162 E. L. RHOADS AND R. DAS from suspected foreigners.63 An assumption that Burma’s ethnic Chinese and Indian citizens were foreigners who potentially were disloyal is evident in 1948 citizenship legislation as well as in the 1982 Citizenship Act. The latter created three categories of citizens: full, associate, and naturalized. However, the act reserves citizenship by birth to “sons of the territory" (taingyintha) i.e., those considered to be descended from groups habitually resident within the contemporary borders of Myanmar in 1823, the year prior to the start of the first Anglo-Burmese War.64 Associate and naturalized citizenship status is for non-natives (non-taingyintha) and provide fewer rights. While someone classified as non-native may become a full citizen if certain criteria are met (such as being born of two citizen parents), only taingyintha are immune from citizenship revocation.65 Similarly, in India, a continuous othering of Muslims, both migrants and citizens, has intensified under the BJP.66 This suspicion assumes a form of lived experience via administrative and bureaucratic violence, whereby Muslims in India continue to face serious discrimination in accessing civil documentation and citizenship recognition. For example, in implementing a National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the Indian state of Assam, top-down bureaucratic violence was exercised via the disenfranchisement of “doubtful voters,” significantly upscaling earlier efforts to denationalize ethnic Bengali migrants by means of quasi-judicial foreigner tribunals.67 In Myanmar, the sheer lack of judicial remedies in temporary and semi-legal administrative arrangements (such as the issuing of temporary registration cards, known as “white cards”) reflect a form of administrative disenfranchisement of targeted minorities.68 While we return to these specific issues in the latter parts of the article, our broader argument is that the “disavowal of migration”69 embedded in the entangled history of the region has led to conceptualizations of postcolonial citizenship in both countries premised on a “constitutive outside,”70 or the continuous specter of potential foreigners. It is a specter of suspicion and apprehension, one that continues to inform an increasingly narrowing conception of citizenship and belonging in both Myanmar and India. Moreover, as we note above, while Indian citizenship laws have drawn considerable scholarly focus over the years, little attention has been given to the Burmese experience. Given that citizenship questions have simultaneously become central to both countries’ politics, a comparative lens that delineates the evolution of, and the contemporary political landscape around, the specter of the potential foreigner has much to offer in making sense of postcolonial citizenship on the subcontinent. It aids us to better understand how colonial legacies continue to inform Myanmar’s citizenship regime and provides a more nuanced portrayal of Indian majoritarian ethos. 63 Mosaic Myanmar 2023; Rhoads 2023a. Taingyintha (“son of the territory”) is usually taken to mean “national races” or “ethnic nationalities,” referring to Myanmar’s eight officially recognized ethnic groups and their so-called sub-groups, amounting to a state-sanctioned list of 135+ groups. See Ferguson 2015; Cheesman 2017. 65 Except in cases of dual nationality, issuance of a foreign passport or travel document, and leaving Myanmar permanently. See Sec. 16-17 of the 1982 Citizenship Law. See also Nyi Nyi Kyaw, 2015 and 2022. 66 Jaffrelot 2021. 67 Singh 2019. 68 Brinham 2019. 69 Amrith 2018. 70 Prasse-Freeman 2023, 693. 64