Quotas are largely resented by non-bumiputras as an unfairness towards them, since they are fellow Malaysians of the bumiputras and they want to be equally treated.

True, if quotas are rigidly implemented, as under the Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad administration, there would be a lot of resentment. As a non-bumiputra, I do not support rigid implementation of quotas, as the case is now. But I am not against quotas.

I do not believe the late great Tun Abdul Razak Hussein ever intended to squeeze Chinese and Indians out of universities and out of employment, and neither did his successor Tun Hussein Onn. Razak and Hussein always advocated that the quotas were only for the bumiputras who were qualified and deserving of their allotted places in companies and universities.

If there were not enough bumiputras for the places, these would be opened to non-bumiputras, provided the non-bumiputras paid a little more tax to the government, which would go towards the training of qualified bumiputras in future.

That was as fair as one could get, stopping short of meritocracy, which Razak and Hussein knew the rank and file of chauvinistic Umno (and for that matter PAS under Asri Muda), could not accept. It would be good if the Mahathir government strictly sticks to the spirit of the pro-bumiputra policies his great predecessors believed in.

If no bumiputra can fill in the seats, then open the seats to non-bumiputras, and get them to help bring up capable bumiputras by paying a little more tax.

If this equitability is stretched further, then all bumiputra businessmen and professionals who do not qualify for their crafts, by reason of unscrupulousness or incapability, ought to give up their crafts to non-bumiputras. These non-bumiputras would have to pay a little more in tax.

Apartheid of the British colonial era it may seem, but this is the price to pay if we non-bumiputras truly want to bring up the bumiputra community psychologically. If non-bumiputras put themselves into the shoes of good bumiputras, they would realise that strict equal status for both categories of people would only alienate bumiputras.

Bumiputras (Indigenous peoples of Sabah, Sarawak, the peninsula and the dominant Malays) gave citizenship for non-bumiputras on very liberal terms, and reduced themselves to a community within Malaysia, almost giving up their historical position as the owner community of the country.