South Asians are part of the Hong Kong society. As of the 2021 by-census, there were at least 101,969 persons of South Asian descent in Hong Kong. Many trace their roots in Hong Kong as far back as when the Indian subcontinent was still under British colonial rule and as a legacy of the British Empire, their nationality issues remain largely unsettled. However, recently an increasing number of them have acquired Chinese nationality.
Nationality and right of abode
South Asians in Hong Kong include citizens of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and a small number of stateless persons and naturalised citizens of the People's Republic of China. As a result, many of them also become British National (Overseas) or British citizens.
British nationality
According to the statistics of the Republic of India's High Level Committee on Indian Diaspora, among Hong Kong residents there are 22,000 Indian citizens and 28,500 non-citizen Persons of Indian Origin (people with origins in British India, including places which lie outside today's Republic of India, and having citizenships of countries other than the Republic of India. Note that this number may include people who consider themselves as Pakistanis, Nepalis, or other South Asian nationalities). The citizenship of Hong Kong residents of Indian descent who lacked Republic of India citizenship was a major point of contention in the years leading up to the handover. Many Indians had settled in Hong Kong, taking it as their only home and naturalising as Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKCs). This status initially made no distinctions between residents of the United Kingdom and elsewhere, but from the 1960s onwards a number of nationality acts successively scraped away the privileges it offered, creating a class of CUKCs who had no right of abode in the United Kingdom itself. Eventually in 1981, these restrictions were codified in a new class of British citizenship, the British Dependent Territories Citizenship (BDTC). Furthermore, as this status would cease to be effective after the 1997 handover, the British government created the new status of British National, a restricted form of British nationality which also did not grant right of abode in the United Kingdom. By 1985, out of about 14,000 Indians settled in Hong Kong, 6,000 were BDTCs.
Unlike the majority people of Chinese descent, who were seen by the incoming Chinese administration as always having been Chinese citizens, the ethnic minorities, including South Asians, would be left only with BN(O) status, which amounted to effective statelessness due to the lack of guarantee of returnability to the United Kingdom or anywhere else and the lack of ability to pass the status on to descendants beyond one generation. With their citizenship in limbo, by the 1990s many Indians in Hong Kong reportedly would not even marry among themselves, preferring to look overseas for potential spouses with foreign passports. Some rich South Asians were granted full British citizenship under the British Nationality Selection Scheme, but the Home Office opposed a blanket grant for fears of the precedent it might set. Younger Indians formed lobbying groups such as the Indian Resources Group to press their case with the British government. They emphasised that their members had not applied for emigration to other countries such as Canada or the United States, and would be unlikely to settle in Britain were they granted citizenship; instead, they intended to remain in Hong Kong and believed that British citizenship would facilitate this aim.