Citizenship denied, deferred and assumed: a legal history of racialized citizenship in Myanmar

ABSTRACT Since the late colonial period, Myanmar has experienced heated debates over notions of belonging, including belonging as inscribed through citizenship status. At independence, Myanmar opted for a hybrid citizenship regime that allowed for paths to citizenship based on both jus sanguinis and jus soli principles, as well as a liberal naturalization policy. However, a new citizenship law passed in 1982 created a tiered system with differential eligibility, rights, and application procedures for jus sanguinis and jus soli pathways, highly restricting the jus soli path to citizenship while privileging state-recognized ethnic groups by strengthening jus sanguinis pathways. The article traces the historical evolution of Myanmar’s postcolonial citizenship regime and how notions of belonging, foreignness, and nativity engendered one of the world’s most racialized citizenship regimes. A close examination of the citizenship regime highlights how citizenship and belonging for Myanmar’s ‘unofficial minorities’ are both contingent and ‘in process’, often a status left pending rather than denied or secured. This creates a ‘deferred citizenship’ which impacts not only individual applicants and their descendants but perpetuates Myanmar’s exclusionary and tiered citizenship system, ensuring that the ‘citizenship question’ is passed to the next generation.


A note on methodology, ethics and sources
Long-term legal denial (Crouch 2021) and genocidal violence against Rohingya have drawn scholarly attention to Myanmar's citizenship regime (Arraiza, Phyu Zin Aye and Arraiza Shakirova 2020;Brinham 2019;Cheesman 2017;Zarni and Cowley 2014). Yet, scholars demonstrate how a narrow focus on Rohingya in the citizenship literature both presumes Rohingya statelessness (Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2017;Cheesman 2015a) and suggests that Rohingya vulnerability and persecution stem from statelessness (Uddin 2020). Adopting a wider view on the legal construction of difference through the racialization of Myanmar's citizenship regime problematizes assumptions about links between statelessness and extreme forms of violence (see Uddin 2020;Prasse-Freeman 2017). Expanding Myanmar's 'citizenship question' from the belonging of one group, to the legitimacy of a citizenship regime designed to perpetuate exclusion, positions Rohingya within a longer national history of citizenship.
Following Chatterji's (2012) call for attention to the specific local histories of formal citizenship in postcolonial settings, the history of citizenship criteria and acquisition in South and Southeast Asia has recently received greater attention (Amrith 2018; Khan and Sherman 2022;Mazumder 2019;Roy 2022;Sadan 2018;Sadiq 2017a). In contributing to this literature, I follow Fortier's (2021) assertion that the 'racialized uncertainty of citizenship' is historically embedded and should be studied in ways that lay bare the specific histories of inequalities in contemporary citizenship regimes. Centering the impacts of Myanmar's citizenship regime on 'unofficial minorities', including Tamils, Chinese, Gurkhas, Muslims, Rohingyas and others, underscores inter-generational dimensions of processes, documentation, genealogies, and exclusions leading to deferred citizenship.
The 2021 coup dramatically altered ethical dimensions of research in Myanmar. While I chose not to draw on interview data in this article, relying on archival primary sources, I acknowledge how previous and ongoing collaboration with Myanmar civil society organizations working on citizenship greatly informs my approach to archival and legal analysis. Employing grounded theory, citizenship laws and procedures are crossreferenced with reported cases, news media, and government reports from countries closely involved in post-imperial Burmese citizenship. This enables analysis of the citizenship regime's design and function and identification of gaps between text and implementation, causing patterns of deferral to emerge. Repositories accessed include Myanmar National Archives, Indian National Archives, India Office Records of the British Library, United Kingdom National Archives, SOAS Library, and National Library of Singapore.
The article begins with a discussion of deferred citizenship, the politics of belonging, and racialized citizenship followed by a historical discussion of Myanmar's postindependence citizenship regime and the 1982 Citizenship Law. The text then turns to the social and political origins of Myanmar's racialized citizenship regime and how societal perceptions of citizenship, coupled with de facto and de jure restrictions, work to defer both procedural and substantive citizenship of unofficial minorities.

Deferred citizenship and the politics of belonging
Since the late colonial period, Myanmar has been involved in debates over belonging (Cheesman 2017;Ikeya 2020;Mazumder 2014;Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2019). Belonging may not map precisely onto legal definitions of citizenship or resident status but may be based on 'popular identity-infused definitions' of belonging and non-belonging (Maurer 1993, 10; see also : Uddin 2020). Yuval-Davis (2006) identifies three analytical levels of belonging: social locations comprising race, gender, place of birth; identities and emotions including 'language, culture, and sometimes religion' (Yuval-Davis 2006, 209); and ethical and political values like democracy or human rights. Levels can form scaffolding, constructing and reproducing boundaries of the political community -who belongs and who does not. As Roy (2022, 4) writes, citizenship law is 'located within a realm of contestation over ideas of who belongs and how'.
At independence Myanmar opted for a hybrid citizenship regime with citizenship acquisition based on jus sanguinis (by descent) and jus soli (by birth in a territory) principles, as well as a liberal naturalization policy. However, a new citizenship law passed in 1982 (hereafter the '1982 Law') created a tiered system with differential eligibility, rights, and application procedures for jus sanguinis and jus soli pathways, highly restricting jus soli citizenship. The 1982 Law severely eroded citizenship rights of those deemed non-indigenous to Myanmar, particularly those with Chinese or South Asian forebears, creating a special legal position for 'natives' (Brett and Kyaw Yin Hlaing 2020). In contrast with emerging international norms against racialized citizenship (FitzGerald 2017, 144), millions of Burmese who believed themselves natural born citizens found they were no longer eligible for the citizenship rights they held just weeks earlier and were required to apply for citizenship.
After 1982, citizenship depended on perceptions and assumptions of ethnicity, ancestry, and autochthony, and can be described as de jure discriminatory, or discriminatory in the language and intent of the law itself. There is no route to naturalization for people who entered Myanmar after independence in 1948, 2 and a tiered citizenship regime confers different rights to four different types of citizens based on perceived ancestry (UKNA 1982;Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2017). 3 Lesser forms of citizenship and a scrutinization process were created for applicants who do not meet jus sanguinis requirements of descent from a state-recognized ethnic group (taingyintha) deemed normally resident in the territory of Burma prior to 1823 (the year prior to British occupation).
While taingyintha citizenship is presumed and bestowed at birth, others must complete a 'citizenship scrutiny' process proving they are either children of citizens or they or their ancestors were residents of Burma prior to independence. The citizenship scrutiny process is the contemporary entry point for deferred citizenship, as applicants can remain 'under scrutiny' for years. While under scrutiny they cannot graduate from university, open a bank account, obtain a driver's license, buy property, or travel out of their home township without a local official's letter of recommendation (Roberts and Rhoads 2022). But impacts of deferred citizenship do not end with the receipt of documentation. Families are continually re-scrutinized when siblings or children apply for citizenship documentation, leaving their status perpetually open to reinterpretation.
Precarious citizenship, or 'the structured uncertainty of being unable to secure permanent access to citizenship rights' (Lori 2017, 3) arises where people (primarily 'migrants' and 'internal others') are held in ambiguous, temporary, ad hoc, and insecure arrangements. Avoiding resolution of citizenship questions, governments institutionalize ambiguity (Lori 2017;Punathil 2022). Myanmar's boundary enforcement between citizens and non-citizens relies on persistent ambiguity through deferral of status, keeping citizenship applications pending for years. How long the formal process takes and whether one is subject to citizenship scrutiny depends not only on law and procedure but on broader societal constructions of one's pre-existing 'requisites of belonging' (Yuval-Davis 2006).
Boundaries of belonging are drawn between citizens and non-citizens; ethnic nationalities (taingyintha) and unofficial minorities; and religious majority (Buddhists) and religious minorities (particularly Muslims). Children born in Thailand to taingyintha parents -i.e. Karen refugees or Shan migrants (Balčaitė 2019;McAuliffe); religious minorities like Myanmar Muslims (Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2015; Than Toe Aung 2019); or minorities not recognized as taingyintha like Tamils or Chinese may all experience difficulties claiming Myanmar citizenship. Significant differences in citizenship acquisition result from societal perceptions of belonging and non-belonging closely related to claims of autochthony (Sharma 2022;Cheesman 2017). Karen refugees or Shan migrants born in Thailand are generally recognized (both legally and socially) as Myanmar citizens in complicated circumstances; reliant on administrative discretion to solve the case (McAuliffe). In contrast, Myanmar Muslims perceived by officials as non-taingyintha due to their embrace of a 'foreign' religion (Ikeya 2020) are made to prove claims through extensive documentation and lengthy special procedures. 4 Rather than presumed, their citizenship is deferred.

Regimes of racialized citizenship
Citizenship regimes are laws, institutions, norms, and policies that work together to regulate citizenship in a particular polity at a particular time (Vink 2017). Roy (2022, 5) underlines how analyzing citizenship regimes rather than citizenship law alone exposes law's 'political and ideological embeddedness'. States use citizenship regimes made of formal and informal norms to enforce, validate and delineate access to citizenship and associated rights and duties (Vink 2017;Roy 2022, 9).
Racialized citizenship is a citizenship regime that uses racial categorizations as criteria in determining policies regarding citizenship acquisition, naturalization eligibility, and denationalization (FitzGerald 2017). Myanmar citizenship acquisition is directly linked to perceptions of autochthony and 'foreignness' (Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2019; Zarni and Cowley 2014), entangling citizenship 'with law's capacity to destabilize and recode ideas of belonging' (Roy 2022, 3). Racialization of belonging and citizenship status in Myanmar are thus co-constituted -access to citizenship is based on racialized identity categories and gatekeeping access to citizenship documentation actively contributes to construction of racialized others as suspect citizens or potential foreigners. This results in deferred citizenship for racialized minorities on both an individual and societal level, impacting current applicants and their descendants.
Scholars of Southeast Asian citizenship note how racialization of ethnicity leads to exclusive understandings of citizenship and belonging (Vandergeest 2003;Mazumder 2019;Lan 2012). Vandergeest (2003) explores how bifurcation of lowlanders as Thai and uplanders as hill tribes or non-Thai linked ethnicity to elevation, producing doubts about uplanders' citizenship status in both civic and legal senses. Informal conceptions of what constitutes 'Thainess' led to 'graduated citizenship' (McCargo 2011) experienced by Malay Muslims and ethnic Chinese, who have long been subject to racialized citizenship and residency policies across Southeast Asia (Ho and Chua 2016;Koh 2015;Lan 2012;Tong 2010). Bijl and van Klinken (2019) term the gulf between political and social citizens 'graded citizenship'. These understandings of citizenship acknowledge internal hierarchies based on conceptions of race, autochthony, and national belonging but generally assume access to statutory citizenship as most Southeast Asian states have jus soli provisions (albeit with restrictions). In Myanmar, where citizenship is based on descent (from either a state recognized ethnic group -taingyintha -or from two citizen parents), millions engage in what Tonkiss and Bloom (2015) call 'a noncitizenship relation in a State without crossing international borders'. But how did such a regime develop?

Documenting foreigners, citizens, and residents after independence (1948-1962)
Understanding how deferred citizenship arose requires returning to the citizenship regime prior to 1982 to explore why so many people did not have citizenship documentation when the 1982 Law came into effect. While post-independence citizenship legislation initially made citizenship possible for a wider range of residents, it was not as open in practice as it seems in statutes and court rulings. Both documentation processes and eligibility narrowed continuously under authoritarian rule.
On Independence Day, 4 January 1948, citizens were those born of two parents of (undefined) 'indigenous races'; those with one grandparent of an 'indigenous race'; and those born in Burma to parents also born in Burma whose ancestors made Burma their permanent home for at least two generations. 5 Those born after independence acquired citizenship by being born in Burma to one citizen parent or abroad to a Burmese citizen father or parent in the service of the Burmese state (Union Citizenship Act 1948, sec. 5a-c). The Union Citizenship Act allowed for naturalization of foreigners after five years' residency, while the Union Citizenship (Election) Act granted citizenship eligibility to those who lived in Burma for eight out of ten years prior to either independence or the Japanese Occupation. 6 While citizenship was possible for a large percentage of the population, it was assumed for some, but neither automatic nor guaranteed for others.
Delineating between citizens and foreigners was far from straightforward, with definitions of foreigner and parameters of eligibility for citizenship fluctuating, particularly in the first decade post-independence. Lines between citizens and foreigners and the rights and status afforded to both were redrawn via case law and related amendments to citizenship legislation, the Foreigners Act, and immigration acts, followed by establishment of a Ministry to handle immigration, citizenship, and registration of residents (see Verma 1961). Differentiating between foreigners and citizens amongst former imperial subjects was a contested and inconsistent process including over a decade of amended legislation and case law (Rhoads 2019).
A post-war, post-independence population influx, with hundreds of thousands of prewar residents repatriating from India and China (Chen 2015;Egreteau 2014;Greene 1948) contributed to the complexities of regularizing status, particularly impacting citizens by birth also eligible for Pakistani, Indian or Chinese citizenship who were often mistaken for foreigners (Verma 1961, 126). Citizenship applications and claims were complicated by the population's general lack of preparedness to make decisions on questions of post-imperial citizenship (Khan and Sherman 2022). By mid-1949, only an estimated 1 in 1,000 of Burma's resident Indians had applied for citizenship (Indian Daily Mail 1949). The Indian Embassy repeatedly acknowledged insufficient community understanding regarding citizenship application procedures, with lack of access to state bureaucracy, inconsistent information, and general lack of education regarding citizenship particularly impacting rural Indian populations (NAI 1955).
Following the outbreak of civil war after independence, rural Indian communities were caught between Burmese and Karen forces (Indian Daily Mail 1950aReuter 1949) or forced to flee to urban areas (NAI 1955;MNA 1954). In some areas, civil administration and courts were inoperative due to insurgencies' impacts on personnel, budget, and security (Cheesman 2015b, 71), leading to a severe lack of magistrates in districts to hear citizenship applications (The Times 1960). Toungoo -where Indians made up a quarter of the town's pre-war population and where large populations worked on the district's plantations -remained outside of government control from January 1949 to March 1950(Steinberg 1982. Hoping to encourage applications and account for insurgencies, Burma's Indian communities lobbied repeatedly for fee reductions and deadline extensions (Indian Daily Mail 1950b;Reuter 1948).
Applicants for Burmese citizenship and natural born citizens requiring documentary proof of citizenship encountered administrative difficulties, shifting deadlines, and applications kept pending indefinitely (Kali Mutu v The Union of Burma;NAI 1955;U Myay Kyaw 1958;UKNA 1982;The Times 1960;Taylor 1993, 675). Successful applications took years, resulting in issuance of Union Citizenship Certificates (UCCs) or Naturalization Certificates. Those not eligible for citizenship by birth were eligible for citizenship under the time-limited Union Citizenship (Election) Act with a 30 April 1950 application deadline, or if born in Myanmar to two permanent resident parents, by 31 March 1955. 7 Following deadlines, anyone wishing to become Burmese citizens must naturalize through a process including an investigation, police reports read before district magistrates, and public calls for objections (The Times 1960). 8 Naturalization required presenting oneself to a Burmese magistrate and paying a court fee in addition to fees for affidavits and stamps on court documents (NAI 1955;Amrith 2018). The judiciary's involvement contributed to delays in issuing citizenship documents, as 'a large number of cases were pending in the District Courts' (Union of Burma 1960, 85; see also : Verma 1961, 67).
Owing to complexities of determining citizenship and the role of courts in the matter, Burma made little attempt to systematically document citizenship status after independence. As citizenship status was in flux, executive ministries were more concerned with documenting residency, including resident foreigners, as that was fully under executive control. This 70-year-old decision to process citizenship through courts and administratively document residency and foreigner status rather than citizenship has consequences reaching into the present.
Following independence, registration with local authorities became mandatory for citizens and foreigners. The government attempted to issue every non-foreign resident over age 10 with National Registration Cards (NRCs) (Union of Burma 1960, 85). Nationwide national registration campaigns following 1952 registered 18 million people by 1960 (Union of Burma 1960, 85, 94). The issuance of citizenship certificates was miniscule by comparison, with only 8,496 certificates issued prior to the Ministry of Immigration and National Registration's establishment in 1957 (Union of Burma 1960, 85). 9 Following the creation of the ministry and the advent of the military caretaker government in 1958, the pace increased, with 12,937 certificates issued from June 1957-February 1959, but by 1960 there were still 50,000 applications pending (Union of Burma 1960, 86;The Times 1960).
Before 1957, NRCs were issued by village heads and ward administrators, while resident foreigners were issued Foreign Registration Certificates (FRCs) by the Foreigners Registration Department, under the police (Union of Burma 1960, 86). Consolidation of both registration processes under the new Ministry and increased deportation powers sparked frequent raids targeting foreigners, checking FRC validity to ensure payment of annual tax (NAI 1959a(NAI , 1959b. This increased under the military 'caretaker' government, with raids on over 130,000 'foreigners' during 1958-59 (Union of Burma 1960, 87). As the onus fell on individuals to prove they were not foreigners (Union of Burma 1940, sec. 4), immigration rounded up suspected foreigners based on appearance. One reporter observed plaques reading 'Burma Citizen' affixed to some residences in Rangoon, ostensibly to deter immigration officials (The Times 1960). Unsurprisingly, authorities frequently caught Burmese citizens by birth of Chinese and South Asian descent in foreigner dragnets, prosecuting them for violating the Foreigners Act by not holding FRCs (NAI 1959a(NAI , 1959b(NAI , 1960Tai Yu Han v. Union of Burma;Chan Yu Ta v. Union of Burma). Burma pressured India to claim detainees as citizens to allow for deportation of those who could not pay fines (NAI 1982).
While foreigners and naturalized citizens often held documents proving their status, citizens by birth usually did not. Rather than using Union Citizenship Certificates (UCC) issued under the Citizenship Acts for documentation, most citizens by birth according to the Constitution and Citizenship Act used NRCs. In the Citizenship Act itself, the UCC is for children born abroad or others where documentary proof may be needed or right to citizenship questioned, such as parties involved in court cases (sec. UKNA 1982;Verma 1961). Natural born citizens believed they did not need UCCs as citizenship was their birthright (UKNA 1982). Furthermore, they were not required to hold UCCs as citizenship could be proven by other means (Peer Mohamed v. Union of Burma) and most already held national registration cards which served as identity documents and proof of residency.
Nyi Nyi Kyaw (2017, 276) argues that NRCs constitute 'sufficient evidence' of citizenship as they were only issued to those not registered as foreigners, and no other documents were so widely distributed. Burmese newspapers detail arrests of people holding NRCs and FRCs simultaneously, which authorities cited as evidence of attempting to illegally hold dual nationality, supporting the idea that NRCs were contemporary proxies for citizenship documentation (The Nation 1964a;NAI 1982). However, NRCs were not issued under citizenship legislation and were therefore never a legal document proving citizenship, making UCCs the only documents available to unofficial minorities to definitively establish citizenship. 10 While citizenship was legally available to most of Burma's residents following independence, administrative processes documenting residency and citizenship left hundreds of thousands without documentary proof of one or both (NAI 1977(NAI , 1982. We will return to the intergenerational impacts of this later in the article.

Demonetization, (de)nationalization, and emigration
Following Ne Win's 1962 coup, Burma embarked on a widescale nationalization program. From 1963 onwards, private enterprise was nationalized on a case-by-case basis (Tin Maung Maung Than 2006;UKNA 1964). Nationalization was coupled with demonetization in 1964, intentionally targeting cash stockpiles of 'foreign as well as national capitalists' (The Nation 1964c). Nationalization and demonetization depleted savings and assets of the merchant class, who were primarily Indian and to a lesser extent, Chinese, ultimately leading to emigration and denationalization (Egreteau 2013;Rhoads 2020).
Hundreds of thousands of people registered at the Indian Embassy, hoping to be 'repatriated' under India's policy for displaced people of Indian origin (Egreteau 2013;NAI 1977; The Nation 1964b; The Times 1964a). 11 At the height of exodus in July-October 1964, nearly 2,000 people were repatriated weekly by planes and ships chartered by the Indian government (The Times 1964c;NAI 1965). Approximately 300,000 people of Indian origin left Burma following 1963, although the 'repatriation' program continued until the late 1980s (Egreteau 2013, 20).
Registering with a foreign government or retaining a foreign passport or citizenship after April 1955 triggered revocation of Burmese citizenship. 12 During the 1950s-1970s, the Indian embassy issued 'Emergency Certificates' (ECs) to persons of Indian origin wishing to leave Burma (NAI 1959b;1977;; issuing 800 per working day during the height of repatriation (NAI 1965). Although not proof of Indian citizenship, ECs effectively terminated Burmese citizenship. ECs were valid for 6 months, but due to a severe lack of commercial ships and flights, would-be repatriates often had to renew their ECs multiple times before actually securing a place (NAI 1965). Those who came from the districts to register were often destitute, living on Rangoon's streets while awaiting departure (NAI 1965). Delays between registration and travel meant that not all who registered with the Indian embassy, or renounced Burmese citizenship were repatriated -for reasons from logistics to illness, or simply changing their minds about leaving Burma (NAI 1967, 1977. Repatriates wrote letters home to Burma sharing news of poor conditions in India, and some even returned to Burma clandestinely (NAI 1977). Those who registered intent to 'return' to India but did not leave were effectively denationalized. Their NRCs were confiscated, and they were issued Foreigner Registration Certificates (FRCs) denoting their transition to foreign status (The Nation 1964d; NAI 1965).

Creating noncitizens: Birthright, denationalization, and naturalization
In 1982, the right to natural born citizenship was taken away from Myanmar's unofficial minorities. Under the 1982 Law, citizenship by birth is via jus sanguinis, solely granted to 'national races' (taingyintha) whose ancestors made their home in the territory now known as Burma prior to 1823 (the year before the First Anglo-Burmese War). Citizens by birth are only those born to two taingyintha parents and are the only type of citizen who cannot have their citizenship revoked by the state (sec. 8b). 13 With no pathway to citizenship by birth, citizenship for those classified as 'non-taingyintha' is deferred until applicants are individually scrutinized.
Under the 1982 Law, unofficial minorities granted Union Citizenship Certificates (UCCs) remained citizens, as the law was not retroactive in effect. However, implementation of the law led to de facto loss of citizenship, as citizens by birth under the 1948 Law without UCCs had difficulty unequivocally proving citizenship (Cheesman 2017, 12-13;Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2017;UKNA 1982), effectively resulting in their denationalization.
Those awaiting a decision on their existing application under the 1948 Law (an estimated 80,000-90,000 applications were pending) are now 'Associate Citizens' (UKNA 1982). 14 Those eligible for naturalized citizenship under the new law are those categorized as non-taingyintha who did not apply for citizenship under the 1948 Laws and either settled in Burma prior to 1948 or were Burma-born descendants of those who did. Most now eligible for 'naturalized citizenship' were considered citizens by birth under the 1948 Citizenship Act, but without citizenship documentation in the form of a UCC, they are considered potential foreigners in need of regularizing their status in Myanmar.
After 1982, children of naturalized and associate citizens and children with one foreign citizen parent are not automatically citizens but must apply for naturalization. Children of these unions can be listed on their parents' documentation but cannot apply for citizenship until they reach 18 years of age (1982 Law, secs. 42-51). 15 With citizenship bestowed at the behest of the authorities, even if all criteria for citizenship are met, applications can be refused. Unlike the 1948 Laws, the 1982 Law is administered entirely under the executive branch with no judicial oversight or recourse for applicants whose citizenship application is denied, deferred, or revoked. 16 The Myanmar citizenship regime is not only post-colonial, reflecting the imposition of international borders, but also post-partition, as Burma was administered as part of British India until 1937. Like post-partition India (see Roy 2013), the state and populace frequently question the 'loyalty' of minoritized citizens, particularly those seen as 'Indians left behind' after the province of Burma split off from British India. This suspicion is clearly articulated in the text and rhetoric of the 1982 Law. In a 1982 speech, Ne Win articulated the rationale behind the tiered system: Myanmar had too many residents with close family ties to neighboring countries -India, Bangladesh, China, etc. Their filial ties were seen as stronger than their ties to Burma, fueling stereotypes that they were potentially untrustworthy and more likely to engage in cross-border smuggling (WPD 1982). Following 1982, for children of two naturalized citizens to be granted full citizenship, one set of grandparents must have held naturalized or associate citizenship prior to one of the parent's births. Thus, according to the 1982 Law, grandchildren of naturalized citizens will be full citizens and naturalized citizens will cease to be a category after the third generation (sec. 7).

Origins of a racialized citizenship regime
While statutory limitations on citizenship were new in 1982, the divide between those perceived as taingyintha and those perceived as non-taingyintha was longer in the making (Cheesman 2017). The Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) began drafting the 1982 Law as early as 1976 (UKNA 1982), but the text of the 1974 Constitution already distinguished between taingyintha and others by requiring members of parliament to be citizens born of two citizen parents (sec. 177; see : Taylor 1993, 678). This revoked the right of naturalized citizens to serve in key government positions, an early sign of a growing distinction in classes of Burmese citizenship (UKNA 1982). 17 Prior to 1982, official histories had already begun to delete references to taingyintha collaborators with British rule, allowing for a history where taingyintha were united (Cheesman 2017, 466-467). The implication is that if taingyintha were not exploiting fellow taingyintha or collaborating with the British and capitalists, that role must have been filled by the non-taingyintha 'other'. This discourse led to the construction of the Myanmar polity as a community of taingyintha rather than a community of citizens (Cheesman 2017). The elevation and narrowing of taingyintha contrasts with independence leader Aung San's rhetoric, which interpreted taingyintha more broadly, based on participation in the independence struggle (Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2019;Nemoto 2000;Campbell and Prasse-Freeman 2022;UKNA 1946). For example, Aung San's party, the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) voted at their party congress to 'give Burma Muslims all the rights of a National minority' (UKNA 1946).
While the 1974 Constitution and the 1982 Law do not use the term 'mixed blood', public statements of BSPP officials concerning the law were littered with references distinguishing between taingyintha and those with ancestors perceived as 'foreign races '. 18 In 1981, Home Minister Sein Lwin warned of the dangers of 'newly-arrived stronger races oppressing, over-whelming and mixing blood with the original races' (UKNA 1982). 19 Today, the offices and website of the Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population proudly display its motto, roughly translated as: 'A fissure in the earth will not open up and swallow a race to extinction; a race only disappears by being swallowed by another'. 20 Following the 1982 Law's promulgation, the 1983 census used a list of 135 nationalities later publicized in state newspapers by the military junta that came to power in 1988 (WPD 1990;Cheesman 2017, 468;Ferguson 2015, 15). While not found in the 1982 Law itself, ethnicities excluded from the list such as Chinese, Indian, Gurkha, and Rohingya are generally not considered taingyintha and thus ineligible for citizenship by birth. Rather than solely a state-made administrative category, Prasse-Freeman (2017, 2) notes how 'taingyintha, or rather the political belonging it confers, is dialogically constructed through interaction with the public'. Those viewed by society as non-taingyintha face discrimination in schools, government offices, the workplace, and the community (Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF) 2019; Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2021). Regardless of documentation held, societal perceptions of belonging based on ideas of 'national races' link certain ethnicities, religions, and phenotypes to lesser citizenship categories, which are in turn seen as less belonging (Cheesman 2017;Prasse-Freeman 2017). The 1982 Law narrowed legal, institutional, and societal conceptions of belonging to exclude racialized populations designated as 'potential foreigners'.

Administrative citizenship as 'citizenship scrutiny'
Statelessness in Myanmar is produced through both intentional non-recognition and non-recording (see Kalir and van Schendel 2017;Lori 2017) through acts of indefinite deferral, and re-counting or re-recording for exclusionary purposes, which Brinham (2019) terms 'administrative erasure'. While taingyintha exchanged National Registration Cards (NRCs) for pink-colored Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (CSCs) issued under the 1982 Law following 1988, 21 'unofficial minorities' not found on the list of 135 state-recognized 'ethnic nationalities' were asked to show evidentiary proof of citizenship issued under the 1948 Acts. Those who could not were asked for genealogies proving their citizenship claims and often issued green-colored naturalized citizenship cards instead. While some were re-recorded as 'naturalized citizens' rather than 'natural born citizens', other unofficial minorities without UCCs were seemingly ignored, and continued holding NRCs. In an act of non-recognition and re-recording, Rohingya NRCs were confiscated and replaced with 'white cards' denoting uncertain citizenship status and ongoing scrutiny (Brinham 2019;Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2021). 22 Institutional practices, internal directives, procedures, and documentary requirements of administrative citizenship may be just as discriminatory as laws. As Sadiq (2017b) argues, legal institutions and forensic documentation or 'jus charta' and 'jus tabulae', may be more important than the legal principles of jus sanguinis and jus soli, as it is through the production of administrative citizenship that people engage with citizenship regimes and become citizens. Discriminatory administrative barriers to citizenship documentation may be found in laws, procedures, or ministerial directives and may relate to eligibility, documents, application costs, deadlines, or location of government offices (Sadiq 2017a(Sadiq , 2017bFlaim 2017). Although most unofficial minority applicants meet legal requirements for citizenship, procedures and bylaws that regulate provision of documents under both the 1948 and the 1982 legislation make the process exceedingly complicated. Additional barriers are found in rent-seeking, biased, or uncooperative immigration officers who find that discriminatory treatment and frequent denial of unofficial minority applications results in larger bribes due to applicants' desperation (SEDF and Justice Base 2017, 32).
The treatment of unofficial minority citizenship applicants has been likened to administrative violence (Arraiza, Phyu Zin Aye and Arraiza Shakirova 2020), which Beaugrand (2011, 236) defines as: 'imposing an identity rejected by the concerned persons'; 'denial of socio-economic rights'; 'a symbolic process of stigmatization'; and 'a complete lack of transparency'. In Myanmar, Beaugrand's mechanisms of administrative violence can be observed in gatekeeping intended to delay applications and impacts of deferred citizenship. The following section discusses access to full, associate, and naturalized citizenship and impacts of deferral for those undergoing 'citizenship scrutiny'.

Impacts of racialized citizenship: genealogies of administrative violence
To access citizenship documentation, those perceived as non-taingyintha are subjected to a process where they are both denied self-identification and have identities they reject imposed upon them (Beaugrand 2011;Brinham 2019;Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2015). By erasing histories of indigenous Muslim groups including Rohingya, Pashu, and Pathi, immigration officials actively work to create 'foreign' ancestry for Muslim applicants where there is none (Mawkun 2019; Than Toe Aung 2019). In a cover story playing on the Ministry of Immigration and Population's motto, Burmese investigative magazine Mawkun (2019) asked if it was the immigration department itself that was making races disappear. Apparently following an unpublished internal departmental directive, Muslims are no longer allowed to list their ethnicity as 'Myanmar' or 'Bamar' (the majority ethnic group) on their CSC, as was previously commonplace (Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2015;Mawkun 2019). The assumption is that if someone is Muslim, they must have foreign ancestry and, therefore, require a prefix/suffix of Indian, Bengali, or Pakistani (Mawkun 2019;Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2015; Than Toe Aung 2019), which Nyi Nyi Kyaw (2015) considers being 'Indianized by the state' (52). 23 Excluded from citizenship by birth, the only route to full citizenship for unofficial minorities after 1982 is through extensive documentation of family genealogy.
Unofficial minority applicants must show that both parents were card-carrying full citizens, or one parent was a full citizen and the other an associate or naturalized citizen at the time of the applicant's birth. If neither parent was a full citizen, then applicants must show that at least one set of grandparents were citizens of any kind and their parent was born after their grandparents' citizenship documentation was conferred. The process is stigmatizing and non-transparent (Beaugrand 2011, 236), as to prove grandparents' citizenship, applicants must submit family genealogies and official documents, often going back to before independence. Officials routinely reject genealogies with Indian, European, Chinese or other 'foreign' names submitted by taingyintha, later accepting revised genealogies using ancestors' Burmese aliases (Rhoads 2019). Proving citizenship of grandparents who passed away before receiving a UCC or CSC is impossible, and even though their grandparents were likely citizens by birth under the 1948 Laws, applicants for full citizenship will often receive a naturalized citizenship scrutiny card instead.
The Rohingya are conspicuously omitted from the list of 135 ethnic nationalities, meaning that without CSCs or UCCs proving their parents' or grandparents' citizenship status, they are only eligible for naturalized citizenship. In some cases, accessing naturalized citizenship requires documents proving the date of one's ancestors' entry to Myanmar (Brinham 2019;Parashar and Alam 2019). As most Rohingya and Myanmar Muslims identify as native to Myanmar, proof of entry for naturalized citizenship is both impossible and degrading (Gilmore 2019). Due to repeat displacement, many are unable to meet evidentiary requirements (Brinham 2019;ILO 1998, para. 254;Islam 2018).
Naturalized and associate citizens face barriers to education and participation in civic life. They are generally prohibited from obtaining professional licenses in law, medicine, engineering, or dentistry and are barred from working in the civil service (Enlightened Myanmar Research Foundation (EMReF) 2019, 24-25). 24 This keeps naturalized citizens out of the ranks of elite professions, preventing them from socializing with elites and government officials through school or work, leading to both a lack of understanding of the citizenship categories of 'naturalized' or 'associate' citizens and a lack of empathy concerning their exclusion.
Lack of citizenship documentation precludes access to other bureaucratic documents and processes (Hull 2012). In addition to limitations on housing, travel, banking, and education, those without CSCs are not able to own a business or engage in formal employment, funneling those with FRCs or no documentation whatsoever into informal occupations (Roberts and Rhoads 2022). While some find ways to borrow or rent CSCs to register a business or work in a factory, limitations faced by those without documentation perpetuate exclusion along class lines (Campbell and Prasse-Freeman 2022).
The 2008 Constitution, like the 1974 Constitution, limits political participation of unofficial minorities by requiring that all candidates are not only citizens but born of parents who were citizens at the time of the candidate's birth (Art 120(b)). As most candidates in the three previous elections since the 2008 Constitution came into force are over 30 years old, and CSCs were not issued systematically until after 1988, many unofficial minorities were not able to prove that their parents were citizens at the time of their birth, and were barred from running for office. Even when citizenship status of unofficial minorities is secured, the law continues to defer their full participation in political and civic life. This was intentional in the design of the tiered citizenship system, as Ne Win was adamant that 'guest citizens' should not be involved in the 'destiny of the State' (WPD 1982).

Impacts of deferred citizenship: the promise of the 'third-generation'
Lack of transparency and long delays cause citizenship documents to reach applicants long after the event (university entrance/graduation, childbirth, job opportunity, etc.) that caused them to apply for documentation has passed, meaning that it is not only citizenship status that is deferred but life experiences and opportunities. Applications kept 'in process' for years mean that children are born to parents where one or both do not have documentation in hand at the time of the child's birth. This defers the citizenship question until the next generation, as a Myanmar citizen is born of two citizen parents (1982 Law, sec. 7).
'Pending' application status impacts parents, children, and the wider society by further postponing the moment when there is no longer a tiered citizenship system, and citizenship acquisition for unofficial minorities and taingyintha is the same. Ne Win himself promised that there would be one route to citizenship acquisition after the third generation documented under the 1982 Law (WPD 1982), leading Taylor (1993) to categorize the post-1982 citizenship regime as a 'system of temporarily unequal citizenship' (667). However, it seems in both law and practice, the distinction between taingyintha and others is designed to remain. Reaffirming that unofficial minority children are not envisioned as citizens, but rather applicants for Myanmar citizenship, the 2008 Constitution defines citizens as born of two taingyintha parents (sec. 345(a)), and those already citizens at the time the Constitution came into effect (sec. 345(b)).

Conclusion: Citizenship deferred?
Myanmar's citizenship regime is arguably one of the most racialized in the world. The text of the 1982 Law only grants birthright citizenship to taingyintha; all others must apply based on their family's genealogy and a dossier of documents to prove their claims. During the tumultuous periods following independence, Ne Win's coup, and the 1988 uprising, those who left the country and even those who tried to leave the country were denationalized, with no right to reapply for citizenship under the 1982 Law (sec. 22).
Although the law is itself discriminatory, providing the framework for racialization in the manners described above, its implementation uses measures to strip, delay, and defer nontaingyintha citizenship. Myanmar's unofficial minorities are rarely denied citizenship outright, but documentary proof of their status is continually deferred, allowing for congruency in procedural and substantive citizenship status. In pursuing a policy of perpetual deferral, there is a meeting of societal perceptions of belonging that locate non-taingyintha outside the realm of the nation and legal and administrative recognition of status.
Unofficial minorities must provide more evidentiary proof, wait longer, have more frequent interactions with state officials, endure discriminatory behavior and language, pay large sums for 'fines' and other concocted fees, and be incredibly persistent to gain access to citizenship documentation that comes so easily for others. The fact that they are subjected to such discriminatory policies and procedures illustrates that their citizenship is seen as exceptional. In the 'not yet' or 'still in process' status of deferred citizenship, the statutory in-between state matches up with the popular conceptions of national identity that positions taingyintha as naturally belonging while non-taingyintha are subject to intergenerational scrutiny. 1982). Ne Win then gave a 31 December 1981 deadline for resignation of non-taingyintha from government and BSPP leadership (NAI 1982;UKNA 1982). 18. လူ မျိ º း ခာ ြ း (lu-myo cha -foreign/other race) and ေသွ းေနှ ာ (thway hnaw -mixed race) are the most common terms. 19. This is not to say that such references only emerged at this time (for earlier usage, see: Kyaw 2019; Ikeya 2020). 20. Lu-myo (လူ မျိ º း) directly translates to 'type of person' but is often translated as race or ethnicity (Ferguson 2015(Ferguson , 6, 2021. Candier (2019) traces the 19 th century shift from 'categories of people' to 'nations.' 21. Cheesman (2017: 12-13) details the implementation of the 1982 Law and issuance of colorcoded CSCs (pink = full citizens; blue = associate citizens; green = naturalized citizens). CSCs are used as identity documents, making citizenship status and ethnic and religious identity recognizable during everyday interactions. 22. White cards issued to Rohingya were collectively canceled in 2015. 23. State publications in the 1980s-1990s used Bamar/Islam as the race/religion terminology (Khin Nyunt 1989), suggesting Burmese Muslims' 'Indianization' is relatively recent. 24. Taingyintha-only admissions policies in educational programs in medicine, engineering, and the sciences pre-date the 1982 Law (NAI 1970).