Re: Indian Tories

allan tracy wrote:
I suspect that at least part of the reason Indians are so successful in
comparison with Pakistanis is that many Indians came here via East
Africa, where they'd emigrated to because they were ambitious
professionals and businessmen.

In contrast, most of the Pakistanis who fetched up in Bradford were
recruited from places like Mirpur and Sihlet, which are pretty remote,
as unskilled or semi-skilled industrial workers in an industry that went
belly-up.

In some ways, the question is on a par with asking why the children of
professionals from the Home Counties tend, in general, to do better than
do the children of redundant coal-miners from the North East.


I think there is more to it than that.

One of my neighbours is headmistress of a Birmingham inner-city
comprehensive. The pupils are predominately working class Asian, both
Indian and Pakistani. Having previously taught in a predominately white
working class estate school, she now finds her job to be an absolute
joy by comparison.

In general, the kids are well motivated and the attitude and interest
shown by parents she finds very supportive.

Her only criticism is that in some more traditional families they are
less keen on their daughters progressing to university, though very
rarely to the point of denying opportunity. Their main concern being
that they don't like their daughters leaving home, however this is
usually overcome by educating locally.

Parental backing is vital in any school and unfortunately in many white
working class areas even when there are parents (parent being more
typical) their attitude can often leave a lot to be desired.

My parents were working class but encouraged their kids at school and
importantly if we did anything wrong we didn't report it back, if it
could be helped. I always knew that when it came to the teacher's
version of events versus mine there was only going to be one winner.


I said it was part of the reason, not the only reason. I just mentioned it because the East African Asians generally (who tend to be Gujeratis and Punjabis because it was predominantly Gujerati and Punjabi companies that were recruiting in East Africa) were by and large pretty successful and entrepreneurial before they came here. Many of them, too, had had the foresight to put plenty of money away outside East Africa when their adopted countries became independent.

People forget, I think, just how big the Indian subcontinent is and that, until Britain got there, it comprised a lot of countries even more diverse linguistically, historically and culturally as those of Europe. Talking about Indians or Pakistanis as a group is akin to grouping together the British, the Italians, the Germans and the Rumanians as 'Europeans'.

Steve
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