Shadeism In India
By Stuti Rastogi
It is an open secret in India that fair skin is seen as the beauty ideal. The country which itself has a Band of Colours which go from wheatish tones to dark brown tones, has this prejudice against the dark deeply rooted in the psychology of its people. The testimony of this stereotypical mindset starts with the grandma’s home remedies for fair skin, to matrimonial ads that gives the men options to choose their bride from different skin tones,
then to bizarre Bollywood song’s lyrics like “Hum kaale hain to kya hua dilwale hain”, “Saanwali si ek ladki”, “ Goriya chura na mera jeeya”, “ Ye kaali kaali aankhein ye gore gore gaal”, “ Gore gore mukhde pe kaala kaala chashma”,” Chura ke dil mera goriya chali”, “White white face dekhe “, “Chittiyaan kalaiyaan”,” Kaala chashma jachda ae gore mukhde pe” and the list goes on.
The obsession with fair skin graduates to bullying on the basis of colour not only of girls but also of boys and instils low self- esteem in the young minds. But women are the worst victims of colourism in India, pressuring them to turn to the booming sector of the Indian beauty industry- Skin lightening. The most popular products have titles like “White Perfect”, “White Beauty”, “Light Complete”, “Absolute White”, “Fair & Handsome” and the most popular one i.e., “Fair and lovely” which is now “Glow and lovely” and are made by the biggest western cosmetic companies in the world like Unilever, Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal, Lakme, Garnier to name a few. Around 60% of women in a growing number of men in India say they use these creams and there is no denial with the fact that to sell these off the shelves Bollywood’s biggest celebs like Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Alia Bhatt, Shahrukh Khan, Yami Gautam, Shahid Kapoor, Deepika Padukone have endorsed these products in the past. The Indian mindset that promotes colourism in India completely disregards the genetic makeup and climatic conditions that lead to more or less content of melanin in humans.
THE WAY OUT
The irony is that on one hand where we praise and worship the goddess “Kaali” – the symbol of strength, dark skin tone is still a taboo in India. To learn to be proud of our shades of brown, we first need to unlearn the years of conditioning that considers lighter skin tone as an epitome of beauty and one’s worth.
