Nor are Indians the only minority group: there are about 2, Portuguese and other Europeans, who have lived outside their forefathers' country for too long to be able to claim any other nationality; a few hundred Eurasians with European mothers, or whose European fathers cannot be shown to have married their Chinese mothers; Malaysians; and a few Hong Kong-born Indo- Chinese. Most of them are in clerical and service occupations.
The minorities share the bitterness and anger of many of the majority community: 'I have lived all my life under British rule, in India and here in Hong Kong ... what have I done wrong?'27, but their circumstances and history intensify their insecurity.
Firstly, by definition, they are not of Chinese origin and therefore cannot be expected to share the positive feelings of many Chinese in Hong Kong about return to China. They came to Hong Kong because it was British, not because it was Chinese. In the words of the petition of the Council of Hongkong Indian Associations, "The ethnic Indians came, stayed and remained of their own free choice. They chose Hong Kong because Hong Kong was a part of the British Empire or Commonwealth, because they had faith in the laws and the system of government of Great Britain and because they chose to give or to continue their allegiance to Great Britain'28.
Many of the Indian community not only chose to go to Hong Kong, but also chose to renounce their Indian nationality and become British. During the 1950s, following the advice of the Indian High Commissioner that they should normally seek the citizenship of the country which was their home, many registered or naturalised to become British because, as the Indians' Petition said, each individual 'thought he would be secure in being a member of that community whose way of life he had adopted, whose laws and systems he respected, whose institutions he revered and to whom he deliberate- ly gave his allegiance. They now feel that they have been defrauded, that they bought a pig in a poke, a citizenship which then gave them free access to the country which offered it, but which has now been devalued. Those who are businessmen, for whom good faith in deals is vital, see citizenship as a bargain struck between a state, which demands allegiance, and a citizen, who demands rights; they have faithfully kept their side of the bargain but their state has unilaterally reneged on its side. 'We consider that no Acts of Parliament should have the power to strip us of this right (of abode)'o.
Many in the minority communities have already experienced insecurity and homelessness: some have lost their homes and
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