April 20, 2003

Every year, hordes of Sikh yatrees make it to Pakistan and this year is no different even though cross-border tension has forced many to abandon their pilgrimage

EVERY year in the month of April, Saab Singh becomes very busy. Usually, the affable head Granth, at the Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore, situated opposite the Lahore Fort, in the area of the Badshahi Mosque, where he lives is not quite pressed for time to talk about the history of Ranjit Singh or the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Devji.

But each April Saab Singh becomes preoccupied in organizing the Besakhi festival which spares him no time to ease a journalist’s curiosity about how he spends time living in the heart of the city.

Saab Singh has been welcoming thousands of Sikh yatrees (pilgrims) to the Dera Sahib, the third biggest gurdwara in Pakistan and a place of great religious significance. It was here at the Dera Sahib that the fifth Guru of the Sikh religion, Guru Arjan Devji was martyred on May 30, AD1606.

For hundreds of years the day of Besakhi, falling on April 13, has been originally celebrated as thanksgiving for the seasonal harvesting of wheat. The secular mood changed in AD1699 when, on the same day as Besakhi, Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Guru of the Sikhs, declared the establishment of the Sikh religion. Attended by thousands of devotees, Guru Gobind Singh announced the creation of the Khalsa — the pure. In 1708, he ordained that the Granth would forever remain the Guru for the Sikhs (Sikhism has 11 Gurus, Guru Nanak is the first and Guru Granth is the 11th).

This year there were less than 400 yatrees, 150 of them have come from the UK, Canada, Afghanistan, Germany and Switzerland to participate in the Besakhi festival. Following the long drawn out tension between India and Pakistan, the Indian government has placed strict visa restrictions on its Sikh community. Consequently, in 2001, the Sikh jathas (groups) were not given permission to visit their holy places in Pakistan. But being the head Granth of the Gurdwara Dera Sahib, Saab Singh is not in a political position to give out statements on the unfairness of the Indian government in screening out yatrees from visiting Pakistan. He is only concerned with the religious aspect of Besakhi. He has to take care of numerous chores as well. The entire Dera Sahib was cleaned and made ready for the yatrees.

The three-day festival of Besakhi started on April 12 at Gurdwara Punja Sahib and concluded on April 14. The same evening the yatrees left for Nankana Sahib by special caravans to celebrate Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary on April 15 (1469-1539). In that flurry of activity, one has to keep pace with Saab Singh’s quick steps. He enters a small, bare room, furnished with two chairs and a table. The head Granth introduces me to a man seated behind a desk, Azhar Abbas, who is the gurdwara’s caretaker. Without wasting another moment in formality, Saab Singh scurries out of the room to let Mr Azhar Abbas deal with my irritatingly long list of questions.

“There was a time when we would receive more than 3000 Sikh jathas for each religious Sikh festival. Since the tension between India and Pakistan they have become fewer in number. We are expecting a larger turnout at the death anniversary of Guru Nanak on September 22,” hopes Azhar Abbas. With or without a large turnout, the Besakhi festival is not wanting in religious fervour nor in the arrangements made by the Pakistan Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, headed by Shyam Singh, and the Evacuee Trust Property Board of Pakistan.

“You can see for yourself all the facilities given to the yatrees. We have a total of 150 rooms for accommodation. In 1996, the government of Pakistan built 47 rooms, called the Mian Mir Block, which is equipped with latest facilities for the yatrees coming from Europe, Canada, States and other countries. They arrived for the final day of the yatra at the Dera Sahib on April 16,” says Azhar.

In 2001, at a meeting of the Evacuees Property Trust Board, the government decided to spend Rs37 million in renovating the Sikh religious sites in the country. The refurbished Gurdwara Dera Sahib has cost an estimated Rs9.5 million. “The laying of the turf tiles, landscaping and construction of additional rooms and latrines for Sikh Yatrees are all part of the efforts put in by the Pakistan Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee,” explains Azhar. An additional Rs15.8 million is spent on the rebuilding of sites at the Nankana Sahib and Rs11.5 million on the construction of a new Langar Khana and other necessary developmental work at the Gurdwara Punja Sahib in Hassanabdal.

Covering an area of three-and-a-half acres, the dome of Gurdwara Dera Sahib, overlaid in gold, can be viewed from several rooftops of the walled city. Within the premises lay site where Guru Arjan Devji was martyred on May 30 AD1606. At that time, the river Ravi ran right through the area now covered by Dera Sahib. Since then the river has changed course and now runs one-and-a-half kilometres off there. The Shaeedi Asthan, place where Guru Arjan Devji was last seen taking a plunge into the river Ravi and not re-emerging, was first built in 1619 and was completed during the reign of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh (1780-1839).

At the time of partition, it became a victim of religious hatred and intolerance. A day or two before Independence (probably August 13, 1947) Maulana Zafar Ali Khan wrote in the daily edition of his newspaper, the Zamindar, “........one of the numerous places of non-Muslim worship which had been burned in Lahore. Baoli Sahib, Gurdwara Chaumala Sahib and others had been burned before. Even the famous Dehra Sahib, held in highest sanctity by the Sikhs as being the place of martydom of Sri Guru Arjan Dev, fifth Guru of the Sikhs, was attacked. The Sikh guards and priests of this Gurdwara were mostly killed. Such money and valuables as were there, were looted by the Muslim police and military stationed in the Lahore Fort which is at a distance of a few yards from the Gurdwara......”

But now, the Dera Sahib is in a fine condition to let the Sikh yatrees pray at the venerable sites of the Darbar Sahib, Thara Sahib, Baoli Sahib and eat at the Langar Hall of the Guru. “They will also visit the samadh (burial place) of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh and his two sons Kharak and Naunehal Singh who are all buried here,” says Azhar.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)