The end of pluralism
The 1962 coup brought General Ne Win to power and replaced parliamentary democracy with the one-party "Burmese Way to Socialism." The Mayu Frontier Administration was dissolved and brought under military control. Rohingya political parties, cultural associations, and language broadcasts were systematically dismantled.
Bureaucratic exclusion
Through the 1960s and 1970s, the state introduced increasingly restrictive identity documents. Older National Registration Cards were replaced with new colour-coded cards that distinguished "full" citizens from "associate" or "naturalised" citizens — with Rohingya disproportionately pushed into the lower categories or denied documentation altogether. The 1974 Emergency Immigration Act gave the state broad powers to question the status of long-settled families.
Operation Naga Min
In 1978, the military launched "Operation Naga Min" (King Dragon) — officially an immigration check, in practice a campaign of mass intimidation in northern Arakan. More than 200,000 Rohingya fled across the border into Bangladesh, reporting killings, rape, and the destruction of villages. Most were eventually repatriated under international pressure, but the operation set a template: large-scale violence framed as a routine bureaucratic exercise.