Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja con­tin­ued his ca­ma­raderie with the French by be­ing part of the Bastille Day cel­e­bra­tions at the French em­bassy in Delhi along with an ar­ray of other dig­ni­taries.  In his jour­ney to strengthen Franco-Pun­jab re­la­tions, he has been pre­sent at French func­tions from St. Tropez to Paris and from Chandi­garh to Delhi.

A “true friend of the French” Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja con­tin­ued his ca­ma­raderie with the French by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Bastille Day cel­e­bra­tions at the French em­bassy in Delhi. Har­jin­der, who loves to be known as  a “true friend of the French”, has made his pres­ence in the past at French func­tions from St. Tropez to Paris and from Chandi­garh to Delhi. 

In a unique ges­ture of ap­pre­ci­a­tion and re­call­ing the Pun­jab-French con­nec­tion dur­ing the times of the Sikh em­peror Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh who had a French gen­eral as his army chief, the young stal­wart, Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja gifted a unique new paint­ing of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh with the French gen­eral Jean François Al­lard, to the French am­bas­sador in In­dia and his spouse.  Am­bas­sador Alexan­der Ziegler was vis­i­bly de­lighted to re­ceive the paint­ing and his spouse too showed keen in­ter­est. 

“I am par­tic­u­larly en­am­oured by the story of Gen­eral Al­lard who mod­ernised the Sikh army. He was born in St. Tropez and died in La­hore. I thought there could be no bet­ter trib­ute to the Ma­haraja and his Gen­eral than a paint­ing of the two to the French on their na­tional day, hence I gifted this paint­ing by a young Lud­hi­ana-based artiste, Ayushi Gupta to the French am­bas­sador” ex­plained Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja.

“Sikhs have al­ways had a cor­dial con­nec­tion with the French, hav­ing laid thou­sands of lives for their lib­er­a­tion dur­ing the World Wars as part of the Im­pe­r­ial forces of Great Britain. The French Re­pub­li­can na­tional motto of “lib­erty, equal­ity and fra­ter­nity” re­sounds Sikh val­ues of the broth­er­hood of mankind and fa­ther­hood of God.””

Sig­nif­i­cantly, on Bastille Day last year, the bust of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh was of­fi­cially re­vealed for the French com­mu­nity in In­dia and the In­dian friends of France. This year’s French Na­tional Day marks a year of that oc­ca­sion. “The in­stal­la­tion of Ma­hara­ja’s bust is a mile­stone in Franco-Pun­jab re­la­tions and I feel proud that I was pre­sent at St. Tropez when the bust was made pub­lic last year,” said Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja.

Sikhs have al­ways had a cor­dial con­nec­tion with the French, hav­ing laid thou­sands of lives for their lib­er­a­tion dur­ing the World Wars as part of the Im­pe­r­ial forces of Great Britain.  The French Re­pub­li­can na­tional motto of “lib­erty, equal­ity and fra­ter­nity” re­sounds Sikh val­ues of the broth­er­hood of mankind and fa­ther­hood of God.”

Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja runs a French bak­ery and choco­latery in Lud­hi­ana.  Not stop­ping at this, Har­jin­der Singh said that he wishes to con­tinue to en­gage and en­hance Franco-Pun­jab re­la­tions by seek­ing more French in­vest­ment in Pun­jab and work­ing for set­ting up an Al­liance Fran­caise in Lud­hi­ana. “In as­so­ci­a­tion with French schol­ars, there is scope to start a French-Pun­jabi and Pun­jabi-French dic­tio­nary too.”  “Some­day soon, I pro­pose to have a French-Pun­jabi Cui­sine fes­ti­val in the heart of Lud­hi­ana city.” said Har­jin­der Singh.  He was quick to add, “with­out French wine, of course.”

“Har­jin­der Singh wishes to con­tinue to en­gage and en­hance Franco-Pun­jab re­la­tions by seek­ing more French in­vest­ment in Pun­jab and work­ing for set­ting up an Al­liance Fran­caise in Lud­hi­ana. “In as­so­ci­a­tion with French schol­ars, there is scope to start a French-Pun­jabi and Pun­jabi-French dic­tio­nary too.” Some­day soon, I pro­pose to have a French-Pun­jabi Cui­sine fes­ti­val in the heart of Lud­hi­ana city, says Kukreja.”

Thierry Morel, a French diplo­mat in In­dia, ad­mired the keen­ness of Har­jin­der Singh Kukre­ja’s par­tic­i­pa­tion at French cel­e­bra­tions in In­dia and France and hoped that this will one day fruc­tify into some­thing con­crete for strength­en­ing the Sikh-French con­nec­tion.

Spelling out his next plans, Kukreja said that he looks for­ward to over­whelm­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion of Pun­jabis in the French so­cial, ed­u­ca­tional and cul­tural par­tic­i­pa­tion dur­ing the Bon­jour In­dia cel­e­bra­tions in Chandi­garh among the 40 other In­dian cities early next year.