Dark vs Fair :The ugly prejudice

India Today

Is the Colour of Your Skin the New Caste? Join the nationwide debate on this shameful bias.

Transcript

00:00Nothing but the truth. Hello, I'm Raj Chengup of India Today and your host for Nothing But

00:08the Truth. This is my weekly extra of key issues that matter to you without holding

00:14back on the truth.

00:20In this episode we will talk about the dark versus fair complexion debate that has been

00:27reignited and is currently raging across the country. It will deal with the ugly and shameful

00:34prejudice that Indians seem to harbour against darker skin tones. And it is very, very real.

00:41It's very personal. And sadly, it is still happening every day. So let's go deeper into

00:49the issue and examine why there is such an intrinsic skin colour bias amongst us and

00:57what we need to do about it.

00:59The most recent example of this disgraceful bias happened to Sharada Muralidharan who

01:04is a serving IAS officer and is currently Chief Secretary of Kerala. She took over this

01:09important post from her husband V. Venu in September last year. And recently in a very

01:15moving Facebook post, Sharada recounted her agony which began with someone making an insulting

01:23and hurtful comment about her skin colour. This is what Sharada wrote and I'm quoting

01:29it verbatim.

01:30I heard an interesting comment yesterday on my stewardship as Chief Secretary that it

01:36is as black as my husband's was white. Then she goes on to add, why did I want to call

01:44this particular one out? I was hurt, yes. But then these last seven months have been

01:52a relentless parade of comparisons with my predecessor and I've become quite inured.

01:59It was about being labelled black with that quiet subtext of being a woman as if that

02:05was something to be desperately ashamed of. Black is as black does. Not just black the

02:13colour, but black the never do good, black the malaise, the cold despotism and the heart

02:21of darkness. But why should black be vilified? Black is the all-pervasive truth of the universe.

02:29Black is that which can absorb anything, the most powerful pulse of energy known to humankind.

02:37It is the colour that works on everyone, the dress code for office, the luster of evening

02:43wear, the essence of kajol, the promise of rain. As a four-year-old, I apparently asked

02:50my mother whether she could put me back in a womb and bring me out again all white and

02:57pretty. I've lived for over 50 years buried under that narrative of not being a colour

03:05that was good enough and buying into that narrative of not seeing beauty or value in

03:11black, of being fascinated by fair skin and fair minds and all that was fair and good

03:18and wholesome and a feeling that I was a lesser person for not being that which had to be

03:25compensated somehow. Now these words stunned the country and many of those who suffered

03:32similar deprivations spoke out their deepest angst. Among them was Kani Kusruti who left

03:40if you recall a lasting impression with a performance in Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine

03:46as Light, the first Indian film to win a grand pre-award at Cannes. Soon after Sharada spoke

03:54up, Kani wrote an impassioned column in a leading daily of how even as a child her relatives

04:01asked her to wear only light-coloured clothes because as they said if you wear black or

04:07any other shade we can't see you. She went on to add there is a hierarchy of colour especially

04:13for women and girls and therefore of beauty. In another instance, model and actress Pallavi

04:20Das recounted how she was on the verge of bagging a lead role in a television show only

04:27to learn that the channel had rejected her on grounds of her skin colour. Ironically,

04:34five years ago Das was the face of Glow and Lovely, the new name for India's most famous

04:39skin whitening cream, the cream brand that was called Fair and Lovely earlier. Now after

04:45worldwide protests including the Black Lives Matter movement, Hindustan Unilever replaced

04:51the word Fair with Glow in 2020 to make it Glow and Lovely. Yet despite the condemnation the skin

05:00lightening market continues to boom in India. It is now worth 1.5 billion dollars or close to

05:07rupees 12,800 crore with the overall market growing at an annual average of 7%. Meanwhile,

05:16despite growing awareness matrimonial ads continue to push for light-skinned brides.

05:23A recent survey of such ads showed that over 60% of Indian men preferred fair-skinned women,

05:3160%. Colourism prevails in our workspaces as well, that bias is most visible in the

05:37appearance focused industries such as tourism and hospitality, aviation, retail, media and

05:44entertainment. Also Hindi films are replete with examples of dark-skinned women being cast in

05:51tertiary and stereotypical roles. Seldom do you find them as leading ladies or even heroes in an

05:59industry dominated by fair-skinned heroines and heroes. India Today spoke to Radhika Parameswaran,

06:07a professor at the Media School at Indiana University in the US, who has done extensive

06:11research on colourism in India and what she said was truly revealing. Radhika told us,

06:18and I'm quoting her, the fetish for light skin has magnified in India in the past two decades,

06:26especially with the explosion of social media. So rather than diminishing, it has magnified,

06:32she says, in the past two decades. All other factors being equal, she went on to say,

06:38a light-skinned person is likely to be favoured for a work opportunity. Now listen to that

06:44carefully, a light-skinned person is likely to be favoured for a work opportunity. So it is obvious

06:51that colour biases against dark complexioned individuals is widely prevalent across the

06:56country. So let's briefly examine the reasons why this has happened. Some scholars like Dr. Vivek

07:04Kumar, a JNU sociologist, whom India Today spoke to, pointed out a very interesting fact. He said,

07:11our gods, Vishnu, Shiva, Ram, Krishna, are all portrayed as dark-skinned. Draupadi,

07:20the beautiful queen of the Mahabharata, is dark-skinned too. So why did Indians then develop

07:27a fetish for fair skins? Vivek Kumar traces that bias to when the first fair-skinned Indo-Aryans

07:35encountered the dark-skinned Dravidians, the original inhabitants of India, and then began

07:42to rule over the people and designated themselves as nobility. Controversial point, but this is

07:49something he talks about, but he makes it clear, Vivek makes it clear, that the modern-day obsession

07:55with colourism came because of the colonial powers, particularly the British, who ruled India

08:01longer than the others did. So our association of beauty with white skin is then the curse left by

08:09our European colonial rulers. By the time the British left, colourism had taken firm root in

08:16the Indian psyche. Women came to bear a disproportionate brunt of this unfair burden.

08:25As caste patriarchy and economic status combined to create a sense of inferiority, let's put it,

08:33on those who had dark complexion. Hurtful names like Kali or Kalia are common taunts and this saw

08:42an entire generation of young children grow up believing that they are not good enough because

08:47of the colour of their skin and had to suffer immense trauma. Psychologists say that people

08:54who face colour biases are more likely to develop hypertension, psychological distress, and other

09:01health-related issues, and the reason is they internalize their shame, anxiety, and fear,

09:07which may then manifest in cognitive or physical stress, say doctors. So what do we need to do

09:14about it? There are growing movements that go by the hashtag, dark is divine and brown is beautiful.

09:23Many companies have come up with exclusive makeup for the darker Indian skin tone.

09:28Others are even advocating what they call skin neutrality or treating the skin as just another

09:34organ and not drawing attention to it at all. Many celebrities, including Alia Bhatt, have been

09:40posting selfies free of makeup, filters, and touch-ups to show that they too have blemishes

09:47and have far from perfect skins. Now researcher Radhika Parmeshwaran, whom I quoted earlier,

09:54believes that campaigns by celebrities against colour discrimination can only be a start. These,

10:01she says, do not go deep into the caste and class consciousness of the Indian psyche. Radhika

10:09believes that sensitization needs to start early in elementary school itself. Each of us need to

10:18deeply introspect on this ingrained bias, change our mindsets, and get rid of prejudices, and that

10:25should start with our children. To end, I was moved by the way Sharada Muralidharan, the bureaucrat,

10:33ended her now-famous Facebook post with how it was her children who helped overcome her own

10:40diffidence about her colour. As she wrote, tell my children who gloried in their black heritage,

10:47who kept finding beauty where I noticed none, who thought that black was awesome, who helped me see

10:55that black is beautiful, that black is gorgeousness, that I dig black. That is a

11:04powerful message for all of us to change our mindsets and prejudices against skin complexion.

11:11And for a more in-depth perspective, do read the latest India Today cover story on the issue.

11:17Thank you for being with me in this episode of Nothing But The Truth.

11:20I look forward to having you with me next week.

11:26Nothing But The Truth.

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