Comment by ignoramous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ignoramous | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Gujarati. My ancestors established businesses in most British colonies at the time, from Ceylon to Hong Kong, from Siam to Réunion, from Australia to the Suez, from Kenya to Rangoon. Our family names are based on places where our dad worked for a living. For instance, my mother's family name is Siamwala (an indicator that my grand dad and his family were involved in international trade based in Thailand).

This article seems more like PR but isn't far from truth. I think, as a community, Jews have probably outdone any one community out there.

In fact, a great many jewish business families in British-India adopted Gujarat, and spoke Gujarati.

Here's another biased take on the topic by a Pakistani journalist:

http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/WaBCEddMLH5DaM0aD5wzbN/Why-I...

And here my answer on Quora on a related question: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Gujarati-people-make-up-a-large...

That is a very rosy view of Gujaratis. A lot of non-Gujarati folks think of them as ruthlessly miserly and capable of going to any lengths to make money. Surely an attribute that helps in a business, but not one that endears them to the 'host' society.

Be careful listening to that kind of stereotype. It's often promoted by natives who are outperformed economically by immigrants. That builds resentment and can have horrific consequences.

Finding moral fault in others is often just a way to explain their own lack of accomplishment.

Not always, of course. But something to be very careful of.

This is a two way street. You can't expect with the dissemination of ethnic-based propaganda and "pride" type movements that natives or other social groups not to take notice of your endeavors and starts responding to you in kind.

It's good to celebrate success but not good to determine the worth of individuals or social groups solely on the basis of financial assets or business holdings.

This is the real slippery slope you don't wanna step on.

I'm not sure I agree that there needs to be symmetry between compliments and insults.

I think the right approach is to compliment specific groups and people and behaviors; and criticize only behaviors. The specific people/groups who are behaving well will value the personal credit and build on it; the specific people behaving badly can take impersonal criticism without feeling the need to be defensive.

Occasionally naming names is warranted in criticism, but that's the exception.

Aakar Patel is Indian

And also Gujarati.

And also a Troll. (Refer to his pre-2015 mint.com editorials on Gujaratis)

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