China favours Chinese-speakers, India does not allow dual nationality, and Britain would rather they stayed away. Ethnic Indians of Hong Kong are beginning to feel like castaways.
There are about 20,000 ethnic Indians living in Hong Kong, and many of them continue to hang in limbo as the handover of the British Colony of Hong Kong to Chinese rule in June 1997 draws nearer.
Many of these Indians descended from those that came to Hong Kong as traders, police officers and civil servants more than a generation ago when India was still a British colony. They hold Hong Kong British passports and could become virtually stateless after the handover because these passports do not grant them the right to live in Britain. China seems set to allow only ethnic Chinese the right of permanent residence in Hong Kong after 1997. And, many of Hong Kong´s ethnic Indians do not fulfil the residency requirements for Indian nationality.
"Most of us were born and raised in Hong Kong and don´t have an Indian passport," says Mohan Chugani, a garment trader and member of the Indian Resources Group (IRG)—a lobby group of influential Indians trying to press Britain for British passports. "We have been told by the authorities that granting British passports is not an administrative decision. It has to go through (the British) Parliament and that will not be easy."