Bharat

Within much of the world, there is a tendency to categorise anyone with brown skin as simply an "Indian" Today, on British educational forms, there are sometimes separate tick boxes for "Indian" and "Pakistani" and "Bangladeshi" recognising the noticeable differences in average academic achievement between these groups. I did not say academic potential.

But even a categorisation as broad as "Indian" is a bit ludicrous. India is much better compared to Europe than to any European country, each state has its own history, languages, cultures and communities. If you had to describe the people of each state in just a few words then you would have to resort to very broad strokes indeed.

Punjabis are the Germans. Hardworking. Efficient. They do like a drink. Yet they still maintain the largest farms and industrial production.

Those from the south of India are the Scandinavians. Civilised. Tolerant. Productive.

The Gujratis could be the Italians. Usually appear as a stylish, refined, united culture. But you feel there could be riots seething just under the surface.

And the Bengalis are the French. Birthplace of modern scientific enlightenment. Centre for the arts. They think they are the intellectual and spiritual centre of modern civilisation, most others think they are a bunch of talkative radicals who are always going on strike!

There is no match in today's Europe for Bihar. And of course those are all just outdated stereotypes, innit?