“Satthon baba kholiya tera Nankana”: Separation anxieties and Sikh mobilization

The 17 August 1947 announcement of the Radcliffe Line, which carved out the boundaries of the new states of India and Pakistan, coupled with the violence and mass dislocation that followed, gave rise to anxieties over access (or the lack of) to religious sites that now fell on the other side of the border. Several figures had already raised concerns around this issue during the vexed deliberations over the future borders of India and Pakistan. The Shiromani Akali Dal, a party that positioned itself as the political representative of Sikh interests in the lead-up to independence, warned that a partition that separated Sikhs from key religious sites – such as Kartarpur Sahib – would not be acceptable to the community. Indeed, Giani Kartar Singh, the Akali Dal president in 1947, asserted to Lord Mountbatten, the last colonial viceroy, that the Boundary Commission tasked with charting the borders of India and Pakistan, under the chairmanship of Cyril Radcliffe, had to realize that any line that separated Sikhs from their religious sites would be unacceptable. Singh warned that any such boundary could lead to widescale violence, arguing that the border had to be drawn so that key Sikh religious sites would be in India.Footnote ¹¹ This, he suggested, could be achieved if the Boundary Commission retained the districts of Lyallpur, Sheikhpura, and Gujranwala in their entirety within Indian Punjab.Footnote ¹²

Such was the emotional impact of the “loss” of Gurdwara Nankana Sahib in 1947 that it has come to be canonized as a pivotal moment in Sikh history. Gurdwara Nankana Sahib was built at the site of Nanak’s birth in 1469. As such, the gurdwara is one of the most important Sikh sites. In his above-mentioned note to Mountbatten, Kartar Singh sought to highlight the significance of Nankana Sahib by stressing that it is the “holiest of the holy and comparable in sanctity only to the Mecca of the Muslims.”Footnote ¹³ While the dislocations of partition resulted in most Sikhs being located in India, Gurdwara Nankana Sahib fell in Pakistan. The extent to which separation from this site was experienced and described as a collective loss is reflected in Sikh historical narratives, religious ceremonies, and popular culture. Take, for instance, the popular Indian Punjabi song “Baba tera Nankana” (Nanak your Nankana), written and sung by Amar Singh Chamkila. Released in 1987, the song has been remixed and covered by several other singers. A stanza of the song states:

Separation from Gurdwara Nankana Sahib has also been canonized in Sikh liturgy. The ardas or collective supplication to God, which is recited at the culmination of religious ceremonies or before undertaking an important task, is a central part of Sikh communal worship. Apart from stressing the tenets of Sikhism and the virtues of the Sikh Gurus, the ardas recounts key moments in Sikh history and the sacrifices offered by Sikhs to uphold their religion. In 1952, the Akal Takht – a body that positions itself as a spiritual and temporal authority over Sikhs – issued a hukmnama (decree or edict) stating that, henceforth, the ardas would be revised to include reference to the loss of Gurdwara Nankana Sahib and a plea for the Sikhs of India to be allowed access to the site.Footnote ¹⁵ The verse referring to the loss of Nankana is as follows:

Notably, this reference to dislocation from Nankana Sahib is today recited by Sikhs across the world; many of whom are equally as separated from religious sites in India as in Pakistan. This goes to show how separation – both real and symbolic – from religious sites in Pakistan has come to be constructed and internalized as a pivotal moment in Sikh history, alongside the impact of this separation on the development of Sikh identity.Footnote ¹⁷

Within months of partition, several Sikh groups in India made official requests to cross the border to visit Gurdwara Nankana Sahib. The most prominent amongst these was a request made in November 1947 by the ruler of the princely state of Patiala, Maharaja Yadavindra Singh (1913–1974). The maharaja wrote to India’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Home Affairs, Vallabhbhai Patel, appealing for “adequate protection” and transportation for Sikhs wanting to visit Nankana to commemorate the anniversary of Nanak’s birth.Footnote ¹⁸ The Indian authorities followed up further, writing to their counterparts in Pakistan to enquire whether “arrangements could be made for the safe passage” of “ten lorry loads of pilgrims.”Footnote ¹⁹ India’s Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), took the issue up directly with his counterpart, Liaquat Ali Khan (1895–1951).Footnote ²⁰ Notably, both the Indian state and the Maharaja of Patiala presented this request by Sikh pilgrims as an opportunity for Pakistan to negotiate reciprocal visits for Pakistani Muslims to religious sites in India. The Pakistani authorities, however, felt that the context was not conducive for such a visit. As West Punjab was still attempting to cope with the violence and dislocations of partition, it was feared that the arrival of a convoy of Sikh pilgrims from India could further vitiate the context. Hence, Pakistan did not accede to this request. Such concerns notwithstanding, the Pakistani government’s rejection of the request was commented on and denounced in newspapers across India. The Evening News, for instance, carried an article on 26 November 1947 entitled “Sikh Pilgrimage to Nankana Sahib: Pakistan’s Denial of Facilities Deplored.” The article described Pakistan’s decision as one that would “add more fuel to the fire.”Footnote ²¹ Concerned about accusations of not representing Sikh interests, Nehru suggested that India issue a public statement “explaining the whole position so that the Sikhs would understand that it was for no lack of efforts on our part” that they would “have to do with their customary pilgrimage.”Footnote ²²

Sikhs who found themselves separated from sites such as Nankana Sahib called on the Indian government to not only facilitate their safe passage to Pakistan but also ensure the maintenance of religious sites in a manner befitting their sacred stature. The communal violence that accompanied partition had led to religious sites on both sides of the border coming under attack. Such violence and the spread of rumors of the systematic desecration of religious sites led to India and Pakistan agreeing, on 19 September 1947, to protect sacred spaces in their boundaries, “even if they remain empty.”Footnote ²³ Despite this agreement, attacks on religious sites continued. Sections of the Sikh community raised concerns about the safety of gurdwaras in Pakistan and several of community leaders warned about widespread attacks on such sites. In 1950, for instance, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee – a Sikh body vested by the Gurdwaras Act of 1925 with the authority to oversee the maintenance of gurdwaras in Punjab – published a book that described attacks on the gurdwaras as part of the “systematic campaign of terror and destruction … against Sikhs.”Footnote ²⁴ Collectively, rumors, statements, and warnings of this nature led to anxieties over the safety of religious institutions on the other side of the Radcliffe Line. In addition, numerous Hindu and Sikh religious sites in Pakistan and Muslim religious institutions in India came under state administration. While this is discussed in detail below, it is useful to note here that many religious sites were used to house refugees and there were discussions about whether the state could appropriate these as “evacuee properties.” Furthermore, several religious sites and institutions also had property and agricultural lands attached, which had historically provided a stream of revenue for their maintenance. In sum, there were concerns amongst religious communities not only about whether their sacred sites had been damaged in the violence of partition, but also over the long-term maintenance of these sites.

Such concerns culminated in Sikh groups proposing various schemes to ensure that Nankana Sahib remained accessible and well maintained. One such scheme was laid out in an ambitious memorandum tabled by Swaran Singh (1907–1994) to India’s Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation in 1948. In this memorandum, Singh called for Nankana to be accorded a status similar to that of the Vatican. Singh was the Home Minister of East Punjab, a leading figure in the Akali Dal, and had served as a member of the Punjab Partition Committee, which essentially carried out the bureaucratic work necessary to implementing partition. Such work ranged from dividing machinery owned by the public works department to bifurcating Punjab’s administrative services.Footnote ²⁵ Thus, when pitching his scheme to the Indian authorities, Singh leveraged his experience dealing with multiple aspects of the process of partitioning and positioned himself as a representative of the Sikh community.

There were three key aspects to Swaran Singh’s memorandum. Apart from asserting the need to develop an apparatus to ensure the unrestricted movement of people, “money, foodgrains and other articles between Nankana Sahib and Amritsar,” he emphasized that the gurdwara’s “Sikh characteristic” and “sacred character” must be retained. In addition, he also suggested that Nankana Sahib’s financial security be secured through the rent acquired from its adjoining agricultural and commercial properties. All of this, he argued, could only be ensured if Nankana Sahib was granted the status of a sovereign holy city akin to Vatican City.Footnote ²⁶ This was not the first time that a call was made for Nankana Sahib to be granted such a status. Fearing mass-scale violence from Sikhs if Nankana went to Pakistan, in July 1947, Vappala P. Menon, who served as Political Reforms Commissioner to Mountbatten, suggested to Radcliffe that Nankana be “made a sort of Vatican” instead of apportioning the area to either India or Pakistan.Footnote ²⁷ While the idea had been floated before, Swaran Singh’s memorandum was the first official demand for Nankana Sahib to be recognized as a holy city.

It is worth noting that Swaran Singh’s memorandum described Nankana Sahib as a “Revenue Estate” to which numerous buildings, agricultural lands (measuring approximately 18,000 acres), and the city of Nankana belonged. All of these, he asserted, had to be placed “under the management of the Sikhs,” with an administrative and governance model developed along the lines of the system at the Vatican. Until such a structure could be implemented, Swaran Singh proposed that Sikh sewadars (individuals who volunteered to serve a gurdwara) be placed in charge of administering Gurdwara Nankana Sahib. Given the need to ensure Sikhs’ safe passage from India and safeguard the gurdwara, he called for these sewadars to be recruited from among those who had served in the army, stressing the importance of their need to retain firearms. Singh further suggested that these sewadars “enjoy the status of Indian nationals resident in Pakistan.”Footnote ²⁸ Swaran Singh, furthermore, also addressed the issue of Kartarpur Sahib in this memorandum, recommending that the gurdwara and its adjoining properties be included in India, with a territory of equal size ceded to Pakistan in return. While this memorandum was not taken up by the Indian government, the call for Nankana Sahib to be granted a status similar to the Vatican was later adopted by other Sikh religious groups, resurfacing over the decades. For instance, a similar memorandum was submitted by Sikh groups to the Indian Prime Minister’s Office in 1969, 1974, and 1995, as well as been taken up by groups in the diaspora.Footnote ²⁹

For the Indian government, it was clear that any discussion of issues such as the status of Nankana Sahib would enable Pakistan to ask about the future of Muslim sites in India. In his response to Swaran Singh’s memorandum, the adviser to the Ministry of Relief and Rehabilitation, V.D. Dantyagiri, noted that Pakistan had already raised the issue of Qadian during the Inter-Dominion Conference at Secretariat Level of 1948, and that any deliberations on Nankana Sahib and Kartarpur Sahib would open up controversial discussions around various other Sufi shrines and Muslim religious institutions in India.Footnote ³⁰ Qadian was the religious center of the Ahmadiyya community. In a somewhat similar vein to the Sikhs in India, members of the Ahmadiyya community, which largely came to be based in Pakistan after partition, grappled with the symbolic, ritual, and physical implications of being separated from the city of Qadian.

Cartographical interventions and international mobilization: The Ahmadiyya campaign to secure Qadian

Like the Sikhs, the Ahmadiyya community was concerned that partition of India could result in a section of the community being separated from its religious sites, primarily in the city of Qadian. The community’s attempts to ensure access to Qadian provide insight into how groups engaged with the cartographical project and attempted to influence the shape of the Radcliffe Line. Such efforts notwithstanding, most Ahmadiyya came to be based in Pakistan following partition, while Qadian fell in India. This resulted in the community being at the forefront of mobilizing support in India, Pakistan, and internationally to ensure both the security of its religious institutions in Qadian and the community’s continued access to religious sites that now fell on the other side of the border.

The Ahmadiyya are followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908), who proclaimed himself the renewer of Islam in the 19th century. The foundations of the community were laid in 1888, when Ghulam Ahmad officially called on Muslims to pledge ba’ya (allegiance) to him. In 1891, Ghulam Ahmad organized a religious jalsa (gathering) of his followers in the city of Qadian, Punjab, and announced that a salana jalsa (annual gathering) would be held in the city every December. He stressed that this jalsa was no ordinary human gathering and it was incumbent on all Ahmadiyya who could travel to brave all challenges and difficulties to gather at Qadian.Footnote ³¹ In time, the city became the center of the community’s religious life and the base from which various aspects of communal organizing took place. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and several early members of the community are also buried there. In his book, al-Wasiyyat (The Will), published in 1905, Ghulam Ahmad wrote of receiving a vision in which an angel pointed to a “shining area” in Qadian where “the soil was silver” and instructed him to build a graveyard. The angel relayed to Ghulam Ahmad that he was to be buried in that graveyard alongside “righteous members” of his community who were “akin to the companions of Prophet Muhammad.”Footnote ³² Tellingly, Ghulam Ahmad named the graveyard Bahisti Maqbara (Heavenly Cemetery). Following his death, the Bahisti Maqbara grew into an important Ahmadiyya pilgrimage site. The centrality of Ghulam Ahmad’s charisma to his followers’ religious experience and the parallels between his claim to religious authority and that of various Sufi figures accentuated the importance of the Ahmadiyya’s close proximity to his burial site.Footnote ³³

In 1914, differing interpretations of Ghulam Ahmad’s claim to be the renewer of Islam caused a split in the movement. While a discussion of this is beyond the scope of this article, it is important to note that the larger of the two factions entrenched its base at Qadian, asserting that Ghulam Ahmad was a part of the chain of prophecy and calling on followers to pledge allegiance to Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad (1889–1965) as the khalifat al-masih (Successor of the Messiah). Upon assuming leadership of the community, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad developed Qadian into the administrative and spiritual center of the community. Apart from mosques and religious schools, several administrative bodies and councils – such as the Majlis-i-Shura (Advisory Council), established in 1922 to advise the khalifat al-masih in formulating proposals for the development of the jamaat (congregation) – were established in Qadian.Footnote ³⁴ By establishing a network of religious sites and institutions in Qadian, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad was consciously attempting to institutionalize the charisma vested in Ghulam Ahmad.Footnote ³⁵ In addition, at the inaugural meeting of the Majlis-i-Shura on 16 April 1922, the khalifat al-masih announced that missionaries would be sent to various countries.Footnote ³⁶ Taking this forward, in 1934, he established the Tehrik-i-Jadid (New Movement), which aimed to raise funds and expand the jamaat overseas. As the Ahmadiyya foreign missions came to be overseen by a hierarchy emanating from Qadian, the city emerged as the global headquarters of the Ahmadiyya movement.

Qadian’s historic and religious significance to the Ahmadiyya community meant that members of the jamaat were extremely concerned about the implications of partitioning India. In the lead-up to partition, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad’s chief concern was to ensure that his jamaat was not separated from Qadian. He deliberately maintained an ambiguous position on the creation of Pakistan, vacillating between expressing support for an undivided India and the creation of Pakistan. There was even a short-lived attempt at pushing for Qadian to be carved off as an entity with a status akin to that of the princely states, and thus able to chart its own future.Footnote ³⁷ As it became clear that India would be partitioned, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad and his followers focused on asserting that the province of Punjab should not be divided, so that members of the jamaat would not be cut off from Qadian. For instance, in a telegram to British Prime Minister Clement Atlee and his predecessor, Winston Churchill, dated 24 May 1947, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad indicated his strong opposition to the partitioning of Punjab.Footnote ³⁸ Similarly, in his testimony to the Boundary Commission, the Ahmadiyya representative argued against partitioning Punjab, asserting that such a decision would result in logistical, structural, and financial difficulties for the community as a whole. He further drew attention to how the maintenance of religious sites in Qadian would be affected, as it would be impossible to collect revenue from Ahmadiyya who fell on the other side of the border.Footnote ³⁹

As it became clear that Punjab would be partitioned, the leadership of the Ahmadiyya movement turned its focus to ensuring that Qadian would fall in Pakistan. While Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad had initially oscillated on the demand for Pakistan, constitutional developments, cartographic realities, and the communally charged context eventually pushed him to indicate his preference to be part of Pakistan.

Qadian was located in the district of Gurdaspur, which had a narrow Muslim majority. To ensure that Qadian fell on the correct side of the Radcliffe Line, the Ahmadiyya leadership engaged extensively in the process of border-making and made a concerted effort to influence the decision of the Punjab Boundary Commission. Stressing that the Ahmadiyya needed to submit a memorandum to the Boundary Commission, Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad called on Ahmadiyya missions in Europe and America to collate and send any literature with information on how modern borders had been drawn in the West.Footnote ⁴⁰ He further directed that an expert on geopolitics and geography be employed, one who could argue the Ahmadiyya case to the Boundary Commission. This led to the recruitment of a Britain-based geographer, Oskar Spate, to “make sure that their sacred city, Qadian, stayed on the right side when the Punjab was partitioned.”Footnote ⁴¹ Members of the community with experience in draftsmanship and cartography were urgently called to gather at Qadian to assist Spate in drawing up the Ahmadiyya memorandum. In the Boundary Commission proceedings, Spate argued that Qadian should be awarded to Pakistan not only due to the city’s Muslim-majority population, but also because the Ahmadiyya had “special claims” to Qadian. It was further asserted that if Sikh concerns over access to religious sites were being taken into consideration, then Ahmadiyya claims to Qadian needed to be recognized as well.Footnote ⁴²

Uncertainty around which side of the border Qadian would fall on, even after Pakistan emerged as an independent state, only aggravated the community’s concerns. While Gurdaspur had a slight Muslim majority, most of the district was eventually apportioned to India. This was, in all likelihood, due to Radcliffe and the Boundary Commission’s decision to prioritize “other factors,” such as existing communication links, infrastructure, irrigation, and strategic demographics.Footnote ⁴³ Following the announcement of where the border would be drawn and the accompanying large-scale violence, the Ahmadiyya leaders had to grapple with the question of Qadian’s future. Official Ahmadiyya publications describe how Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmood Ahmad made the difficult decision of calling on the community based in Qadian to move to Pakistan. However, he decided that 313 male members of the community, led by his son, Mirza Wasim Ahmad, would remain in Qadian to safeguard and maintain the community’s religious sites.Footnote ⁴⁴ The decision to leave 313 men carried symbolic significance, as this is the number of soldiers believed to have fought alongside Prophet Muhammad in his first battle against the Meccans, who had persecuted his community and forced them from Mecca. The parallels drawn in Ahmadiyya narratives between the early Muslim community’s exile from Mecca and the Ahmadiyya departure from Qadian are symbolically important. Tellingly, both the decision to leave Qadian and the fact that a small contingent remained to ensure the safety of religious sites are framed as sacrifices made by the Ahmadiyya community.Footnote ⁴⁵

In the months and years to come, members of the Ahmadiyya community who had been separated from Qadian actively and consistently raised concerns – through official petitions to the government and their own publications – over the city’s status and mobilized support to enable visits to their sacred sites. For instance, an article published in the Lahore-based Ahmadiyya Urdu daily al Fazal (The Virtue) on 17 October 1947 highlighted Ahmadiyya fears over attacks against their community and the “very disturbing picture of the situation in Qadiyan [sic].”Footnote ⁴⁶ The community’s international organizations also lobbied political figures in their respective countries to pressure the Indian government to ensure the safety of sacred Ahmadiyya sites in Qadian and for permission to access them. Although the Ahmadiyya community was relatively small in size, it had established an international presence. From Indonesia to Iran, Tanzania to the United States, Ahmadiyya associations made a concerted effort to reach out to political leaders and gain support for their cause. Joesoef Ahmadi, the secretary of the Anjuman Ahmadiyya Qadian in Batavia (present-day Jakarta), for example, mobilized official and public support in Indonesia to “safeguard Qadian.”Footnote ⁴⁷ Such efforts resulted in both the Indian and East Punjab governments investigating conditions in Qadian and responding to various petitions, telegrams, and official letters. Significantly, pressure from the Ahmadiyya resulted in the government of East Punjab announcing in 1950 that it would allow male Ahmadiyyas settled in Qadian to “bring their womenfolk and children from West Punjab” and permanently settle in the city as Indian nationals.Footnote ⁴⁸

Sacred sites of diplomacy

Concerns raised by religious communities over the condition of and access to sacred spaces on the “other side” of the border resulted in the Indian and Pakistani authorities engaging in discussions to formulate mechanisms to ensure the maintenance of key religious sites and facilitate cross-border religious travel. In the process, sacred sites and pilgrimages became both the subjects and sites of diplomacy between the two new states. Mechanisms to enable and regulate religious visits were discussed in multiple forums and were affected by the wider trajectory of diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan. In addition, the respective high commissions took an active interest in the condition of religious sites and, in some cases, even emerged as intermediaries between displaced religious communities and state authorities in the immediate aftermath of partition. It is important to note here that in their bilateral discussions and interventions, India and Pakistan took up the case of select sacred sites, effectively representing the interests of specific religious groups. For instance, while Indian diplomats took up the cause of Hindu, Sikh, and Jain religious institutions in Pakistan, Pakistan’s diplomats raised the issue of Muslim religious institutions in India. Such an “ours” and “theirs” approach mirrored the wider communalization of identities that accompanied partition. The neglect of the Ahmadiyya cause further reflects the otherization of the community in Pakistan and the subsequent lack of support for the community’s attempts to access its religious sites in India.

The multitude of people rushing into cities such as Lahore, Karachi, Amritsar, and Delhi resulted in several “abandoned” mosques, mandirs, gurdwaras, Sufi shrines, and other religious spaces being occupied by refugees. This heightened the above-discussed fears that religious spaces were being desecrated, converted, or destroyed. There were also apprehensions that the state could officially appropriate such sites. Here, it is worth noting that the term “abandoned” and its variations were widely used in official discourse to refer to property left by Muslims dislocated from India and, similarly, non-Muslims from Pakistan. Such official categorization could, it was felt, result in the state claiming custody over such properties by implying that they had been abandoned by individuals who had voluntarily chosen to relocate.Footnote ⁴⁹

Such fears were heightened with the introduction of regulations in both India and Pakistan to deal with “evacuee property.” The issue of “evacuee property” was first discussed at a special meeting of the Joint Defence Council on 29 August 1947, attended by the prime ministers of India and Pakistan. At this meeting, it was agreed that “each Government should appoint a Custodian of Refugee Property” to take possession of and manage immovable property left behind by evacuees.Footnote ⁵⁰ The stated intent undergirding this agreement was the establishment of an authority to ensure the restoration of vacated properties to the original owners upon their eventual return.Footnote ⁵¹ However, in the coming months and years, the gravity of the refugee problem confronting India and Pakistan led both states to pass a series of ordinances that fundamentally transformed the role of this custodian. Particularly significant to this article is the fact that the custodian was granted with the authority to “allocate” structures designated as “evacuee” property to “refugees” who had moved into India and Pakistan. As was the case with the term “abandoned,” the “evacuee” category implied that a group had departed or migrated by choice and, consequently, their property could be used to house and rehabilitate the “refugees” streaming into both states.Footnote ⁵² In effect, the property of non-Muslims who left Pakistan came to house Muslims who had moved from India. Similarly, the property of Muslims who left areas such as Delhi was allotted to incoming Hindu and Sikh refugees.

The expansion of legislation relating to evacuee property led to concerns around religious sites being appropriated and reallocated by the state. Take, for instance, the case of the Swaminarayan temple in Karachi. The temple was part of the Swaminarayan sampradaya (tradition), a Hindu sect centered in Ahmedabad, India. Even though there was a small Hindu community in Karachi after partition, the Swaminarayan sampradaya leadership was concerned that the temple in the city would be appropriated by the Pakistani state as evacuee property. To prevent this, the leadership engaged with the Indian High Commission in Pakistan and even attempted to give the commission power of attorney over the temple. For its part, the high commission assured the movement’s leadership that it would apply “political and diplomatic pressure on the Pakistan Government to prevent the property from being declared evacuee property.”Footnote ⁵³ The Indian High Commission played a role in supervising the temple’s management until it was assured that the site would not be classified as evacuee property. Similarly, in the years following partition, Sita Ram, the Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan, attempted to ensure that other Hindu religious sites were not appropriated by the state. On 9 September 1949, Sita Ram wrote to the Pakistan Foreign Minister, Zafarullah Khan, expressing concerns over the state’s allocation of Hindu temples in Karachi to Muslim refugees, including the Nihal Chand Perumal temple at Mithadar, the Shiv temple in Clifton, and the Varuna temple at Manora.Footnote ⁵⁴ Separately, in a letter dated 3 July 1950, Sita Ram raised the issue of the condition of the Shiv temple in the Pinjrapole district of Sindh, which he stated had been allocated to refugees.Footnote ⁵⁵ Meanwhile, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Raja Ghaznafar Ali Khan, took up the matter of Muslim religious sites in Delhi. Notably, on 18 April 1950, Khan presented his Indian counterparts with a list of 268 mosques that he described as occupied by refugees or converted into mandirs or gurdwaras, officially calling for their restoration.Footnote ⁵⁶

The twin issues of religious site maintenance and religious travel featured in a series of diplomatic engagements between India and Pakistan in the 1950s. Indeed, Nehru acknowledged that these issues were discussed during his two-day visit to Karachi in July 1953, stressing their part in broader discussions of how to improve India-Pakistan relations.Footnote ⁵⁷ Following Nehru’s visit, a three-member delegation from India headed by Mehr Chand Khanna, who served as an adviser to the Ministry of Rehabilitation, met with G. Ahmed and Ahmed E.H. Jaffer – Pakistan’s Secretary to the Ministry of the Interior and Adviser to the Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation respectively – to discuss “the question of protection, preservation and maintenance of places of worship in India and Pakistan.” There was broad consensus that every “effort should be made to ensure that places of religious worship in both countries are properly protected and maintained and their sanctity preserved particularly in the case of buildings of historical importance; buildings which have been damaged should be repaired.” In addition, it was agreed that religious institutions and “properties attached to these shrines” should be excluded from the fold of evacuee property. Both sides also agreed to work towards “increased facilities for visits to places of worship in both countries,” and that “Sewadars and Khadims [attendants] at such places of worship should be granted facilities for residence and adequate protection.”Footnote ⁵⁸

Questions surrounding the maintenance of religious sites and cross-border religious travel were officially taken up again in 1955, when Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Mohammed Ali Bogra (1909–1963), visited India. Bogra was accompanied by, amongst others, Major-General Iskander Mirza, who held separate discussions with India’s Home Minister, Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant. In these discussions, both Mirza and Pant agreed to formalize the prior broad agreement reached in 1953 by appointing a joint committee to draw up “arrangements for the preservation of holy places” and ensure that “free and liberal facilities should be granted to the pilgrims from one country to visit shrines and holy places in the other country, individually or in parties.”Footnote ⁵⁹ While the Pant-Mirza agreement did not spell out a framework through which cross-border religious travel would be regulated, the agreements of 1953 and 1955 collectively reiterated a commitment from both sides to facilitate such exchanges. Here, it is important to note the context in which these discussions occurred. Nehru’s visit to Karachi and Bogra’s subsequent visit to India signaled wider attempts by both sides to improve diplomatic relations following the 1947–1948 war. The strains of nation-building and economic challenges confronting both countries pushed them towards de-escalation. Pakistan was particularly hard pressed to reduce its expenditure on the military front.Footnote ⁶⁰ As India and Pakistan sought to develop better relations, religious visits were seen as a means of fostering diplomatic ties. As a result, several religious visits occurred in 1955. For example, the Pakistani authorities announced in February 1955 that they had approached India to gain permission for a party of 200 Muslim pilgrims to visit the shrine of Sufi saint Hazrat Muinuddin Chisti at Ajmer Sharif, Rajasthan.Footnote ⁶¹ Similarly, on 1 May 1955, fifty-four Muslims from Pakistan were issued Indian visas to visit the shrines of Hazrat Shah Bu Ali at Panipat and Karnal.Footnote ⁶² Another 100 Muslim pilgrims from Pakistan were allowed to cross the border into India on 19 October to join the urs celebrations at the shrine of 19th-century Sufi Waris Ali Shah at Dewa Sharif, Barabanki.Footnote ⁶³

While India and Pakistan showed signs of cooperating to facilitate cross-border religious travel, the process was still handled on an ad hoc basis. After an internal decision was reached on whether to support a particular request, officials from both sides engaged to determine which group could travel, how visas would be granted, and where pilgrims were allowed to go (and not go). A snippet of how this process played out can be seen in the official responses to an appeal by a group of Shwetambar Murtipujak Jains from India in 1959 to visit Gujranwala in Pakistani Punjab. The group sought permission from India’s Ministry of External Affairs to travel to Gujranwala between 13–15 April to mark the death anniversary of 19th-century Jain monk Acharya Atmaram. Atmaram was recognized as the most important modern religious figure of the Shwetambar Murtipujak sect of Jainism and his samadhi (tomb) in Gujranwala had been an important site of Jain pilgrimage before partition. On 7 May 1959, India’s Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs, Lakshmi N. Menon, explained to the Rajya Sabha (upper house of the Indian parliament) why this group was unable to undertake its pilgrimage despite India and Pakistan reaching an in-principal agreement to facilitate the visit. Menon stated that India had put the request forward to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and initially received a positive response, but after internal consultations the ministry had asked for the visit to be postponed, as the suggested dates coincided with Eid-ul-Fitr and Vesakhi.Footnote ⁶⁴ It is likely that, as with other requests, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs consulted with the Punjab government and the Ministry of Interior about any objections to or concerns about the visit. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was then advised that it was not feasible to host pilgrims from India on the proposed dates, as clashes between large crowds celebrating different religious celebrations could trigger communal tensions. Moreover, the state machinery was dealing with the potential arrival of Sikh pilgrims on Vesakhi. Thus, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs advised that the pilgrimage be postponed. Menon stressed that India’s foreign office then took the issue back to the Jain pilgrims to discuss alternative dates for the pilgrimage.Footnote ⁶⁵

It was only in 1974 that a framework outlining a specified number of pilgrims that could visit a fixed set of religious sites at a specific time period was agreed upon. The “1974 Protocol Constituting an Agreement between the Government of India and the Government of The Islamic Republic of Pakistan on Visit to Religious Shrines” ushered in new modalities of regulating religious travel, effectively formalizing earlier agreements by fixing the number of pilgrims, predetermining the sites open to religious travel, and establishing the necessary bureaucratic process. A major aspect of the protocol, which came into effect at a point when India and Pakistan were attempting to reshape their bilateral relations, was that pilgrims could only travel as part of “organized groups.”Footnote ⁶⁶ Following the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971, both countries signed the Simla Agreement of 1972, which effectively placed the Kashmir dispute into cold storage by establishing the ceasefire line from the end of the war as the Line of Control.Footnote ⁶⁷ This laid the basis for a series of normalization attempts, with religious travel seen as a means of fostering diplomatic relations.

In accordance with the 1974 protocol, both sides named sites across the border that were of particular religious significance to their publics. Following a series of consultations, both internally and between the two states, the agreed sites included the following:

While the 1974 protocol outlined that the list of approved sites could be expanded over time, the selected sites signaled the communities the two states sought to represent. It is telling that Qadian was not included in the original list. While the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan had been at the forefront of calling for access to their religious site in India, their interests and concerns did not feature in official engagements between the two countries. This exclusion was likely a result of the controversies around the Ahmadiyya’s religious beliefs and identity that played out in Pakistan in 1974. Since the 1950s, various Islamic groups and figures had called for the state to officially denounce the Ahmadiyya as non-Muslims. As noted above, the Ahmadiyya belief that Ghulam Ahmad was a prophet had led to their denunciation as heretics. In 1974, clashes in the Ahmadiyya-majority city of Rabwah in Pakistan between members of the community and students affiliated with the Jamaat-e-Islami Islamist movement led to a concerted push for the community to be classified as non-Muslims. Strikes and protests broke out across Pakistan, and the community experienced a series of violent attacks. This resulted in the Pakistani government, headed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979), introducing the second amendment to the country’s constitution on 7 September 1974, which declared that anyone who did not recognize the “absolute and unqualified finality of the prophethood of Muhammad” would not be recognized as a Muslim.Footnote ⁶⁸ As such, the state officially classified the Ahmadiyya community as non-Muslim. Given these domestic developments, the Pakistan authorities were likely wary of being perceived as taking up the religious interests of the Ahmadiyya community in negotiations with India.

The Kartarpur Corridor: A new chapter?

The opening of the Kartarpur Corridor in November 2019 ushered in a new modality of religious travel and a novel means of regulating mobility between India and Pakistan. The corridor, which connects the Sikh shrines of Dera Baba Nanak Sahib in India and Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan, allows Sikh pilgrims from India to cross the border without requiring the permits and requirements stipulated by the 1974 protocol. Sikhs from India are instead required to visit the Ministry of Home Affairs website, apply for an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA), and select the time slot for their travel.Footnote ⁶⁹ Furthermore, Sikh pilgrims using the corridor are not limited by the quotas stipulated in the protocol. The establishment of the corridor was celebrated not only by Sikhs but also by members of other religious communities, who believed this model could be extended to their religious sites. For instance, Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir, India, have called on the governments of India and Pakistan to develop a similar corridor for Hindu pilgrims to visit Sharda Peeth – a Hindu temple dedicated to the goddess Sharda Devi, which now falls on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control. The shrine was not included in the 1974 protocol and, thus, access to the temple has been restricted.

More broadly, the corridor was celebrated as a step in the normalization of India-Pakistan relations. At the inauguration of the Kartarpur Corridor, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan stressed that the agreement to open the corridor could be an opportunity for India and Pakistan to chart a new path of friendship and peace, even paving the way for greater economic ties.Footnote ⁷⁰ Similarly, sections in India and Pakistan viewed the corridor as a model for the expansion of religious, cultural, and intellectual exchanges between the two countries. Notably, a group of Kashmiri Hindus lobbying for the corridor model to be extended to allow them access to Sarda Peeth wrote an open letter to Khan, stating that such religious visits would play an “instrumental role in building people to people contact that will lead to confidence building and for establishing permanent peace in the sub continent [sic].”Footnote ⁷¹ One Indian politician described the corridor as an initiative that would “build bridges, burn animosity and will act like a soothing balm for two neighboring countries.”Footnote ⁷²

To understand the impact of the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor on the regulation of cross-border religious travel, it is important to understand the specific conditions in which it arose and the concerns India expressed in the lead-up. The idea of a corridor linking Dera Baba Nanak and Kartarpur had been circulating for a number of decades. In 1999, the then-Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, called on his Pakistani counterpart to work together to develop the border crossing as part of a broader push to develop people-to-people connections. The emphasis on soft diplomacy was perhaps most clearly reflected in the launching of the Sada-e-Sarhad bus linking Delhi and Lahore. Such initiatives were, however, stymied by the outbreak of armed conflict between the two nuclear-armed states in Kargil in May 1999. The idea of the Kartarpur Corridor came to the fore again in August 2018, when Punjabi politician and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu visited Pakistan to attend the inauguration of his friend and fellow former cricketer Imran Khan as prime minister. Upon his return, Sidhu announced that both Khan and Pakistan’s military chief, General Qamar Bajwa, had promised to open the border at Kartarpur for Sikh pilgrims to cross (without visas) to commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of Nanak in 2019.Footnote ⁷³ Following a series of negotiations between India and Pakistan, both sides rushed to inaugurate the building of the Kartarpur Corridor, in large part to claim credit for initiating the project.

The inauguration of the corridor took place at a time when both India and Pakistan were considering taking cautious steps toward improving bilateral relations. Khan’s assertion during the groundbreaking ceremony that the corridor marked an opportunity to set India and Pakistan on a new course of friendship and peace has been noted above. Crucially, General Bajwa accompanied Khan at the ceremony, and Khan stressed that his “government, his party, all political parties, the military and all Pakistani institutions were on the same page,” committed to working for a new “civilized relationship” with India.Footnote ⁷⁴ This reference to the military’s support for the development of the Kartarpur Corridor is significant, as the military plays a major role in shaping Pakistan’s foreign policy and determining the tenor of its relations with India. General Bajwa’s presence at the ceremony and Khan’s statement, coupled with Bajwa’s prior indication to Navjot Sidhu that the military supported the establishment of the corridor, indicate that Pakistan viewed the corridor as a means of soft diplomacy.

In addition, Pakistan was keen to explore the economic potential of religious tourism. Since coming to power in 2018, Imran Khan had actively promoted Pakistan as a site for religious tourism. Apart from attracting Sikh pilgrims, he was also keen to draw Buddhists and Hindus. In November 2019, a group of sixty monks from South Korea visited various Buddhist sites in Pakistan. This visit, which was coordinated by the Pakistani embassy in South Korea and state authorities in Pakistan, was seen by Pakistan as a means of highlighting its rich Buddhist heritage.Footnote ⁷⁵

There were also domestic motivations in India that supported the development of the Kartarpur Corridor. The corridor was inaugurated in the lead-up to the 2019 national election and three major political parties – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Indian National Congress (INC), and the Akali Dal – all jostled for credit for initiating the initiative, seeking to gain Sikh votes. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who leads the BJP, inaugurated the opening of the corridor, presenting it as a reflection of his concern for the long-standing Sikh desire to access religious sites in Pakistan.Footnote ⁷⁶ On social media, the BJP linked the hashtag #KartarpurCorridor to a section on volunteering for the BJP in the upcoming election.Footnote ⁷⁷ Interestingly, the Modi government framed India’s decision to open the Karatapur Corridor purely in domestic terms, refraining from any mention of developing better relations with Pakistan. Official statements presented the corridor as a “decision of the Modi Government [that] will benefit large number of Sikh pilgrims.”Footnote ⁷⁸ It is worth noting here that while campaigning for the subsequent national election, Modi stated in a speech in Patiala on 23 May 2024 that the INC had done a grave injustice to Sikhs by engineering a partition and agreeing to a boundary that caused immense pain. He further stated that if he had been in power during the 1971 India-Pakistan war, he would have demanded Kartarpur from Pakistan in exchange for prisoners of war held by India.Footnote ⁷⁹

The INC, which was in power in Punjab at that point, claimed credit for pushing the long-delayed idea through. The party claimed that Navjot Sidhu – a leading INC figure in Punjab – played a central role in securing an agreement with Pakistan. Similarly, the BJP, which held national power, and the Akali Dal also presented themselves as being at the forefront of the corridor’s establishment. While the BJP had a strong majority at the national level, it was a marginal player in Punjab, and support for the corridor presented an opportunity to plug into Sikh votes. Meanwhile, the Akali Dal, which positioned itself as the representative of Sikh interests and had been involved in debates over the future of Sikh shrines in the lead-up to partition, saw the corridor as an opportunity to strengthen its dwindling support amongst Sikh agriculturalists. The party had lost support amongst its traditional base due to its mishandling of a controversy regarding alleged cases of desecration of Sikh religious texts. In 2015, there were reports from across Punjab of instances of the deliberate damaging of Sikh religious texts. The Akali Dal were in power in Punjab at this time, and a series of protests by various Sikh groups occurred over the party’s perceived failure to apprehend the culprits. Things came to a head on 14 October 2015, when the Punjab police opened fire on a group of Sikhs protesting against government inaction. This incident resulted in the death of two protestors, and various sections within Punjab accused the Akali Dal of acting against Sikh interests.Footnote ⁸⁰ This contributed to the party losing the state elections. By supporting the development of the Kartarpur Corridor, the party aimed to reassert its continuous efforts to reconnect Sikhs with the religious sites they had been separated from by the Radcliffe Line.

While the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor had raised hopes of the model’s extension to other religious sites, there are no indications that this was discussed by India and Pakistan. The arrangement for visa-free travel throughout the year for the corridor was framed as a stand-alone agreement; it does not revise or contradict the procedures and processes of the 1974 protocol. The geographic proximity of the two religious sites involved made it possible for such an arrangement to be reached. In addition, both states feel confident that the corridor – its infrastructure, limitations, and the bureaucratic processes involved – can sufficiently regulate, surveil, and control mobility. It is important to note here that India was concerned over what it described as the potential threat of “terrorist infiltration”. In particular, India expressed fears that the corridor could be used by Sikh separatists to spread “hostile propaganda and support for secessionist tendencies against India.”Footnote ⁸¹ India has long accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of supporting and harboring Khalistani militants. Thus, Indian authorities have taken steps to regulate individuals, ideas, and propaganda that flows across the Kartarpur Corridor, including pushing for Indian consular officials in Pakistan to be allowed to visit Kartarpur (and other Sikh shrines) and meet pilgrims.Footnote ⁸² Moreover, India has ensured that all applicants for the ETA go through a process of police verification in India before being approved. Such concerns over uncontrolled mobilities – of people, propaganda, and ideas – have also led to India insisting that the Kartarpur Corridor is only open to Sikhs from India and refusing to allow Sikhs from Pakistan to cross through the corridor to visit Gurdwara Dera Baba Nanak Sahib.