Amritsar security review, for possible Obama visit

The Director General of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), N R Das, has gone to Amritsar to inspect arrangements for a possible visit by US President Barack Obama. CISF handles security at 47 national and international airports in India and national monuments such as the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort.

Top home ministry officials said Jaipur was also in a high state of preparedness to welcome the US president, assuming a decision is taken for his going there. Ministry officials said it was not reservations about wearing a head scarf or skull cap but security, – given Amritsar’s closeness to the Pak border, that might deter the US president from going there. “Wearing a piece of cloth on his head can hardly alter the President’s religion. And, there is the pressure of the formidable NRI lobby in the United States to consider,” a top official said.

An Amritsar visit – and one to the Golden Temple – would be evocative, as the foundation stone of the Harmandir Sahib in the Golden Temple was laid by a Muslim sufi, Hazrat Miyan Mir.

There is a dargah to commemorate Miyan Mir just a few km away, in Lahore. The Udasis or accounts of the travels of Guru Nanak suggest he also travelled to Makkah. He is also said to have spent six years in Baghdad, then a major centre for the sufis. Obama will, is the contention, not just be sending a historic and cultural message to the world but also a political signal in paying obeisance at the Golden Temple.