Abhay Deol tears into fairness cream ads

Actor-producer Abhay Deol has slammed fairness cream advertisements, featuring celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham, in "reference to a comment made by a politician on TV".

Though he didn't name the politician, he may have been taking a swipe at BJP MP Tarun Vijay, who told Al Jazeera last week: "If we were racist, why would we have all the entire south... why do we live with them if we are racist? We have black people around us."

Following the remarks, Abhay posted a series of fairness cream campaigns on Facebook on Wednesday. "We are not a racist country! I will prove it to you. In the picture below, John holds a card with shades from white to dark. Hey! You can see the promise of darker skin too if you read the card from left to right!," he said.

"He's not telling you to go from right to left. Duh! Even if the writing on the tube reads 'Intensive fairness moisturiser'. It just means it's 'fair' to all who use it," the actor captioned the image.

In another one, featuring actress Vidya Balan, he wrote: "This one asks the question 'How true is your fairness?' And further asks if you just have an 'outer white layer' or is your 'radiant fairness from within?' It even has the words 'Veda' in the packaging and that goes to prove we are originally white from within. Know your history folks!"

It wasn't just about women endorsing skin whitening brands. He shared an ad with the image of actor Shahid Kapoor. He wrote alongside the image: "His face is dark on the right only because that part of the paper was left exposed to the sun. They are clearly not trying to show a dark shade going on to light. Shame on you to think our celebs would be so irresponsible, there's a good explanation for everything!"