January 29, 2001Islamabad / Lahore / Toronto / ChandigarhPrime Time
Musharraf's interview with Karan Thapar didn't end when the cameras switched off.
It traveled—through satellite uplinks, through studio replays, through drawing rooms where arguments were conducted like inheritance disputes. In Delhi, the hardliners clipped the "commando" line. In Pakistan, the conservatives clipped the "corridor" line. Everyone was trying to isolate one sentence and make it a weapon.
But the fee question—the five dollars—did something unexpected.
It escaped politics.
It fell into the hands of people who understood money better than ideology: the diaspora and the merchant class.
And once merchants enter a conflict, slogans begin to lose oxygen.
Canada: A Man Buys Dignity for His Village
TorontoA Sikh community channel ran the interview again, then opened its lines.
A middle-aged man came on camera—no theatrics, no party flag behind him, just a calm face and the authority of someone who had built a life abroad without forgetting the smell of his village.
"My people will go," he said. "And I will pay their fee."
The anchor blinked. "For everyone?"
"For my village people who want to go," the man replied. "What is five dollars compared to a prayer that our elders have carried for fifty years? If the corridor opens, I will sponsor the entry fees. I don't want any poor man turned back at the gate because he didn't have a note in his pocket."
The clip spread through diaspora circles like wildfire—not through apps, but through calls, CDs, forwarded tapes, community gatherings, gurdwara announcements.
It killed the "jizya" narrative more effectively than any press release could.
Because it reframed the fee as what it actually was:
Not humiliation.
Not ideology.
Just logistics—something solvable.
Inside Islamabad, Aditya's mind sharpened.
This is stakeholder formation, he thought. They're not asking states for charity. They're building a private bridge around the politics.
Lahore: Industry Smells an Opening
In Pakistan, the textile community—always alert to cross-border desire—did what it always did when it sensed a new channel opening: it moved before the policy was even finalized.
A mid-tier textile group in Lahore put out a simple televised offer, phrased like a promotion but functioning like a political lever:
"Book our merchandise through our website and retail partners," the spokesperson said, "and receive Kartarpur Management Fee Vouchers for your family."
It wasn't sophisticated by global standards. The "website" was basic. Orders were taken through early e-commerce forms, phone confirmations, and bank drafts. But the principle was revolutionary in South Asian optics:
The fee became a coupon.
A toll became an incentive.
A "religious tax" became a marketing campaign.
Aditya watched the clip twice in his office, then once more without sound.
They're turning our corridor into an economic instrument, he realized. That means they will defend it—quietly, relentlessly—because it becomes revenue.
That is the difference between "public sentiment" and "commercial attachment."
Public sentiment is loud and fragile.
Commercial attachment is silent and stubborn.
The Idea That Lit the Room
The most dangerous ideas often arrive wearing ordinary clothes.
It came from a business analyst invited onto a Pakistani current affairs program—one of those men who speaks in price points and margins, not ideology.
He held up a small bag of walnuts like it was evidence in court.
"In India," he said, "walnuts are 600 rupees per kilogram. In Pakistan, you can get them for 300."
The anchor laughed, thinking it was a joke.
The analyst didn't smile.
"If an Indian pilgrim buys one kilogram of walnuts," he continued, "the savings alone compensates the five-dollar fee. And it's not only walnuts. There are dry fruits, textiles, shawls, shoes, handicrafts. The corridor market will pay for the corridor."
Then he leaned forward slightly and delivered the line that made the viewers feel clever rather than manipulated:
"For seeing Guru Nanak's place—who counts money?"
In Islamabad, the report landed on Musharraf's desk within the hour, with the same underlined sentence highlighted by an aide:
"Savings compensate fee — market logic neutralizes jizya narrative."
Aditya read it and felt something rare: not hope, but mechanism.
A bulb went on in his head—the IAS bulb that didn't respond to emotion but to structure.
Because the corridor had just acquired a second purpose:
It wasn't only a passage.
It was a pressure valve.
If pilgrims could leave with something tangible—a bag of walnuts, a shawl, a pair of shoes—then every visit created a micro-story that competed with propaganda.
Not "Pakistan taxed devotion."
But "I went, I saw, I bought, I returned safe."
A thousand micro-stories are harder to kill than one grand announcement.