Bhattacharjee 10.3389/fpos.2024.1144493 umbrella of “The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)” is linked to this economic corridor, creating an innovative urban development concept for a new metropolis inherited from Yangon. Under this economic corridor, the government of Myanmar has accepted nine projects in the Kachin and Shan states and expanded the border economic cooperation zone. The Kaladan Multimodal Project, the most ambitious project aimed at connecting India and Myanmar by sea, is a joint venture between the Indian and Myanmar governments. The project will connect the East-Indian seaport of Kolkata with the Sittwe seaport in the Rakhine state of Myanmar by sea, via the “Kaladan” River from Sittwe to Paletwa, by road from Paletwa to the Indian border and Myanmar, and finally to Lawngtlai in Mizoram via the road. Through this project, India will get a multipurpose platform for the shipment of cargo from Kolkata port to Myanmar and towards the landlocked northeastern part of India (especially the Seven Sisters) via Myanmar. This new sea route will reduce distance and transportation costs and boost economic development and commercial-strategic relations between India and Myanmar. Myanmar’s government is keen to preserve the interests of those countries, and control over the Rakhine state is a prime factor in this context. Accordingly, the government started ethnic cleansing in the Rakhine state through “clearance operations,” and Rohingyas became stateless. inequality identity crisis is created in the Rakhine state. Numerous driving aspects, like political Buddhism, poverty, inequality, divergence, etc., are liable for the statelessness and exclusion of this community. “Political Buddhism” is a prime factor in creating identity crisis, violence, and divisiveness within Myanmar. Political Buddhism is the result of extreme religious nationalism, and it has generated a society in Myanmar that has excluded the Rohingya community and permitted them to meet with violence (please see Figure 3). The Burmese identity is a provoking factor to discriminate against individuals in Myanmar who are not included in this identity (Cheesman, 2017). As Rohingyas are not included in the constitution of Myanmar as a citizen, they are discriminated against in Myanmar and become stateless. On 25th August 2017, ethnic cleansing started in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. The army of Myanmar sponged out the Rohingya settlements by uprooting their households, mosques, lands, corrals, grain stores, and even shrubs into sandbanks of ash. Consequently, the Rohingya Muslims fled from their homeland Myanmar across the sea and took shelter in different neighboring states, namely Bangladesh, India, Thailand, and Malaysia (Gettleman, 2017). Rohingyas are deprived of their fundamental human rights by the Myanmar government, political authorities, spiritual leaders, and mainstream people. For expunging this Muslim minority community from Rakhine, the military of Myanmar burnt their villages, started genocide, raped women and young girls, and killed older adults and infants by different terrorist tactics and violent activities. If the Myanmar government grants the Rohingya minority basic human rights, Myanmar’s mainstream Buddhist population will be at risk of employment, monopoly trade, civic amenities, and other opportunities. This fear is also liable for the process of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. That means religious, political, and economic factors are accountable for the Buddhist indignation against the people of the Rohingya community (Wolf, 2015). After considering all the factors, the researcher think that geopolitics and Myanmar’s economic interests are more significant than other factors behind the statelessness of the Rohingya minority. Thus, the military-dominated government of Myanmar started ethnic cleansing in the Rakhine state through different violent activities, which compelled the Rohingyas to flee from Myanmar. Consequently, they have become stateless and are living as refugees in Myanmar’s neighboring countries. Discussion: the process of Rohingya exclusion To understand why and how Rohingyas are stateless, the researcher precisely examined the objectives of this study. This study found various reasons for excluding the Rohingya community from their citizenship rights through secondary data analysis. Based on the study’s findings, in this section, the researcher will describe the process of Rohingya’s exclusion and how the Myanmar government excluded this community from their citizenship status. Consequently, this community is deprived of fundamental human rights and faces violent activities. In this paper, the researcher argues that Myanmar expelled Rohingyas from their country by imposing the blame on them and was unwilling to return over a million Rohingyas from Bangladesh—a host country for them. The article also finds that the international community is least concerned about the genocide and expulsion of the Rohingyas because of Myanmar’s communal agenda and foreign countries’ economic interests in the Rakhine state. Although history shows that Rohingya Muslims have lived in Myanmar for centuries, they failed to get entrance into Burmese society. Having citizenship is the central prerequisite for enjoying all rights and privileges within a sovereign state, but Rohingyas are deprived of this citizenship status (Ullah, 2016). The Government of Myanmar (GOM) automatically deprived this community of its most basic human rights by excluding Rohingyas from their citizenship status. By using innumerable processes, the military-dominated government and political authorities of Myanmar gradually excluded the Rohingyas from their social, economic, political, and cultural rights. Due to their religious identity, it is very challenging for Rohingyas to get a passport, job, employment, good schooling, legal marriage, proper medical treatment, etc. (Gettleman, 2017). Monetary influence or labor market exclusion is basically a vital process behind the Rohingya statelessness. Due to economic exclusion, poverty, and Frontiers in Political Science Conclusion This study addresses an important and timely issue regarding the statelessness of the Rohingya community in Myanmar, paying attention to the intellectual discourses on humanity, ethnicity, identity crisis, stigmatization, and minority rights. One of the most persecuted communities globally, the Rohingya have been deprived of their fundamental human rights and citizenship status by Myanmar’s “1982 Citizenship Act”. This study has shown why and in what way the Rohingya people faced ethnic cleansing by the Myanmar army and fled away to the neighborhood countries like Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Malaysia, etc., by being stateless. History shows that this community faced ethnic cleansing in 1979, 1991, and 2016. But on 25th August 2017, they met the most brutal ethnic cleansing in history. Military-controlled Myanmar government burnt their homes and lands, killed them brutally, and raped women and children. The Myanmar government also restricts their social benefits, such as 09 frontiersin.org