Perhaps it’s timely to revisit Muhyiddin’s suggestion of a possible solution to the Interlok row, through additional footnotes, glossaries and a teaching guideline.

But what’s the point, if it is not going to solve the root problem? Just because some characters at the education ministry made a mistake by approving the book, all the bumiputeras are now trying to defend the book.                            

Let’s look back at the case of the book Hikayat Munshi Abdullah, from the first Malay literary author, father  and pioneer of modern Malay literature, which was once a reference book in 1958 for Bahasa Melayu.

I would like to remind everyone that subsequently the book was removed as a reference book because some parts of the book was critical about the Malays.

The author in the work had described the Malays as lazy, gamblers and so on. He was also critical about the Malay rulers of that time, whom he had described as selfish and that the rulers had treated the Malay subjects dismally and that those sultans did not want the Malays to become well-educated and gain profession.

Because this book was insensitive to the Malays the book was removed as a reference book in Malaysia although it is still being used in Indonesia.

Now we have a situation where the book Interlok is insensitive to Indians in the same way as Hikayat Munshi Abdullah was insensitive to Malays. So why can’t the authorities remove the book Interlok from the syllabus? Isn’t this double standards?