168 E. L. RHOADS AND R. DAS Expanding categories and documentation of potential foreigners under military and quasi-military rule Under both the 1989-1997 State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and 19972011 State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military juntas, racialized conceptions of citizenship and popular and administrative linkages between race and religion progressively hardened.109 As Ikeya notes, “ever sharper lines were drawn between ‘foreign’ and ‘indigenous’ religions and races,”110 evidenced in policies related to identity documents and documentation of the population via census-taking.111 From the 1990s onwards, military governments portrayed non-taingyintha as potential foreigners who needed heavy state scrutiny. This required a new system of citizenship documentation and a new ministry, the Ministry of Immigration and Population. Proof of citizenship following 1982 requires citizenship scrutiny cards (CSCs) which the state began issuing following the 1988 military coup.112 These cards are color-coded, with pink denoting full citizens, blue associate citizens, and green naturalized citizens. At the time, all residents were instructed to submit their National Registration Cards (NRCs), the previous national identity document, for replacement with CSCs color-coded by citizenship type. However, some people, including most Rohingya, submitted their NRCs and never received replacement CSCs. Instead, they were issued white temporary registration certificates (TRCs) intended for those who have lost their national identity documents.113 Although Rohingya and other white card holders (including some Hindus, Muslims, and Anglo-Burmese) were permitted to vote in the 2010 elections, white cards were cancelled before the 2015 elections, disenfranchising their holders. Following the mass cancellation of white cards, Rohingya were issued National Verification Cards (NVCs), which classified them as in the process of “national verification,” an additional step required only of Rohingya in Rakhine State, before proceeding to “citizenship scrutiny.”114 Although the 1983 census included identity categories such as Kachin Muslim and Shan Hindu,115 by the 2000s the idea that one could be Muslim or Hindu and Karen, Shan, Kachin, Bamar, or another taingyintha ethnicity, was seen by authorities as increasingly suspect. The state increasingly made use of the term thway hnaw (mixed blood) to refer to taingyintha who professed Islam or Hinduism.116 In addition, the Ministry of Immigration and Population generally stopped issuing CSCs to Hindus and Muslims who claimed taingyintha identity.117 Hindu and Muslim applicants must instead select a foreign ethnicity such as “Indian,” “Pakistani,” or “Bengali” when they apply for a CSC. The result are cards reading, for example, “Pakistan + Pashu Bamar/Pashu + Bamar (Islam).”118 This type of classification frequently draws comments from cardholders such as, “What will my children’s cards say? There won’t be any space left!” In the context of long histories of political and social rhetoric that classify religion as 109 Cheesman 2017; Ikeya 2020; Rhoads 2023b. Ikeya 2020, 758. Ferguson 2015; Callahan 2017. 112 Cheesman 2017. 113 Brinham 2019. 114 NVCs are now a mandatory step in obtaining citizenship documentation for most Rohingya in Rakhine State. 115 Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma Ministry of Home and Religious Affairs, 1987. 116 Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2015 and 2019. 117 Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2015; Mawkun 2019; Than Toe Aung 2019; Rhoads 2023a. 118 For other descriptions of long lumyo chains on CSCs, see Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2015; Prasse-Freeman 2023, 690–691. 110 111