Ace so­cial ac­tivist, trav­eller and so­cial me­dia in­flu­encer Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja shares mo­ments spent when Britain’s first tur­baned Sikh Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi, aka Tan Dhesi, hosted him at the British House of Com­mons early last week.

From Lud­hi­ana with love. From the chaos of Lud­hi­ana to the or­der of Lon­don. From the bit­ing cold of Lud­hi­ana to the chilly winds of Lon­don win­ter.  On my maiden trip to the UK, fra­ter­nal warmth and love greeted me as I started the Lon­don leg of my tour right from the word go with the first tur­baned Sikh Mem­ber Par­lia­ment Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi host­ing me and my fam­ily at the British House of Com­mons. In the Christ­mas sea­son, on New Year’s Eve, the cel­e­bra­tory mood was pal­pa­ble and so was British hos­pi­tal­ity at its best.

Dur­ing the short tour of the House of Com­mons, I had the priv­i­lege to meet Nick Brown -the Chief Whip of the Labour party, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment of New­cas­tle upon Tyne East and share the need of an in­clu­sive world so­ci­ety and ac­knowl­edge Great Britain as an in­clu­sive coun­try de­spite in­nu­mer­able chal­lenges.

As the Sikh world gears up to com­mem­o­rate and cel­e­brate 550 years of the ad­vent of the First Mas­ter Guru Nanak Sahib,  from the por­tals of the British House of Com­mons, I kicked off the 550-year cel­e­bra­tions by pre­sent­ing a por­trait of Guru Nanak Sahib to my Sikh co-trav­eller in pub­lic life, mem­ber par­lia­ment Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi.

In my note amidst the Tan Dhesi team, I ap­plauded the work be­ing done by Tan Dhesi and the val­ues that we mu­tu­ally share of world peace and hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ism. 

Ex­cite­ment brimmed through me since the day the Slough Mem­ber Par­lia­ment con­firmed this meet­ing nearly a month back.  It was a priv­i­lege and an ho­n­our to meet Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi or Tan Dhesi as he is pop­u­larly known, in the por­tals of the Par­lia­ment and I deeply ap­pre­ci­ate this unique op­por­tu­nity. In the hour that I spent there, I was en­am­oured of his per­son­al­ity and stature. His sweet man­ner­isms, wel­com­ing at­ti­tude and typ­i­cal Eng­lish ac­cent are un­for­get­table.

“As the Sikh world gears up to com­mem­o­rate and cel­e­brate 550 years of the ad­vent of the First Mas­ter Guru Nanak Sahib, from the por­tals of the British House of Com­mons, I kicked off the 550-year cel­e­bra­tions by pre­sent­ing a por­trait of Guru Nanak Sahib to my Sikh co-trav­eller in pub­lic life, mem­ber par­lia­ment Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi.”

With awe and ap­pre­ci­a­tion, my wife Harki­rat Kaur ac­knowl­edged the pride of the mo­ment and con­grat­u­lated Tan Dhesi for mak­ing it big by mak­ing his way to Par­lia­ment on the strength of his con­stituency work and pro-peo­ple poli­cies. 

My as­so­ci­a­tion with Sar­dar Dhesi is a trib­ute to the spirit of a true Sikh that is part and par­cel of the per­son­al­ity of Sar­dar Dhesi. What bet­ter day than this one to meet him when just a day be­fore he had moved an Early Day Mo­tion in the British House of Com­mons for the set­ting up of a Na­tional Sikh War Memo­r­ial in Cen­tral Lon­don.  As part of the cen­ten­nial cel­e­bra­tions of World War I, this is a most be­fit­ting step. 

A Sikh War Memo­r­ial in Lon­don is a com­mon cause as I have had the op­por­tu­nity to visit Ieper in Bel­gium, Forli in Italy and St. Tropez in France to cre­ate aware­ness about Sikh mil­i­tary his­tory.  Con­grat­u­lat­ing Tan Dhesi for this his­toric cause, I promised him to be there when the memo­r­ial is set up and to pro­mote this in the ho­n­our of thou­sands of Sikh sol­diers who laid down their lives for Great Britain and its al­lies.

Tan Dhesi is the pride of his con­stituents and his Labour party and for me, he is the pride of Sikhs and hu­man­ity, stand­ing up for causes boldly and sys­tem­at­i­cally. With his ini­tia­tive and per­sua­sive ef­forts, flights be­tween Am­rit­sar and Lon­don and Birm­ing­ham will soon be a re­al­ity. Ad­vo­cat­ing for the rights of Ro­hingya Mus­lims re­quires courage and grit and when he raised the is­sue in British Par­lia­ment, he once again re­it­er­ated the Sikh call of “Sar­bat da Bhala” -Wel­fare for all hu­man­ity.  When he sought pay rise for British labour­ers, he showed his com­mit­ment to so­cial jus­tice.

Hum­bled by the ad­mi­ra­tion show­ered by the tall and hand­some mem­ber par­lia­ment and his team­mates, I be­lieve that we have con­nected to spread good­ness around the world, up­hold the val­ues of truth­ful­ness, dwelling in the will of God, shar­ing and hon­est labour. I will con­tinue this jour­ney. 

“A Sikh War Memo­r­ial in Lon­don as pro­posed by Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi is a com­mon cause as I have had the op­por­tu­nity to visit Ieper in Bel­gium, Forli in Italy and St. Tropez in France to cre­ate aware­ness about Sikh mil­i­tary his­tory.”

Walk­ing down the West­min­ster with the British Par­lia­ment and the Lon­don Gi­ant Wheel in the back­ground, cour­tesy Visit Britain, in the com­pany of Tan Dhesi and my fam­ily were mo­ments I will cher­ish for long. With his large heart, ex­ud­ing warmth Tan Dhesi con­grat­u­lated me for my one mil­lion Twit­ter fol­low­ers reach and wished me more suc­cess in my en­deav­ours for which I am in­deed very grate­ful.  

De­part­ing from Tan Dhesi and the British House of Com­mons, with love and prayer in my heart, I thanked Guru Nanak and promised to fol­low the Gu­ru’s path -to travel far and wide to spread the spirit of good­ness and stand up for hu­man­i­tar­ian rights. Last but never the least, to stay hum­ble and ac­knowl­edge the Almighty.

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As we move into the New Year, thank you Tan Dhesi and may Almighty shower his grace on you and your fam­ily and may you con­tinue to serve your peo­ple and hu­man­ity.