5 IDs as evidence of state crime and artefacts from the early decades of independence Introduction IDs issued by the Burmese state during the first decades of independence prior to the military coup of 1962 were a central feature of Rohingya narratives regarding their citizenship. Fieldwork narratives relating to this period described strong bonds between the central state and Rohingya, as the state strategically embraced Rohingya populations through citizenship and cultural recognition of their belonging to the multi-ethnic national community. This chapter considers the significance of IDs from these decades in evidencing the later military practices of citizenship stripping and identity destruction. This chapter first considers how Rohingya citizenship in Burma was experienced and enacted during the period before the military coup of 1962. Second, it considers how IDs and state documents issued to Rohingya under the 1947/8 citizenship framework were used as evidence of state ‘theft’ or citizenship stripping. The chapter frames these experiences of citizenship within a ‘trinity of citizenship’—status, rights, and identity—outlined in Chapter 3 (see also Joppke 2007). In considering the identity aspect of citizenship, the chapter also explores how state-issued identity and registration documents were preserved by Rohingya survivors as artefacts of Rohingya identity to highlight and resist the processes of identity destruction during the years of military rule. The IDs explored in this chapter were issued between 1948 and 1989. Most were issued in the early years of independence which was largely a period of parliamentary democracy (1948–62).1 The chapter also considers the changes during the period of military rule under Ne Win from 1962.2 Ne Win oversaw the military operation, Nagamin, in 1978 that resulted in the forced expulsion of approximately 200,000 to 250,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh.3 This was followed by the forced repatriation of most of these Rohingya refugees in 1978–9 (Linquist 1979; Abrar 1995; Pittaway 2016; Crisp 2018); and the subsequent drafting and enactment of the 1982 Citizenship law, which excluded Rohingya as a part of the ongoing production of their statelessness (Arraiza and Vonk 2017; Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2017). The DOI: 10.4324/9781003494539-5 This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY 4.0 license.