The colonial government ensured that the Malays would continue to maintain their "traditional" peasant lifestyle as much as possible, restricting movement, economic enterprises and education. This policy was maintained in the belief that education of Bengalis in India had led to discontent and rebellion. They involved only the Malay ruling class in government and administrative issues. Despite the exclusion of non-Malays from positions of authority, much of the civil service rank and file comprised non-Malays, many of them Indians who were specifically brought in for this purpose. A number of historians have described the pro-Malay policies as designed merely to preserve the position of the colonial authorities, rather than to strengthen that of the Malays; some have characterised the approach as keeping "the races at just the right distance from each other to have the disparate elements of Malaya work in remote harmony".