COMMENT| The Year 2021 will mark the 50th anniversary of Malaysia’s New Economic Policy. In reaching this milestone, some will fervently celebrate the NEP and credit it for uplifting Malaysia and empowering the bumiputera majority.

Others will fiercely castigate the NEP for disfiguring race relations and entrenching systemic inequalities. Praise for its enduring legacy will clash with scorn of the "Never Ending Policy".

The NEP has unquestionably transformed Malaysia, but it is the best thing or the worst thing to have happened to the country, depending on who you ask. Yet both sides of the debate have one thing in common, a tendency to distort its contents. The NEP is both vaunted and spurned in misguided ways.

Its half centenary presents a ripe opportunity to revisit the NEP and recover its meaning.

Two common distortions must be confronted...