KUALA LUMPUR - Police probes into two political bigwigs who accused each other’s parties of wanting to undermine ethnic and religious rights in multiracial Malaysia show how seriously Anwar Ibrahim’s government takes clamping down on the so-called “3R” – race, religion, royalty – rhetoric.

While the stated purpose is to cool inter-ethnic tensions in an increasingly polarised political landscape, a clampdown on racial and religious politics benefits the Pakatan Harapan-led (PH) unity government.