owadays, the advent of Baisakhi/Vaisakhi is announced through the photo sessions held on the arrival of the Sikhs from across the border. Interviews are done showing the beaming faces of the pilgrims waiting to fulfil one of their religious obligations. So, people in the cities are reminded of an event or festival that was once the most prominent event of the agricultural calendar.

It is the time of harvesting as the staple crop, wheat, ripens and is harvested, bringing happiness and some cash into the lives of the villagers across the subcontinent. In the Punjab, the economy was primarily agricultural.The cultural life, too, revolved round it.The year was split into two cropcycles.

Like other festivals that had their roots in the agriculture cycle, city dwellers have forgotten the celebration of harvest and many of the younger generation are largely unaware of it. It no longer brings the level of fulfilment or excitement as it did of yore.

It is sad that this seasonal festival has come to be identified exclusively with the Sikh religion.It is seen more and more in a line with a puritanical state’s desire to have religious significance attached to only one denomination of the majority of its followers.

In Pakistan, the arrival of the pilgrims has political overtones because it is a gesture of goodwill seen as an attempt to woo the Sikhs away from the majoritarian religion-based order being increasingly imposed in India. The most famous religious sites of the Sikhs, other than the Darbar Sahib in Amritsar, are located in Pakistan.

Opening Kartarpur for regular pilgrimage was seen as a big diplomatic breakthrough by the government of Pakistan as one of the most important demands of the Sikhs was met. For decades, Sikhs in India had had to be content with using binoculars to take a look at the shrine from across the River Ravi. The Indians authorities were not very happy and had soft peddled the initiative. The Covid restrictions did not help either. However, the project is now complete and pilgrims can now visit the shrine easily.

India and Pakistan have had their rounds of yatris and zaireen. At one time, the only way to go to India was in a delegation of zaireen to visit shrines of Nizamuddin Aulia and Mueenuddin Chisti. During the Sikh insurgency, the Indian Punjab was out of bounds for the Pakistanis.

During the earlier tenures of Parvez Elahi and Shahbaz Sharif, grand plans were formulated for building roads, transport networks and tourist facilitation centres. A huge influx of religioustourism was expected. However, the undulating nature of the relationship with India has cast its long shadow and things have not figured out as planned. Some of the most sacred sites of the Hindus and the Buddhists are also located in Pakistan. However, no headway has been made in bringing religious tourism to the dollar-strapped country.

Perhaps, the media image of the country with religious zealots roaming around to impose an order through violence irrespective of the law of the land has kept people away. A more open society with relaxed social mores and attitudes helps bring foreigners rather than a strict order that is based on exclusion.

India and Pakistan have had their rounds of yatris and zaireen. At one time, the only way to go to India was in a delegation of zaireen to visit shrines of Nizamuddin Aulia and MueenuddinChisti. During the Sikh insurgency, the Indian Punjab was out of bounds for Pakistanis. However, a limited number of visas were issued to groups visiting various shrines. Such visits have been tightly controlled. It is the same experience on both sides of the border.

Some of the festivals have come to be identified with religious rites like Basant and Baishaki though these are seasonal in nature. Perhaps, the predominance of the festival required that it should be incorporated into a religious rite. It is said that the Khalsa Order was instituted by Guru Gobind Singh on this day and that Maharaja Ranjeet Singh also held his coronation on this auspicious day. The day has great significance in the Buddhist calendar as well.

The most visited sites other than Nankana Sahib are Panja Sahib at Hassan Abdaal, Sacha Sauda Sahib in Farooqabad, the samadhi of Ranjeet Singh in Lahore and Rori Sahib in Eminabad.

The festival of plenty and fulfilment on the occasion of harvest probably has more resonance in music and poetry than in the work cycle of urban Punjab which is too hooked now on various versions of the digital media. With the cities getting bigger and the service sector expanding, the cultural practices of the farm land have grown remote, almost alien and appear to be a repository of somebody else’s culture. As it is, an imagined past that facilitates social reconstruction is more palpable now than the real past.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore.