Celebration of historical links between Punjab and France

The Neemrana Music Foundation is a registered, national non-profit, nonpartisan educational organisation in the field of classical music that aims to build bridges of understanding between different cultures. It has been a pioneer in introducing the genre of Opera in India, imparting music education and awarding scholarships to young Indian singers and musicians to study in India or abroad. Among its many goals, it is working towards creating an opera repertoire for performances in India and abroad with trained Indian and foreign singers and musicians.

Henri Prévost-Allard is Deputy Mayor for Tourism of the French city of Saint-Tropez. He is a descendent of General Jean-François Allard, who served Maharaja Ranjit Singh from 1822 till his death in 1839 while defending Punjab on an official assignment. He has thus also descended from Bannu Pan Dei, Princess of Chamba, who married General Allard in 1825. Historian and writer, he has been working towards creating closer ties between India and France for over twenty years, especially between the General’s native city of Saint-Tropez and Punjab and the Sikh community.

Bobby Singh Bansal’s desire to learn more about his Sikh heritage was triggered by a chance visit to Lahore in 1989. He started researching about Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his reign almost immediately, his journey taking him all over the world from Lahore to London to Texas. His book, The Lion’s Firanghis: Europeans at the Court of Lahore, charts the careers of former soldiers and mercenaries of the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to Punjab. He has also made an award-winning documentary, “Sikhs of Kabul: A Forgotten Community”, followed by another on Burmese Sikhs.

Vijay Singh, a Paris-based Indian film-maker, screenplay-writer and novelist, has written and directed four acclaimed films, of which “Man and Elephant” was awarded the Grand Prix La Titine (2002) in Switzerland. He is also the recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci Award for screenplay writing and the Prix Villa Médicis hors les murs for foreign Literature in 1990. He is currently working on Mademoiselle France Pleure, a feature-length documentary bringing to the fore what Indian soldiers lived through on the Western Front, using rare film footage, photographs, portraits, Indian war songs, some 600 letters written home by the soldiers, and interviews with their descendants.

Aman Nath, a historian by education, has co-written and authored thirteen large-format illustrated books on art, history, architecture, corporate biography and photography, two of which have won national awards. He was the youngest founder-member of INTACH and has been actively involved in the restoration of India’s lesser-known architectural ruins. He is the co-founder of the Neemrana ‘non-hotel’ Hotels, which were nominated in 2004 for the Aga Khan Award, and have won awards from UNESCO, as well as National Awards from the Government of India.