I refer to the letter by Arulnageswaran A, [#1] Oblivious of the minority's needs [/#] (March 17) which, while deploring the marginalisation of the Indian community in Malaysia also depicts the bizarre denial by the Malays of their own pre-Islamic heritage and history.

To say that the maritime trade led to the 'indianisation' of the Bujang Valley is truly the height of denial. The official version of history would have us believe that the Hindus 'went away' and the local Malay population were left to develop their own culture. It seems so hard for the Malay world to live down the historical reality that the Malay race at one time were Hindus and that the Malays of today are their descendants. To put it succinctly, nobody 'went away'.

The very word 'Malaya' is of Sanskrit origin. Shankara, the Indian sage, in his treatise, Soundarya Lahari (Verse 6), written in the 6th century AD, referred to the "malaya-breeze", meaning breeze blowing from the direction of Malaya, i.e., from the east. In the same way the people living in Malaya then would have referred to the direction of the west as Bharat (India). The modern Malay word for the west is of course ' barat '.

Common words in the Malay language like suka , duka , cita , bumi and putra are from Sanskrit. So are words like perdana (

It has never been publicly explained why the current Malay establishment or more correctly, why the Islamic establishment, has such a phobic attitude to their pre-Islamic history. Is the Malay establishment afraid that one day the Malay masses will wake up and contemplate their Indian and vedic roots? The Malays may already be doing just that. Witness the Malay interest in Hindi films, much to the chagrin of the ulama .