State power and identification schemes in Rakhine 77 For example, Myanmar and Rakhine Muslims battled long and hard against the terms ascribed to them such as ‘Zerbadi,’23 which referred to people of mixed heritage, ‘Mohammedan’ and ‘Indo-Burman Races,’ campaigning particularly in the lead-up to separation from India in 1937 to be known as ‘Burmese Muslims’ and to be given minority status. It was not until 1941 that the colonial government agreed to remove the term ‘Zerbadi.’24 In the lead-up and years surrounding independence, notions of belonging in Burma cemented around ethnicity, and minority status was not granted on a religious basis to groups such Muslim or Christian (Yegar 1972). This process of state powers ascribing inaccurate and unwanted categories to Rohingya and conflating the ethnolinguistic terms with citizenship categories remains at the heart of Rohingya grievances. As this book explores, they have consistently resisted being registered under the terms ‘Bengali’ and ‘foreigner’ including in the national census (2014) and in Myanmar’s ID schemes, particularly since new ID cards were introduced in 2015. International travel documents By the mid-19th century, passports and travel documents in India were in widespread use to regulate both international and internal travel. Passports and travel documents—first issued by the East India Company and later by the Crown—were an introduction provided for those considered respectable and loyal. They offered safe passage and consular protection for British subjects travelling to and from India (Singha 2000; Roy 2016). Certificates of identity and other travel documents were also issued at different times in British India to restricted groups of ‘natives’ such as the elite, scholars, pilgrims, lascars (seamen), and military personnel/sepoys (un-commissioned military personnel) (Singha 2000, 2013; Roy 2016). Over time, through ID schemes, the British ‘expropriated the legitimate means of movement’ (phrase used by Torpey 2000:4) and monopolised the authority to determine who could move within and cross the borders of British India. These documents established a racial hierarchy with different mobilities assigned to different groups based on race and class characteristics. They provided ‘white’ British people with extensive mobilities to travel into and through the British-controlled territories. Meanwhile, some ‘native’ people were granted limited rights to travel for specific purposes (Sharma 2020). They were initially largely barred from entering other parts of the empire. By the early 20th century, some groups of Indians trying to reach the wealthier parts of the British Empire such as Canada and Australia lobbied against the ‘colour bar’ in international migration (Mongia 1999). These groups pushed for passports that enabled them mobilities that were more equal to those issued to ‘white’ British people. This resulted in the ‘Australian passport’ and from 1912 the ‘British India passport’ that was issued only to some Indians of ‘certain means and respectability’ (Singha 2013:313 see also Mongia 1999; Roy 2016).