ABSTRACT
In November 2019, the Sikhs celebrated the 550th anniversary of the birth of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. To mark the occasion, the governments of India and Pakistan opened a corridor over the river Ravi linking two important Sikh shrines – Dera Baba Nanak (in India) with Kartarpur Sahib (in Pakistan) – associated with life and times of Guru Nanak. The corridor symbolises a new departure in the management of sacred spaces in Panjab since the Partition. But this initiative comes against the backdrop of rising tensions between India and Pakistan occasioned by the confrontation over the Pulwama incident and the recent decision of the BJP government to abrogate article 370 of the Indian constitution which granted special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. This chapter examines the historical and religious background to the opening of the corridor which has its roots in the division of Sikh sacred spaces in 1947 and their contested management since. It also assesses the extent to which the corridor can become a ‘bridge of peace’ between the two nuclear-armed rivals or whether it will remain ‘a bridge too far’, and what the opening of the corridor means to the global Sikh community.
