Image Source: Sayfty
Growing up in a society that does not consider dark as beautiful made me feel that beauty is all about fair skin. As a child, I grew up witnessing the process of arranged marriage when the white-skinned cousins of mine always got the well-to-do and handsome men, and the dark-skinned always got married to men who were considered not so good looking. When all the older women came together to talk about how they should get their daughters married off, judgments and decisions were made based on color. Well, to them and many others in the family, that’s all that mattered. The mentality that dark skinned women are not good looking is a mindset that has been established strongly in almost every Indian family.
My dusky complexion made me feel that I was one among the not-so-good-looking girls of the family or the oddball in a bunch of friends who reveled in their light and fair skin. Films, advertisements, and hoardings made it worse. I could not discuss this situation with anyone thinking it wouldn’t change a thing.
Campaigns such as the Dark is Beautiful led by actress Nandita Das is a ray of hope to thousands of dark women who assume that their worth was based on their dark color.
The campaign even responded to Shah Rukh Khan’s fair and handsome ad that says you need to be fair to be successful. Emami was asked to take down their fair and handsome ad, and Shah Rukh Khan was asked to promote responsible advertising. The pressure to be fair has become a problem for men as well.
The discrimination based on color is an issue in both the urban and rural places. During an interview, Nandita Das recalls her days of social work in an interior village of Orissa, where people did not enjoy electricity or portable water, but every home possessed a tube of fairness cream way past its expiry date. Such is the obsession over fair skin in India.
Though the term racism is hardly used in India, the country is rooted in a strong racist mindset. Many Indian men, including the youth of today, have shown signs of such a mindset especially when it comes to marriage. In fact, it’s ironical that though Indians are globally acknowledged as colored, we have our own way of categorizing different shades of brown skin, and have discriminated the ones who have a darker skin tone.
The Dark is Beautiful campaign has made an impact on the society today, as they’re opening the eyes of people and encouraging them to look beyond color to see the beauty of women. Celebs like Ranbir Kapoor and Bipasha Basu have said no to endorsing fairness products while there are others like Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Katrina Kaif and John Abraham who continue to advertise fairness products.
With successful women like Nandita Das, who do not abide by such stereotypes, India is slowly witnessing a change in attitude and, at least, a few people are beginning to let go of their racist mindset.
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