ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 explores the functions of IDs issued to Rohingya in the early decades of Myanmar’s independence. Citizenship and ethnic recognition were part of Myanmar’s strategic embrace of minorities including Rohingya with a view to peace. Rohingya participants emphasised that from the status provided by IDs during this period, rights and welfare flowed, as well as belonging and national identity. IDs belonging to Rohingya from this period were treasured and preserved. They were also collated, recorded, and exhibited to demonstrate Rohingya identity as a group belonging to post-independence Myanmar and to resist identity destruction and erasure. Rohingya narratives focused on IDs of the early independence era to provide evidence of later crimes perpetrated by the state including citizenship stripping and persecution. The equalising and emancipatory functions of state-issued IDs issued during this period were often juxtaposed with the repressive and destructive properties of IDs issued since the 1990s.
