Too Indian to adopt

I am not surprised that the mother of a white Christian girl should be upset that her daughter was placed by Tower Hamlets council in London with a foster family reported to adhere to a strict form of Islam. But my experience is very different — one in which cultural sensibilities were taken into account, but to an extreme and absurd degree. Our story is about adoption, not fostering, but one assumes that similar decision-making guidelines govern the placement of vulnerable children.

My wife and I are British Sikhs, but not practising ones. We have open minds — we like to think there is something out there but we are far from being religious. We both, as it happened, went to Roman Catholic schools. We both work in business and our closest circle of friends are white British. We do not seek to convert anyone to Sikhism or any other religion.