Guru Nanak Dev one of India's most democratic spiritual leaders: Naidu

Chandigarh : Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday described Guru Nanak Dev as one of India's most democratic spiritual leaders and said a new world of peace and sustainable development can be found if teachings of the first Sikh Guru are integrated in daily lives.

At a special commemorative session of the Punjab Assembly to mark the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, Naidu said the guru's vision was timeless and, "has as much relevance today as it was when it was expounded five centuries ago."

Naidu, who started his address in Punjabi, said he was happy to attend the special session and also praised Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana KP Singh and Chief Minister Amarinder Singh for taking an initiative to organise the event.

Besides Punjab MLAs, MPs, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and MLAs and MPs of neighbouring state also attended this special event. It is for the first time after the carving of Haryana out of Punjab in 1966 that MLAs of both Punjab and Haryana sat together in the Punjab Assembly for this special event.

"It is quite appropriate that this temple of democracy is dedicating a special session to one of India's most democratic spiritual leaders," said Naidu in his address. "Guru Nanak ji belongs to the long illustrious tradition of India's visionary spiritual leaders who have illumined human existence and greatly enriched the country's cultural capital," said Naidu.

He said Guru Nanakji saw what ordinary people could not. "They enrich people's lives through their insights and ideas. Infact, that is the meaning of the word 'Guru'. Guru is one who provides illumination, dispels doubts and shows the path," he said adding for the first Sikh Guru, the differences and multiple identities based on caste, creed, religion and language were irrelevant.

He said respect for women and gender equality was another important lesson to be learnt from Guru Nanak Dev's life. "This spirit of equality began with Guru Nanak Dev's clear recognition that there is no distinction between a Hindu and 'Mussalman'. For him, no country was foreign and no people were alien," said the Vice President.

Expressing happiness over setting up of the Kartarpur corridor, Naidu said he was sure it would be a corridor to the "shrine of peace, harmony and humanism, to the universal vision of a world as one family, to the sublime ideal of service to humanity." The corridor will connect Darbar Sahib in Pakistan's Kartarpur- the final resting place of Guru Nanak Dev--with Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district in Punjab.