<特集 ヴァナキュラー・ツーリズムからみる南アジア --宗教・聖地・観光-- > The Times of India 紙デジタルコレクションが記録したスィク教徒の旅 --パキスタン・イスラーム共和国におけるグルドワーラー巡礼--

Abstract

Pakistan issues pilgrimage visas to Indian Sikhs in compliance with the ‘1974 Protocol on Visits to Religious Institutions.’ In 2018, the Pakistan High Commission Office in New Delhi issued 3, 800 visas to Indian Sikhs. Indian pilgrims enter Pakistan through the Wagah border by rail or road and undertake pilgrimage to several sites. Large groups are organised, especially on the death anniversaries of gurus, the Vaisakhi (harvest festival) in April and the Guru Nanak Jayanti festival in November. For a few days every year in November, thousands of Sikhs gather at the city of Nankana Sahib in Pakistan to celebrate Guru Nanak Gurpurab -- the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism. They arrive from India, the Middle East, the UK, Europe, Canada, the US, and all over the world. It is one of the biggest pilgrimages in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In this paper, focussing on the Sikh community, I clarified the historical situation of minority pilgrimages that has received very little attention in Pakistan and explored the social significance of these pilgrimages. An attempt was made to locate relevant articles from archives of The Times of India, an Indian newspaper, to reconstruct the historical narrative.