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Lord Rami Ranger

Lord Rami Ranger

RAMI RANGER achieved one of his great ambitions when he was given a peerage in Theresa May’s resignation honours list in October 2019 – “for me to be sitting with the great and the good I have to pinch myself sometimes”.

When he spoke to GG2 for this profile, the businessman and philanthropist sounded as though his journey was almost done.


“I am 74 – people retire at 65,” he began. “Now I’m in the twilight of my life. There is no strength, no aggression. I don’t have that old drive. It’s all died down.”

He has given over day to day running of the companies that he founded – his freight company, Sea, Air & Land Forwarding, in 1987 and Sun Mark, an international marketing and distribution firm, in 1995 – to his son-in-law, Harmeet (“Sunny”) Singh Ahuja, who is married to Reena, the eldest of Lord Ranger’s three daughters.

Reena has taken over as co-chairman of Conservative Friends of India from her father.

Ranger’s middle daughter, Amita, a haematologist, and her husband, an orthopaedic, surgeon, both work for the NHS where “they have been on the frontline”.

In business, the pandemic has made it a difficult year for Ranger who sells almost “everything available in a supermarket”, from biscuits to fruit drinks, to clients in 130 countries.

“We sell English products for the top end of the market. And because people have lost their jobs and businesses are suffering, they’re not buying as much luxury items as they once did,” he explains.

“I had seven hotels – I sold five,” he goes on. “I discovered the hotel business is not for me. I’m pulling out because it takes too much time. We have to focus on our core business – exports. That is our main focus because we have got a huge business.

“We want to make sure we go back to the normal pattern of business after Covid and also consolidate our property portfolio.”

Ranger shouldn’t be taken too seriously when he signals he might be retreating into the shadows. Throughout lockdown he has been tweeting more than perhaps any other prominent Asian personality in the country. More often than not it is aimed at portraying India in a positive light.

Ranger is widely respected in the Asian community for his common sense and moderate views, especially in his capacity as chairman of the British Sikh Association.

He tells GG2 he has one final wish – “this is my last objective in life”. What he wants has not happened in the last 70 years and the chances are it will not happen in the next 70 but Ranger insists: “My biggest ambition is to build bridges between India and Pakistan because that is something I feel very passionately about – there is no need to be rivals.”

Given Ranger’s tragic personal history, which he has not hidden from anyone, it would have been understandable if he felt bitter about the Partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. This was an event that led to his father’s death.

Sardar Nanak Singh was born on 11 September 1903 in Kuntrila, Rawalpindi District, Punjab. Like millions of Sikhs, he was caught on the wrong side of the border when Pakistan was created in 1947. He strongly opposed the Partition of India and made a last speech on March 4, 1947, in Multan City. He was killed the very next day by religious fanatics when he was trying to save 600 students from the local DVA College who were trapped in the communal riots. He was 42. His youngest of his eight children was born posthumously on July 3, 1947.

“Baron Ranger of Mayfair in the City of Westminster” recounted the circumstances of his birth and the family history in his maiden speech in the House of Lords on 10 March, 2010: “My life began in a refugee camp in India, without a father but with a remarkable mother. Our mother was widowed at the young age of just 35. My mother’s resilience and ability shaped the lives of eight children, 19 grandchildren and 27 great grandchildren.”

After arriving in the UK on May 22, 1971, Ranger did a series of modest jobs – “my first job in England was a car cleaner”. One of his jokes is: “I am now fortunate enough to own a Rolls-Royce Ghost when once I could not afford a bicycle.”

When he does drive himself to the House of Lords, he invariably takes his Mercedes “because if you drive the Rolls-Royce, they think you are the chauffeur”.

Ranger set out his struggles in his autobiography, From Nothing to Everything: An inspiring saga of struggle and success from £2 to a £200 million business.

Today, there is a statue of his father, “Shaheed” Nanak Singh, in Amritsar and also an annual lecture is held in his name. More than that, Ranger has long believed in carrying on with his father’s mission – bring peace between India and Pakistan.

“I have a lot of good Pakistani friends,” he points out. “They concur with me that Pakistan is getting deeper and deeper into problems by having rivalry with India and an obsession with Kashmir. It is a poisoned chalice for Pakistan.”

Looking at the problem as a businessman, he says: “When you start trading goods, you stop trading bullets. When people come to me to do business, I don’t check their religion or race or nationality. I do business with Arabs, I do business with Africans. For me, they’re very important because I am depending on them. They are depending on me. Interdependency creates a lot more respect for one another.”

Supporters of the Pakistani army may not like to hear this but Ranger argues: “Their army has become so powerful on the pretext of Kashmir. It has swallowed up all the democratic institutions. It is a huge drain on the economy. Because the Pakistani army is a highly paid army, Pakistani youth and the elite join the army and very few join industry or science or technology or become doctors because they’re all attracted by the respect the army wields in Pakistan. It is a wrong motivational thing. The army doesn’t produce anything.”

If there was peace, “Pakistan would benefit a great deal from the 1.3 billion people just around the corner. Look at the size of the market. Pakistani artists could play an important role in Bollywood. Indian cinema could be shot in Pakistan. And historically, the Sikh faith originated from what is now Pakistan. All the historical gurdwaras are in Pakistan. Hindu temples are there.

“Look at the trade and tourism that can develop. So they’re sitting on a gold mine, really. They can reduce the cost of their defence and military and use that for giving people healthcare.”

And as for India, it should “reach out to a younger brother – Pakistan”.

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