However, the British at the same time took the stance that the Malays were to be left alone to their traditional peasant lifestyle as far as possible, involving only the Malay ruling class in government and administrative issues. Despite the policy of excluding non-Malays from positions of authority, much of the rank and file of the civil service was non-Malays, many of them Indians who the government had specifically brought in for this purpose. A number of historians have described the pro-Malay policies of the British as designed merely to preserve the position of the British, rather than to strengthen that of the Malays; many have characterised the British approach as being one of "divide and rule," where "the towns were Chinese, with their shopkeepers and traders; the villages were Malay, with their farmers and fishermen; the plantations were Indian, with their rubber tappers and labourers," keeping "the races at just the right distance from each other to have the disparate elements of Malaya work in remote harmony".