Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ambassador Sandhu was making his case in rural Amritsar (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
DISPATCH: Anti-Narendra Modi communists at a rural Amritsar rally in India’s billion-ballot election on Wednesday are proof this vibrant 1.4 billion-strong democracy is thriving and well.
“Made like a gun goes like a bullet” is the original slogan of Redditch-born Royal Enfield.
Now Indian-owned and British-designed, the brand’s iconic “Bullet” was veteran statesman Taranjit Singh Sandhu’s weapon of choice as he roared across rural Punjab.
Back on the campaign trail of India’s 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Ambassador Sandhu was making his case in rural Amritsar.
The 28th Ambassador of India to the United States exudes the kind of gravitas and stature only those who have held such high office can.
Originally from Punjab, he has returned to his roots to stand for the BJP in his cultural hinterlands holding a rally roadshow in the blistering 40C heat.
His British-Indian motorcycle has achieved status as a symbol of the 20,000-square-mile state, known as the “Land of the Five Rivers”.
It has become synonymous with the region – highlighting enduring shared links between Global Britain and New India.
Ambassador Sandhu was leading the pack trailed by a line of horn-honking, flag-waving BJP supporters making their way to a village rally with local farmers.
Sikhs’ ancestral home also has the moniker of the “Bread Basket of India” and its international airport is opening fresh routes across Europe and the Indo-Pacific to turbocharge tourism and trade.
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A village rally with local farmers in rural Punjab (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
Farmers gather to hear Ambassador Sandhu speak at the rally (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
The 45-minute flight to Amritsar from New Delhi is astonishingly used as a commuter route, with affordable fares demonstrating the subcontinent’s sheer scale is no barrier to free-flowing travel.
Amritsar Airport is the only one in the world to have a Sikh temple right in the middle of it.
The runway, which was originally military, was constructed due to its strategic proximity to the border of Pakistan – a nation India has fought with in numerous armed conflicts since their independence.
But the Gurudwara Baba Jawandh Singh Ji existed before the airfield and, out of respect for the Punjabi culture, it has been allowed to remain.
Our return flight to Delhi that evening would be our fifth in just three days during our ongoing coverage of this epic 44-day contest in which we are hearing from Indian voices of all cultures.
The 450-year-old city of Amritsar was established by the fourth Sikh guru, Guru Ram Das, in about 1574 and has a long tradition of enterprise and trade.
Speaking to the Daily Express before his rally Ambassador Sandhu said free trade could “absolutely” help to lift people into prosperity and greater benefit both Global Britain and New India together.
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Ambassador Sandhu at a BJP campaign event (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
Ambassador Sandhu’s event in the Indian countryside was slick and well attended (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
He suggested Britain’s 1.8 million-strong Indian diaspora would be the perfect homegrown market to buy “wonderful products” such as fresh mangos and oranges from Amritsar.
He argued this would give the UK a headstart on free trade with the 50-million-strong Punjab region.
A newly established direct flight route from Amritsar to London Gatwick of just 8.5 hours and efficient cold storage chains would be key in delivering this goal, he argued.
“That is why people are excited,” he said.
Ambassador Sandhu’s event in the Indian countryside was slick and well attended, with a long motorcade and tight security protecting him from threats.
Travelling roughly 6,000 miles from Osterley to help drive Ambassador Sandhu’s campaign, Adi Singh, 30, said the BJP was backing Indian producers and young entrepreneurs.
Dressed in all-white traditional Punjabi garb along with his BJP colleagues, Mr Singh said the BJP would back start-ups and champion aspiration among young people in India.
In a thick West London accent, he said: “We support farmers in every way. It is the middleman that eats them.”
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Adi Singh, 30, said the BJP was backing Indian producers and young entrepreneurs (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
Horn-honking, flag-waving BJP supporters making their way to a village rally with local farmers (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
Ambassador Sandhu was leading the pack (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
Farmer Joginder Singh, 37, had travelled from the other end of this vast constituency to stand in the sweltering noon sun under a marquee to listen to Ambassador Sandhu spell out his vision for rural citizens.
He said: “I believe in ‘Modi’s Guarantee’ to help raise my income.”
He was referring to a national push by the BJP to deliver housing, better development and raise farmers’ incomes.
But it was not just supporters of the BJP in attendance, with people from across the political spectrum present at the event.
An angry group of communist detractors bellowed over a PA system on the sidelines of the rally.
They yelled, “Death to Modi, die BJP,” surrounded by specialist commandos.
Picked up by an elite unit of the armed forces known as the “Black Cats”, the soldiers were holding automatic assault rifles and security was much tighter than usual due to Ambassador Sandhu’s international status after having served in Washington DC.
Speaking from the village stage Ambassador Sandhu shouted back at the protesters, proclaiming he would bring in investment, back free trade and encourage “value addition” to the farming community.
He pointed to issues such as law and order being a key concern for the Punjabi people, with “threats being received and extortion” due to drug use and criminal activity.
Ambassador Sandhu shouted back at the protesters, proclaiming he would bring in investment (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
Anti-Narendra Modi communists at a rural Amritsar rally (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
Incomes were going down in rural and urban sections of society, he later told the Express.
Pointing to the benefits of tourism in the region, he said: “The only saving grace is that 150,000 visitors come here daily.”
Amritsar attracts not only casual tourists but also religious pilgrims who travel thousands of miles in some cases due to the city’s rich cultural significance.
Built in 1577 and founded by the fourth Sikh Guru Guru Ram Das, its sacred Golden Temple – gilded with 750 kilograms of solid gold – welcomes 75,000 to 90,000 daily visitors and 27 to 33 million annually.
Also attending the rural campaign rally veteran Indian journalist and strategic analyst K P Nayar originally from the Kerala region in the south of India.
Mr Nayar, who began his career in 1971, said Modi was “very charismatic”.
He said: “Modi electrifies people.”
We witnessed first-hand how organised Modi’s outfit is (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
Indian intellectual Indrani Bagchi with the Daily Express over a chai in Delhi (Image: ANDY COMMINS)
The old-hand political expert, who has also sat on advisory boards for major international events such as the EXPO 2020 in the UAE, simply said: “All politics is local.”
His observation was a reflection of the apparent enthusiasm felt for Ambassador Sandhu in Punjab, with huge posters of his face plastered all over the city, and the effective ground campaign the party was executing.
On a visit to the BJP campaign HQ, we witnessed first-hand how organised Modi’s outfit is, with young Indians in the party’s “social media cell” hard at work in a busy office building.
“Whatever you see or hear in India, the opposite is also true,” Indian intellectual Indrani Bagchi told the Daily Express over a chai back in Delhi.
The CEO of geopolitical think tank Ananta was referring to the words of Cambridge economist Joan Robinson who visited the subcontinent from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The presence of anti-Modi communist critics shouting their message loud and clear at Ambassador Sandhu’s rural rally is a testament to just that.