166 E. L. RHOADS AND R. DAS by the demonetization of 50 and 100 kyat notes. In response, the Indian government began to offer a boat service for destitute people of Indian origin who wanted to leave Burma.94 Between 1963 and 1966, 154,000 people of Indian origin were repatriated from Burma, 115,066 aboard special steamers arranged by the Government of India.95 While hundreds of thousands of Indians were eligible for Burmese citizenship, very few obtained citizenship documents. The Indian Embassy in Rangoon estimated that 7,000 persons of Indian origin held Burma citizenship documents by 1965.96 However, following General Ne Win’s nationalization campaign and the imposition of strict controls on remittances, many of them requested assistance from the Indian Embassy to resettle in India.97 The Indian Embassy in Rangoon relayed the situation in the mid1960s for persons of Indian origin with Burmese citizenship back to New Delhi: The Burmese authorities are extremely frugal in issuing Burmese passports to this category of their nationals. The total number of such passports issued during the year was seventy. For some time, the Burmese government has been issuing Certificates of Identity to persons of this category, which normally is granted under international practice to persons of doubtful nationality. With the approval of the Ministry, we started granting entry visas to India to persons holding these documents as well and as a result, 399 Burmese nationals of Indian origin left Burma for India during the year. It is generally noticed that the Burmese Government are very reluctant even to issue Certificates of Identity to the Burmese nationals of Indian origin for reasons best known to them.98 Many of those requesting passports or other travel documents held documentary proof of their Burmese citizenship. However, as a 1964 Times of India article describing the circumstances of people of Indian descent marooned in Burma stated, “Citizenship, it appears, is determined by a person’s features and not by the papers he holds.”99 By the mid-1970s the Burma Socialist Program Party’s (BSPP) anti-foreign policies had significant impacted daily life, business, and housing for those registered as foreigners. They could not change residence without government permission, and permission was always denied.100 Wives holding FRCs could not live with their husbands. Movement restrictions curtailed business for petty traders.101 By the early 1980s, tens of thousands of people of Indian origin held FRCs, many of whom were effectively stateless as they were not citizens of India. The Indian Embassy in Rangoon estimated that as many as 200,000 people of Indian origin held no documents whatsoever. These were people who “did not fit into either category, but with whom India had historic ties of recognition and responsibility.”102 They were not legally recognized as citizens of either India or Burma.103 94 NAI 1964, 61; Nevard 1964. NAI 1967. NAI 1967. 97 NAI 1967. 98 NAI 1967. 99 Times of India 1964. 100 NAI 1977. 101 NAI 1977. Foreigners were allowed to change residence within their township of residence. People classified as foreigners could apply for a twenty-four hour travel permit from township authorities, which they could then use to go to their local district center and apply for a seven-day travel permit. But sometimes travelling from the township to the district to get this permit took longer than twenty-four hours, making their stay in the district illegal. 102 Khan and Sherman 2021, 13. 103 NAI 1982 95 96