A Journey to the Abode of Guru Nanak in Kartarpur Where Faith and History Converge

Kartarpur (Pakistan): The Kartarpur Corridor, leading to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan, where Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak spent his last 18 years farming and preaching, was teeming early one morning last month with several hundred eager pilgrims, of which I was one, readying to undertake the celebrated a trip to my ancestor’s shrine.    

Making my way, on February 23, from my native border village of Dera Baba Nanak, or DBN, in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district-named after the Guru, who also lived there in the mid-16th century, we flocked to the Integrated Check Post inside the state-art-Land Port, whose rooftop resembles the sail-like gables of the Sydney Opera House, to complete formalities for our visit.

And though just 4.7 km away, historical animosities, numerous wars, enduring cross-border hostilities between Islamabad and New Delhi had rendered Kartarpur inaccessible for decades, till the corridor opened in November 2019 on Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary, following extended bilateral negotiations. According to statistics recently tabled in parliament, over 192,000 Indians, largely Sikh devotees, had traversed the corridor to the Gurdwara between August 2021-24.   

On frequent earlier visits to DBN as a youngster, I recalled standing on the dhusi or military mud embankment overlooking the barbed-wire enclosed ‘No Man’s Land’ stretch along the border, and gazing quizzically across lush green fields of ripening wheat and paddy on either side, at the glittering domes of the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara, splendid in its remote isolation.  

In recent years, the Border Security Force (BSF) had erected a viewing gallery to observe the Gurdwara that was frequented by an incessant procession of visitors, particularly Sikhs from across Punjab for who Kartarpur, alongside the Golden Temple at Amritsar and Gurdwara Janam Asthan at Nankana Sahib, Nanak’s birthplace near Lahore, were highly revered worship spots. 

Equally fascinating to me in the 1960s was the sight of a small goods train that frequently plied close to Kartarpur on a narrow-gauge rail line, its steam engine lazily puffing its smoky passage to and from the frontier. It travelled to and from the district headquarters at Narowal in Pakistan’s Punjab province, and nearby Shakargarh tehsil, where nearly 50 Pakistan Army tanks were destroyed by Indian armoured columns in the fierce battle of Basantar in the December 1971 war.   

Also read: What Kartarpur Symbolises, for Guru Nanak, and for Sikhism Today

Almost a lifetime earlier, my father recalled frequently crossing the now near-dry Ravi River that eventually became the frontier between the newly created countries in 1947, along with other boys from DBN’s Dane High School to explore the woods around the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara.  Over 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 Ravi in successive wars against Pakistan.  

Militarily for India, DBN remains the gateway to the garrison town of  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 my small ancestral mango grove in DBN, with its century-old open Roman well with crystal-clearwater, relentlessly bombarding the enemy. At the time we all were convinced that Nanak’s spirit hovering benignly over DBN would ensure that no harm came to his beloved village. 

None did.  

Back at the DBN Corridor, we were pleasantly surprised to see all crossing-over formalities managed breezily, politely and above all else painlessly by BSF personnel and Intelligence Bureau staff manning the numerous immigration counters. After swiftly checking each pilgrim’s Electronic Travel Authorisation-that is free and obtained online relatively easily-and passport – which is compulsorily required but not stamped by either side – Indian visitors were administered polio drops as part of a World Health Organisation’s public health initiative as the disease still endures in Pakistan.  

We then scrambled aboard electrically operated golf carts, which deposited us a few hundred meters away inside Pakistan, a crossover that evoked instant excitement amongst the visitors, amplifying the overall exhilaration embodying the Gurdwara visit. A bus then transported us to a nearby Pakistani Cambio and immigration centre where, after the mandatory payment of $20, agreed upon by both countries, the final perusal of documentation was completed with utmost courteousness and civility, peppered, of course, with good-natured Punjabi banter with lanky Pakistani Rangers and immigration personnel.   

The final leg of the journey was a 3-km bus ride with the option of walking the short distance, but one that was politely, but firmly declined on that day for unspecified reasons by Pakistani officials – to the steps of the spectacular Gurdwara, where all pilgrims were deposited to freely explore its grandeur till late the same afternoon. 

Managed by Pakistan’s Evacuee Trust Property Board, with financial assistance from India for its maintenance and running expenses, the spotlessly serene and spectacular gold-domed white marble Gurdwara was founded as a community centre by Nanak around 1522, on Ravi’s right bank for his proliferating band of Hindu and Muslim devotees. They all gathered here to learn, debate and practice the Guru’s humanist teachings and his simple, but all-encompassing ‘Ik Onkar’ unifying message that there is only one God or One Creator for all mankind.  

Blending traditional Sikh and Mughal styles, the tastefully and sensitively expanded gurudwara complex by Pakistan is spread over some 42 acres and features large domes, ornate arches, vast courtyards and a central Darbar Sahib prayer hall. However, its total overall area, which includes a tastefully landscaped ‘sacred forest’ that was added in 2017 alongside facilities for visiting Indian pilgrims, is an estimated 100 acres, or nearly 3.5 times the spread of Amritsar’s  Golden Temple that encompasses around 28 acres.  

A 20-foot-high red brick wall is possibly the sole surviving 16th century structure from Nanak’s time, as the original buildings were destroyed twice by floods and rebuilt in 1925. Pakistan renovated the Gurdwara extensively in 1995, and again in 2004 and gradually expanded it thereafter to its grand present-day form. While it was not a gurdwara in the formalised sense of the term in Nanak’s time – this institution developed much later – it served the same purpose by providing space for worship, community, langar and the preaching and practice of Sikh principles including equality, sewa or service and absolute devotion to one God.  

Following an extended stay in DBN, known then as Pakhoke Randhaw, where his father Mehta Kalu owned land – Nanak settled in Kartarpur after his fourth and final Udasi or spiritual peregrinations, mostly on foot, which took him as far afield as Baghdad, Mecca, Lanka, Nepal and Kashmir, amongst other places. 

But it was on around 100 acres at Kartarpur, bequeathed to him by a local devotee landlord that he is believed to have composed several of the Granth Sahib’s texts and hymns including the japji sahib, one of Sikhism’s foundational texts encapsulating the essence of the new religions spiritual thought and philosophy. And, till he passed away in 1839, aged 70 years, Nanak also espoused the three enduring fundamental pillars of Sikhism at Kartarpur: Kirat karo, Nam japo and Wand chako or work honestly, meditate in God’s name and share one’s bounties with others. The latter has, in recent decades proliferated exponentially to globally incorporate the concept of langar for tens of millions of refugees and disadvantaged populations.   

Guru Angad, anointed by Nanak to succeed him instead of his two sons Sri Chand and Lakhmi Das/Chand too spent several years of scholarship at Kartarpur under his mentor but left after he passed for Khadur Sahib in Punjab’s Taran Taran district near Amritsar. Credited with creating the Gurmukhi (from the mouth of the Guru) script in the 16th century, Angad standardised writing in the Punjabi language, as we know it today to ensure that teachings of the Sikh Gurus, especially Nanak were accurately recorded. 

The Kartarpur Gurdwara is believed to have been constructed on the site where Guru Nanak died. According to legend, his grieving followers disagreed on how to perform his last rites; Hindus wanted to cremate his mortal remains and Muslims to bury them, and many fascinating legends and accounts abound over how this dilemma was resolved. 

One belief has it that before he passed away, Nanak instructed his disciples to return the next day for his body. Upon doing so, they found a bed of fresh flowers, instead of his physical form under a shroud, which then were equally divided between his grieving devotees from both religions. Most accounts have Nanak’s Hindu followers cremating the flowers and building a samadhi or shrine at the site in his memory, whilst his Muslim devotees are said to have buried the flowers in a grave nearby.  

Both cenotaphs were worshipped equally by the two communities for centuries, becoming places of pilgrimage that palpably emphasised the unity and inclusiveness Nanak preached by transcending sectarian boundaries and ritualistic differences, particularly the invidious caste system that perpetuated inequality. In later times, the samadhi and the grave are believed to have been washed away by floods alongside the buildings, but the Gurdwara was built later in the same area where Nanak’s memorials were reportedly located.   

Nanak’s stature amongst Muslims even today, was surprisingly reinforced by scores of Muslims who were present at the Gurdwara as pilgrims last month to fittingly pay him obeisance. Many who this writer interacted with, said they had visited multiple times, firmly believing in the Guru’s underlying message of peace and brotherhood in presently turbulent times.  

Returning to my recent visit, the delicious langar, served by young boy and girl volunteers from Sindh at the gurdwara’s spacious hall capable of accommodating over 3,000 pilgrims, was the final stop before departing. Supervised by Mubashir from nearby Kartarpur town, who said he had directed the Gurdwara’s community kitchen for nearly two decades, the delicious fare of soya, channa, rice and ‘mitha chawal’ or sweet rice, was topped by a revitalising glass of tea. Mubashir even specially made sugarless tea for several diabetic Indian pilgrims.  

Meanwhile, the return journey, around 3.30 pm in the afternoon, was merely a reverse replay of the inward-bound crossing, executed as efficiently and effortlessly by border officials on either side. On driving back to Amritsar, the one prevailing thought that persisted was the hope that Nanak’s humanity, magnanimity and spiritualism would somehow serve to mitigate mutual animosities on either side of the contentious border, giving way to his fundamental message of eclecticism, brotherhood, peace and benevolence, amply personifieded by Kartarpur.