In a white and black world

A matter-of-fact observation, one made by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Tarun Vijay and another by young Bollywood actor Abhay Deol, has reignited the debate on skin colour. Coming from a political leader, Tarun Vijay’s view on shades of skin vis-à-vis attacks on Africans in the National Capital Region in an interview with Qatar-headquartered Al Jazeera TV channel has outraged many sections of society, particularly South Indians.

His observation during the course of his recent TV interview was outrageous, to say the least. But we, South Indians, have to accept the fact that a majority of North Indians believe even today that the South is ‘black’ and the North is ‘white.’

When Tarun Vijay said, “India was not a racist country (in reference to allegations made by some African countries over assaults) because we “live with...black people around us ... If we were racist, why would...all the entire South – you know, Kerala, Tamil, Andhra, Karnataka – why do we live with them?” he had merely blurted out the popular feeling among the North Indians.

The most unfortunate thing is, none, particularly the political class, has done anything to dispel the wrong notion or correct the false impressions created by some sections of people. On the other hand, the complexity of complexion is being exploited by a majority of people and the cosmetics industry in this country.

A look at the matrimonial columns and creams, potions, lotions, soaps, herbal remedies, et al reveal how skin deep the ‘colour’ phobia is. Parents want ‘fair & lovely’ girl for their son, doesn’t matter how dark he is. If the girl is a shade darker, complexion can be traded off for a fat dowry. In other words, a ‘black girl’ becomes ‘fair & lovely’ if her parents accede to the prospective groom’s demands!

In fact, boy’s parents boast how they have selected a ‘very fair’ girl for their boy (dark complexioned, of course) and how they have waited for years to choose the ‘right’ girl as their daughter-in-law.

The skin colour fixation is much more in India than in any other country. One reason could be every person, male or female, has a unique skin tone compared to other people elsewhere. There is also a general notion that ‘white’ is beautiful and the notion is constantly promoted through powerful marketing techniques which create a self-illusion that the fairer the skin, the better the person’s success scores are.

An illustrative example is TV ads showing how a fair-skinned woman steals the show when she walks into a social gathering or an office conference room.

Here the message is clear. If you want to be successful in life, the tone of your skin does matter and plays a crucial role in matters of job and matrimony. Subconsciously, this point is driven through commercial ads in the print and digital media by various manufacturers to boost their beauty products that promise to change the pigment of skin in a jiffy.

Those who fall prey to them hardly notice that what they show on the TV or computer screen or in colour ads in the print media are only the face – half fair and half dark – to highlight the change. What about other parts of the body? Nobody talks!

While the claims of products promising fair skin are questionable, their endorsement by celebrities is unethical. It is common knowledge they do it for fat sums. But such tacit visual approvals can have profound effect on the unsuspecting and gullible people, particularly women who keep spending a fortune hoping to become fairy queens one day. It’s misleading.

That’s what prompted Abhay Deol to take to social media to voice his dissent against fairness creams and their endorsements by some members of his film fraternity. In a series of posts on his Facebook page, Abhay took potshots at almost all celebrity actors and actresses for supporting ad campaigns promoting lighter skin through various products.

He also shared pictures of Shah Rukh Khan, Shahid Kapoor, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone, Vidya Balan, Sonam Kapoor among others. Only Sonam has backed Abhay’s tongue-in-cheek posts on ‘unfair’ endorsements for fairness creams. The silence of the rest speaks for itself.

The ex-BJP leader’s view, though regretted later, and the Bollywood actor’s posts bring us to the latent but hardly acknowledged issue of skin colour discrimination in our daily lives. Some equate it with racial bias, a term that should be reserved for discrimination between different races, say blacks and whites in South Africa a few years ago.

Our problem is complexion, more associated with skin tone than race. Still, sometimes, it reflects societal racial overtones. Often, complexion is associated with certain castes in some areas. The fact that it is just a matter of skin pigmentation is of little interest to most people for whom, ‘white’ is supreme and superior and ‘black’ is dark and inferior.

Whether one believes in the superiority of a particular skin shade or not, a survey done a couple of years ago had revealed that pale-skinned women stand better chances in clinching job offers. This doesn’t mean that others are rejected outright.

What it means is if two equally-qualified women appear for an interview, the chances of the fair-complexioned one getting selected are more. Why? There is no convincing answer but the conclusion one could draw, possibly, is her skin!

The same argument can be extended to other fields as well, like modelling, advertising, PR, secretarial services and any other activity that is considered to enhance its value with a light-toned face. Take, for example, fashion shows where the fair-skin rules the ramp.

But what beats our imagination and challenges our intellect is the ‘white skin show’ in Indian films. A pack of girls, obviously imported from the Central Asian Republics, gyrating to pulsating music in bare minimums as the lead characters sing and dance in the backdrop of hills and green fields in Kerala.

The point here is not the ludicrousness of semi-clad light-skinned women doing Indian classical dances in grotesque styles but titillating the audience with fair-skinned exhibitionism to make audience spell bound.

All this explains how deep-rooted the complexion complex is in our real and reel life. It may not be as threatening as some other social evils plaguing the country. But, neither the economic nor the social progress has had much impact on the people’s perceptions of skin colour. Is it not time to change our mindset and start looking at people without wearing coloured blinkers?

By: Madhusudhana Rao S