A Pasage to Nowhere

Ravi Gidumal is mad. In fact, Gidumal is incensed. You see, at the stroke of midnight on July 1, 1997, when the last firecracker has exploded, the last skyrocket illuminates the night sky, the Union Jack flutters down for the last time and the red flag of the People's Republic of China rises up over Hong Kong, Gidumal will be a man without a country.

Gidumal was born a British citizen in Hong Kong, is the son of a British citizen, speaks with a British accent, has been educated in the Hong Kong British school system, dresses and has the proper mannerisms of a British gentleman. But according to the British government, Gidumal is no longer a full British citizen. And when Britain leaves Hong Kong in 1997, his position is uncertain to say the least.

The problem in a nut shell is this: because Gidumal is an ethnic Indian, Britain doesn't want him. China has made it clear they see the problem of minorities in Hong Kong as a British problem-not Chinese. India views British citizens as just that, British, no matter what ethnic background.

Gidumal is not alone in his predicament. Though in the world scheme of things their numbers are less than minute-somewhere between 2,000 and 7,000-for those ethnic Indians of Hong Kong who don't hold passports, their problem is global.

During the 1960's, afraid of being flooded by valid British passport holders from former colonies in Africa, Britain started to restrict automatic entry into the United Kingdom. In 1968, the British parliament pushed through-in near record time-immigration restrictions that were mostly designed to keep Asians holding British passports out of the U.K. who were fleeing Africa. Further restrictions came about during Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. In 1981 her government created the British Nationality Act that changed most Commonwealth citizens into a new category called British Overseas Citizens. For the non-white citizens of Hong Kong, this meant they lost their right to live in Britain.

At the time, this wasn't looked upon by most Hong Kong residents as significant. Hong Kong was where their businesses and families were at-most inhabitants of Hong Kong would rather stay in Hong Kong than move to the U.K. But with Hong Kong going back to the People's Republic of China with the 1984 Anglo-Chinese agreement and with the scare of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, all of a sudden, not having a valid British passport with a right to abode took on a new meaning.

In 1987, the British government devised the British National Overseas (BNO) passport which would allow Hong Kong citizens the right to travel to Britain but not reside there. Gidumal calls this passport the British Citizens of Nowhere passport.

"What good is it?" says Gidumal. "It won't be issued after 1997 and what country in their right mind would allow you in with it? What it says is there must be something wrong with you. Why else would your own home country not allow you residency?"

Gidumal helped form the Indian Resources Group, an organization that is fighting for restoration of U.K. residency rights for all Hong Kong citizens, believes in directly confronting the British government.

"If we do nothing, we'll get nothing. If we project our case, we'll have a chance of success," says Gidumal. "To wait until 1997 and to think that someone will come knocking on your door to give you a full British passport is ludicrous. It will be too late. Who knows what the Chinese will do?"

Not all ethnic Indians feel direct confrontation with the British or Chinese government is the wisest course. Age is the most common division. Gidumal, 28, never experienced the hardships of being a refugee before, say his older detractors who mostly came to Hong Kong during the Indian/Pakistan partition.

Kewalram Sital, born in India, has been a resident of Hong Kong for 43 years, coming to Hong Kong during a wave of Indian migration following the partition of India and Pakistan. Sital doesn't believe in confronting the British, believing instead to work behind the scenes to get full British passports for all Indians.

"Ravi Gidumal and I both want the same thing," says Sital. "We're just going about it different ways."

Sital says the British owe the Indians for building their empire but no political party in England can say openly that the correct step is to give more passports to non-whites. He believes in the end, Britain will realize what a small number of Indians there are, and will come through with British passports.

Through quiet prodding behind the scenes in London and at the governors mansion in Hong Kong, quiet results will be obtained. Why, he says, force a British politician to come out publicly on an issue that is so unpopular in the U.K.?

"Let's face it," says Sital, "no country wants refugees coming in. A politician would be committing political suicide if he came out in support of such a move."

For Sital's generation, they renounced their Indian passports when they became citizens of Hong Kong. India does not allow dual citizenship, which is fine with Sital.

"None of us like to have Indian passports and that's the truth. That will be our blight and difficulty if they [India] give us passports," says Sital. But he says, for people in a predicament like Gidumal, India might be his best bet.

Gidumal strongly disagrees. "That's easy for Mr. Sital to say that, he and his family received British passports in 1990. For me to go to India, why? I don't speak the language, I've never lived there, my family has been in China for three generations, it would be like in the United States they told all Italian Americans to go back to Italy. How can Sital say that?"

Sital says Gidumal can learn Hindi. Gidumal says Sital can stop acting like he's in a colonial relationship with the British.

Sital is hoping Indians will not have to leave Hong Kong. "Let's face it, we didn't come here for a change of climate. As long as it remains economically viable for us to stay, we'll stay," says Sital.

According to the 1991 Hong Kong population census, only 14, 329 Indians, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankans live in Hong Kong- 0.3 percent of a total population of 5,522,281. But M. Rajaram of the Indian Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong, says at least 10 percent of all commerce is controlled by the Indians, it would be in the best interests of China to keep the Indians in Hong Kong.

Rajaram says Indians, through family contacts in other nations, have a trading network in place around the world. China on the other hand, only knows how to do business with the U.S. and Japan. A trade war between the U.S. and China, says Rajaram, would destroy China's trade. The Indians are in a tremendous position to help China keeps trade moving.

There is a great deal of uncertainty, says Rajaram. He has to question whether or not the Indians will be allowed to stay for two generations like the Chinese say. And he adds, the Chinese know that no government, especially the Indian, will come to their aid if things go bad.

"In Shanghai we were thrown out in 1949, in Uganda we were thrown out, even recently in Fiji," says Rajaram. "The Indian government never did anything and China knows this."

Rajaram says 1997 will bring many changes to Hong Kong and probably not good ones for the ethnic Indians. He believes all Indians in Hong Kong should keep the idea of returning to India open as an option.

The Indian Sikhs have been an unmistakable presence since the British arrived. With long beards, turbans, and curved knifes, they have been traditionally seen and used as police, guards, watchmen, and doormen. Even some Chinese tombs have a pair of sculptured Sikh guards. And in the paper houses burned at Chinese funerals, often a small Sikh paper guard can be seen inside the house.

A Sikh grade school teacher at Khalsa Diwan Sikh Temple, Inderjit Singh talks about 1997. He is unsure what '97 will bring. Only changes, he knows for sure.

"The Chinese are like dogs. Unpredictable. Who can understand what they will do?" says Singh. "Do you know what will happen? None of us here do."

Someone else at the temple says because the Sikhs were used so much by the British as a police force, some Chinese will want revenge when China takes over.

Singh says most Sikhs would rather stay in Hong Kong but returning to India isn't out of the question, that most Indians in Hong Kong experience some forms of discrimination from the Chinese. Singh says when he's on a bus, no one will sit near him until all other seats are filled. He also adds the Chinese sometimes hold their noses when he sits near them.

Singh has seen the enrollment drop in his classes from 36 students last year to 20 this year. He blames the uncertainty in Hong Kong for driving Sikhs back to India, not on the down turned economy as Sital believes.

"We believe in one God, one people, that no man is higher than another," says Singh. "We can follow God in Hong Kong, we can follow God in India. It doesn't matter where."

Kashmira Jhaveri, 31, lives with her white British husband, Owen Atkinson, in an apartment overlooking Aberdeen Harbor, one of Hong Kong's major tourist attractions. Jhaveri was born in Hong Kong, her father, a diamond merchant came to Hong Kong from India in 1963. Unlike many Indians, her father kept his Indian passport and through him, she has an Indian passport. In addition, because of her marriage to Atkinson, she also has the option of living in Britain. Though they are unsure of where 1997 will find them, Kashmira and Owen doubt if it will be in Hong Kong.

Jhaveri would prefer to stay in Hong Kong. It's the only home she's ever known and she can't imagine anyone living in Hong Kong for 30 years and then moving back to India. But 1997 has her worried.

"I'm scared about the Chinese, they're unpredictable," says Jhaveri. "They can be so callous about doing things for the good of the nation but not for the individual."

Her husband, though quick to make jokes, makes no jokes about living under the Chinese government.

"HK's a small place to China, they're not going to treat it any differently than the rest of China," says Atkinson. "With no legal rights, no voting rights, I can't see staying here or raising children here-it's the principal of it all.

Gidumal's display showroom is tightly packed with Christmas tins. Produced and painted in China, Gidumal ships them to the West. Outside, the Kowloon air is hot and humid, while inside, the air conditioning is on full. Gidumal presents his case wearing a full suit, tie on tight.

"Everything I say, I'm 100% sure of," says Gidumal. "You can disagree with my British accent, my suit, whatever, but you can't disagree with my facts."

Gidumal says he only wants Britain to be fair. If the white overseas colonies of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar have been given full British citizenship, then Hong Kong's ethnic minorities should also.

"I see a day, not far off, when one of my future children might say to me, 'I was playing football with my friends today. Jimmy was wearing an American uniform, Billy was wearing an English uniform and they asked me where I was from. Where are we from, father?'

"Regrettably, I'll have to tell my child he is from nowhere."

[ Prism Online November 1995 Homepage ]

[ Top of document ]