The de facto am­bas­sador of the Sikhs at many re­cent French events in In­dia and France, Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja hosts the French book launch.

At an im­pres­sive pub­lic event at an up­beat restau­rant in Lud­hi­ana, French his­to­rian, Dou­glas Gres­siux, along with a French del­e­ga­tion vis­it­ing Pun­jab, re­leased a book on the Role of In­dian sol­diers in World War 1.

So­cial ac­tivist and so­cial me­dia cham­pion Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja played host to the team and said, “I am do­ing so to cel­e­brate the Franco-Pun­jab re­la­tion­ship.” The French book ti­tled, ‘Les Troupes In­di­ennes en France 1914-18’ talks about In­dian sol­diers who fought along­side the French in the First World War.

“I think, af­ter the his­toric French cul­tural, mil­i­tary and lo­gis­tic con­tri­bu­tion to La­hore, Ka­purthala and Chandi­garh, it is time to link up Lud­hi­ana and the launch of this book is the be­gin­ning”, said Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja.

“We cher­ish in our hearts the rose pinned by a French lady to the chest of a Sikh sol­dier on the streets of Paris nearly a cen­tury ago. The fra­grance of the rose is still fresh in our minds and will con­tinue to in­spire us to ex­plore our glo­ri­ous past”, said Dou­glas Gres­siux at his book launch. Ad­dress­ing the me­dia, his­to­rian Dou­glas said that he has been work­ing on the pro­ject of iden­ti­fy­ing In­dian cit­i­zens and their role in France for the last two decades.

In­ter­est­ingly, com­ing out of the Pun­jabi mould, Lud­hi­ana res­i­dents are show­ing keen in­ter­est in Eu­ro­pean lan­guages. They are also con­cerned about their rel­a­tives, friends and as­so­ci­ates af­fected by xeno­pho­bia against the Sikhs and oth­ers in France and other coun­tries. The tur­ban is­sue in French schools is up­per­most in the minds of the Sikhs and it is painful to think that even to­day Sikhs in France are sub­ju­gated to hu­mil­i­a­tion for mak­ing dri­ving li­cences and pass­ports and are asked to re­move their tur­bans and other head­gear to make such doc­u­men­ta­tion. It is how­ever an­other story that the num­ber of tur­ban-wear­ing French Sikhs is min­i­mal and the com­mu­nity needs to look in­wards too.

Lud­hi­ana-the Man­ches­ter of In­dia has a grow­ing youth pop­u­la­tion with keen in­ter­est in French and Eu­ro­pean po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, lan­guages and the ris­ing xeno­pho­bia in re­cent times. “There is vast po­ten­tial for Pun­jab to set up a cen­tre for Pun­jab-Paris co-op­er­a­tion in many ar­eas.” said Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja.

Among the many coun­tries that have par­tic­i­pated along­side the French in the World War 1, there is one that is of­ten ig­nored: In­dia and Pun­jab in par­tic­u­lar. Pun­jab, then un­der British rule, made a huge con­tri­bu­tion in WW1 in the north of France. Though the Sikh sol­diers were part of the In­dian con­tin­gent, the French are acutely aware of the French-Sikh ties since the times of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh.

“The role of French Gen­eral, Jean-François Al­lard in train­ing the Fauj-e-Khas of the army of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh is an­other proud chap­ter of French- Pun­jab her­itage,” said Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja who had re­cently rep­re­sented Pun­jab at the in­stal­la­tion of the statue of Ma­haraja Ran­jit Singh in Saint-Tropez, France.

Speak­ing to WSN, Dou­glas said “He has been work­ing on the role of the Sikh sol­diers in France along side Sikhs de France, an or­gan­i­sa­tion that rep­re­sents French Sikhs to high­light the role of Sikh sol­diers who fought the World War 1 for the free­dom of France. I am now work­ing on a book to cat­a­logue the con­tri­bu­tion of Sikh sol­diers specif­i­cally to the in­de­pen­dence of France.”

Ac­com­pa­nied by his wife and a 40 mem­ber strong French del­e­ga­tion on their maiden visit to Pun­jab, they were bowled over with Pun­jabi hos­pi­tal­ity. Marie Jeane Gres­siux, the wife of the au­thor said, “I am happy at my first visit to Pun­jab. The creme de la creme of Lud­hi­ana as­sem­bled at the func­tion were also ad­dressed by Bala Ra­man -French Con­sulate Gen­eral to Pud­duch­ery (for­merly known as Pondicherry) and a Sikh res­i­dent in France Kul­vin­der Singh, both of whom thanked the au­thor and Har­jin­der Singh for the event.

A mini-ex­hi­bi­tion was held at the event dis­play­ing col­lages of pho­tographs de­pict­ing Sikh in­volve­ment in the World War I.

Har­jin­der Singh, who has been re­lent­lessly fol­low­ing the British and the Eu­ro­peans to high­light the re­la­tion­ships be­tween them and the Sikh na­tion, told WSN, “I am look­ing at the huge pos­si­bil­i­ties of trans­lat­ing this work into Eng­lish and Pun­jabi. I in­vite Sikh schol­ars to take this up at the ear­li­est.”