and the menfolk stayed behind to tend to their fields and to look after army jawans, lavishing food and Punjabi hospitality upon them.
Artillery and tank duels raged around Dera for control of the vital bridge over the Ravi, badly damaged in 1965 and never repaired since. The artillery salvos in 1971 were equally fierce, as some of the field guns were secreted in our small ancestral mango grove, with the century-old open roman well with its crystal-clear water, relentlessly bombarded the enemy. At the time, and even subsequently, we all were convinced that Nanak’s spirit hovering benignly over DBN would ensure that no harm came to his beloved village.
Expectedly, none did.
Interestingly, in keeping with Nanak’s simplicity, wisdom, sagacity and piety, DBN never ever flaunted its credentials as the Guru’s eventual abode, remaining just another Punjabi village, underdeveloped and largely neglected like hundreds of others. But in one of its corners was the delightful Chola Sahib gurdwara which initially housed the chola or cloak believed to have been presented to Nanak by a Muslim devotee during a trip to Baghdad as part of his extended peregrinations in the region.
Gurudwara Sri Chola Sahib. Photo: Harvinder Chandigarh/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Intricately embroidered with Quranic verses and Arabic numerals arranged in the form of charms, this cloak was reportedly brought from Baghdad by Kabali Mall Bedi, one of Nanak’s descendants around 1828 and installed in the specially erected gurdwara. However, after the Gurdwara reform movement in the 1920s, the cloak reverted to Kabali Mall’s descendants, who displayed it in a glass case in a nearby private house and continue to do so even today.
Also on show alongside the cloak are Nanak’s khadawans, or wooden shoes, and an intricately and colourfully embroidered piece of cloth stitched by Bebe Nanki, the Sikh Guru’s older sister, who died at the age of 54 in 1518. All three relics are publicly displayed annually at a special fair in the village every March that is attended by thousands of Nanak’s devotees. Before Partition, and even for a few years thereafter, Muslims too flocked to visit the holy man’s effects, but their attendance has long since ended.
Also Read: Explainer | Kartarpur, the Making of a Diplomatic Corridor
On the last occasion I visited Dera, some years ago, it was truly an unprepossessing place, struggling to keep pace with modernity, a stark contrast to the exponential all-round upgrade it has undergone since the Kartarpur corridor was operationalised in November 2019 on Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary.
At the time the cacophonic drone of loudspeakers, relaying the Gurbani from the gold-domed gurdwara on the edge of the village’s sole bazaar, barely managed to edge out the continuing din of popular Punjabi songs being played by the local eunuchs to celebrate the birth of a child in Sunaiara Gulli or Jewelers Alley. This was the area where my grandfather, a sessions judge in what is now Pakistan, once came across a pot full of gold coins and jewellery whilst digging the foundations of our family house, now a complete ruin over a century-and-a-half later.
The Colonial administration allowed him to keep one gold sovereign from the entire cache, one that was swiftly encashed during the chaotic days of Partition just to survive the hard times. Over years, we heard fascinatingly romantic stories of many others similarly finding treasure buried in walls that crumbled during the monsoon rains, a phenomenon that villagers attributed to divine intervention and association with Nanak.
Decades later, however, a more prosaic and plausible explanation emerged: the booty was what refugees fleeing their homes in Pakistan in 1947 buried on brief stopovers at frontier villages like DBN, hoping to collect it later, but never ever did.
Hopefully, 75 years later the advent of the Kartarpur Sahib Gurdaspur and its association with the universally revered Nanak will, in his memory serve to somewhat mitigate the mutual ill-will and animosity on either side of the border, giving way to his simple message of eclecticism, brotherhood and humanity.
