COMMENT This land is made up of immigrants mostly. In my view, it would be remiss to call one of the major races in Malaysia 'bumiputera"\', ahead of the others, and this will no doubt attract a lot of debate.

Even former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has acknowledged that the real original inhabitants of peninsular Malaysia (previously Malaya) are the Negritos and Semang (or Orang Asli) people. Therefore, it is an irrefutable fact that anyone else who arrived here after, say 3,000 years ago, would be an "immigrant". Time is after all, the greatest healer of controversy, or as some would say, the creator of many.

Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out why today Malaysians, at least a significant proportion of us, are not willing to accept the 'immigrant' status any longer. For this, I need to remind the readers on a short history of the three major races' arrival in present-day Malaysia.

The Indians were here at least 2,300 years ago, having traded between present-day Odisha (or Kalinga then) and Kadaram (present-day Kedah) during the Mauryan empire (circa 330 BC). Hindu empires existed here about 2,200 years ago in Langkasuka (Kedah), 1,700 years ago in Ganga Negara (Perak) and possibly, 1,300 years ago (likely of Buddhist-Hindu influence) in Kota Gelinggi (Johor).

There's enough historical evidence to confirm that the Indian diaspora has been here for more than 2,000 years, give or take. During my school days, these were accepted facts and nobody attempted to rewrite history to suit political expediency...