FAIR: a discussion about colourism in India.
I knew that this topic was long coming, but I never would have imagined this to be the reason that I have decided to put out this article .so the reason is an ad let me explain-
So, considering a good number of my blog audience is from India; so, I know that this is something they are acquainted with so there is a fairness cream in India call 'fair and lovely' which has now changed its name to 'Glow and lovely' even thought the name fair and lovely is still very much present on it's products and for the audience which doesn't know what this is, its a cream that has variants for both men and women alike and promises to make you get a fairer shade instantly. But this isn't what makes them controversial and popular at the same times it's their ads due to which the supreme court had to pass an order to ban these sorts of ads
you guys acquainted with this? let me put forward some articles about this for you to refer
here is an extract do give it a read
"The Indian government banned two Fair & Lovely advertisements after a year-long campaign led by the All India Democratic Women's Congress. When the advertisements were pulled, they were among the most heavily aired advertisements on Indian television alongside this The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has decided to amend the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954. Under this act, brands endorsing pharmaceutical products for fairness of skin, among others, will be fined with a penalty of Rs 50 lakh and will serve a prison time up to five years."
If you are interested to know more you surely can research this easily since this amendment came as of recently in 2019.
But the interesting thing is even after these amendments there continue to be ads about such product don't believe me see for yourself on your televisions and check it out. I bet you you would see at least 6 in a span of an hour. Seeing these ads made me question why aren't the organisations that create these ads not worried because let's face it 50 lakh isn't a small amount and jail who wants to go there?. So I dug deeper into this and found out for the fairness industry the monetary value of 50 lac is quite low because of how much they make, how much the industry makes? about 46% of the total revenue for fashion and makeup based industries is directly linked to the "fairness industry".Interestingly enough even after a high amount of opposition for these ad's alongside the moments like the #unfairandlovelymoment (which we would be talking about later in the blog) fairness product market increased by 15-20% even during this period. This coupled with the fact that according to stats 90% of all people in India use these products.bleaching syndrome became something common.
Makes us ask the question" are Indians obsessed with skin tone ?"
The answer to this question is yes and one word to sum up this obsession -colourism. ( a social evil)
So, if the word colourism didn't give away what it is let me put forward the meaning of the word
Discrimination based on skin colour, also known as colourism or shadeism, is a form of prejudice or discrimination usually from members of the same race in which people are treated differently based on the social implications from cultural meanings attached to skin colour.
when one puts thought and research into this even though it would be difficult to admit but this is the reason for being obsessed with fairness in India.
.WHY THIS DISCRIMINATION?
So, before I talk to you about my experience with colourism I would like to highlight an almost brief timeline of colourism and how colourism is still present today in the lifetime of a person and why it has become a popular notion IN COUNTRIES LIKE INDIA AND A GOOD NUMBER OF OTHER COLONISE TOO.
While putting forward my research one topic puzzled me in aa country like India in which the motto unity in diversity is popularised and a region with varying skin tone how did the notion of colourism come about because as we know the fairness products aren't a new thing in India so obviously there should have already had been the ideology of colourism even for this project to take off.
SO, HERE IS WHAT I FOUND OUT.
before we talk about it in terms of a persons life and its events lets explore history to see if this was present before.
social caste systems even in the history of India played a role up until some point of time the documented data showed that caste and colour both played a role in India's infamous caste hierarchy system and we can see that colourism in deep roots within the caste system itself...upper-caste Bhramins were normally a cast in which the people would be fairer and vice versa while lover caste kshatriyas was a cate associated with people with darker skin tone. According to the historians, the initial segregation for cast itself was based on colour. But, this colour based hierarchy took a new turn and because worst from its status of bad when we were colonised as a good number of our audience is already acquainted with the rule of the British alongside their treatment of Indians, people of different race and also the devastating slave trade. One of their ideologies that The British, who had fair skin brought about was that they began preaching their idea of being superior and more intelligent as a race and hence meant to rule over inferior humans all of whom had darker skin colour. They built certain which prohibited the entry of people of darker complexion. This wasn't the only thing their preference and hierarchy of their servents also showed this as the fairer servants were treated better and when the colonial era ended in many regions these toke over the empire of their British landlords as they were the chief associates. The notion of colourism was so strong that a leader like Mahatma Gandhi too believed and professed it early on in his life (do read his earlier encounters in Africa where he having a relatively fairer complexion deemed himself superior to the natives) but came to a quick realisation that he was wrong .Colourism is not only been a part of history but still exist. Historically India was divided as two races Aryans and Dravidians alongside the regions of existence another factor that laymen use to separate it based on older accounts is the complexion this can be seen even now when some people stupidly use this to differentiate between south Indian and north Indians and if you live in India I am sure you would have seen this happen this is also used for mockery. I have faced this in my day to day life.
as we have established the history of this in India lets talk about its presence in our life
Like life itself lets start from the beginning, no not the beginning of the universe but of our live's which of course is our birth. You would be quite surprised that even in this scenario colourism exist the very first thing that we are judged about (of course after our gender which is important to determine one's sex) is our colour by our relative and by parents too! our beauty is compared with colour, this is a greater issue when your colour is different from that of your parent in this scenario questions are raised you would have at least had one encounter where at least one person you know would use colour as a reference point of the child's beauty. Let me share with you my encounter so I am from a part of India where the skin tone of the people is at a level considered intermediate.so in this region my native I still remember how the father accused the mother of cheating just because of the fact that their kids were of an intermediate darker skin tone completely disregarding genetics, he even went to the extent of saying that the kid wasn't his he told his kid had to be as fair as him. Can you ever imagine how it would feel if this was something that you heard from your parent? this isn't an isolated incident in rural parts to a great no of such and worse cases can be seen, people even go to the extent of disowning the kids based on this alone. Not only this early on we are prevented from going out and playing and the reason stated is what if you get a tan or what if you get darker. I assure you the people around you even members of your own family have helped propagate such ideologies'.This is also popularised by the fairy tales which early on in life is what we use to gain morals her as always referred the maiden or the princes are referred to as "fair" but the villain never.is this rally the literature and idea we want to instil into our kids. even though ppl use artificial tan ppl still can't accept an original tan. People have referred to this as a curse I didn't say, sane people, did i.
This is even more prominent when we reach what is supposed to be the best years of our life which according to me is an overstatement _, of course, I am talking about our school days the very first time we become judgemental which leads us to treat everything as a joke. even we see within our schools even though we might be friends with ppl of all skin tones but the butt of all jokes would be ppl at the extremes. I am pretty sure that even if I single one of you out and ask you " have you observed people being mocked and called names based on their colour ?" I am pretty sure you would admit to having observed such an event. PEER PRESSURE IS ALSO A CULPRIT HERE. I wouldn't lie to you I too have mocked people for their skin tone, I still remember the day that I mocked one of my friends on account of his skin tone due to the peer pressure and my stupidity, I repent for that even today just like I did that day it was the stupidest thing I have done .i lost a friend due to this even various other events too acted as a muse for me to look at a person beyond their colour one of those events even involved karma ( people started to make horrible names for me whenever I dot a tan calling me things like "brownie" and some other terms which I cannot even mention ) I changed from being a person who was afraid of getting tanned to a person who started to advocate against such practices because now I realised how it feels. So, I do advice you, stop judging a person by their colour.this is not the only thing preferential treatment by teachers based on colour and look is at a rise with 34%+ reported cases based on a control group and like me u sure would have seen this too.and do tell me what is this weird notion of an unappealing colour/tone of beige.One major reason why this topic is personal to me is because I, my cousin and a lot of people I know personally have faced these we are pushed away our appearance being the reason why.
A HUMBLE APPEAL TO YOU ALL IF UR REFERRING TO A PERSON BY THE COLOUR OF THEIR SKIN ATLEAST HAVE THE COURTESY TO USE PROPER WORDS TO REFER TO THEM EXAMPLE FAIR.NO ONE CARES TO BE CALLED DARK CHOCOLATE AND OTHER SUCH NAMES.
currently, I am in a state of dilemma let me explain why "I am from a very small ethnicity in India in which we have a very small population of people with no set skin colour or anything all tied down only by the language we share. I can't even go to my school and talk in it because no one is even interested based on my skin colour and appearance I am passed off as a member of another culture altogether.
something ridiculous happened, I have been asked if I was Srilankan which by itself wasn't an issue but I know why they assumed that but it became an issue when I told them my ethnicity and they comment made disgusted me, what was the comment you may ask well if u want to know, here it is "aren't u supposed to be fairer" so according to them the only way I can belong to my community is if I was fairer. like really!
I have seen in my school how the people are treated by other students based on ethnicity and colour for more than 3 months in my new school there where groups which were formed within my class among students based on ethnicity and if closely observed colour where the interactions were limited by colour .and stats of the country don't tell me that isn't there in your school too. We all know this is an issue but have you ever wondered why this issue hasn't faded away I know fairness products have a huge contribution to this but if u observe even closely you would see a bigger culprit that has at least affected this generation, that is, you guessed it the influence of "bollyyyywooood" you know I am right about it but if your still wondering let me be your guide and explain.
Influence of Bollywood on colourism: I am sure that all of us have grown up watching Bollywood films ( that is if u live in India) even if you haven't we would have seen these actors somewhere else, let me give you some time to think about it...................... If you guessed ads you are right if u watch tv or any other source of media in India one thing that you cannot avoid is the ad market in India and of course who better to advertise that the stars of Indian cinema where Bollywood was a dominant industry for a large amount of time. Think about the first-ever fairness cream ad you would have seen .let me guess the brand ambassador was a Bollywood star trust me I know I have grown up seeing these ads on almost a daily bases some of these ads which have and products which have been endorsed have put forward an image that the way to succeed is a fair skin or complexion if u want reference ads do check out the older 'fair&lovely' or 'fair&handsome" ads.
another way that Bollywood has influenced colourism is by what s known as the actor transformation which has been used by actors, actresses, singers alike where to look what according to their standards "presentable" have changed their skin tones which in turn has helped in promoting this. I dare you guys to search the pictures of various actors, models and singers they're so-called before and after fame pics, this transformation can be seen so clearly that for some you would feel that you are looking at different people. But, can you blame them the industry it elf is to blame because of their casting if you see the older Bollywood flicks you can see the beauty standards were based on fairness where role hierarchy was based on the colour the hero and heroine were fairer as compared to the villain it can be noted that this has changed a bit but a good element of this persists where we see that most of the actors with prominent roles are the ones who have a lighter skin tone if you go forward and watch interviews of casting directors in news media like NDTV we get to know what roles are given to what skin tone.
This issue has become a much bigger one due to the introduction of bronzers using which the skin tone of the fairer actors is varied so that they can portray those roles which are put aside for people of a certain colour profile.so the industry can restrict them, this problem according to me is much more prominent in Bollywood industry than any other and the problem is in India a god 40% of people use this as a standard of beauty.
don't even get me started on how colourism is seen even in the content of their movies. But since I want you to understand let me give you one example, if you want to try to find such cases by yourself I surely can suggest you movies of the top of my head 'vivah' is one such popular movies for example in the blockbuster movie bagrangi bhaijan when he perceives the girl as a brahmin due to her skin tone, even in our film industry the roles that require dark tone individuals by script demand don't get the roles
look I too love Bhai like every Indian but you got to consider the dialogues when you say them out.it has also been seen when in popular tv shows ppl from different regions are represented for example: when in shows a south Indian has to be represented whom firstly for some stupid reason is called a Madrasi the character is normally played based on a stereo-typically coloured or a person who has a certain complexion. One more such example can be seen how Lord Krishna whose name itself talks about his colour which is a darker skin tone is portrayed in the tv series where even though the mythology itself talks about his colour the casting is done based on the people's appeal and normally very fair ppl have taken up this role some even refuse to see Krishna as a god having a darker complexion. The way it is moving the only way I can think to stop this is to bring back black and white movies as a standard form.
another trend as also helped in the propagation of the idea of colourism. you would have guessed it by now the thing I am talking about is the different beauty filters that are used in various apps the problem may not lie in the app itself but how people use it a good example is the comparative pics of tik tok stars were to enhance the way they look they use these filters normally ton look fairer in India alone the number is staggering, this then puts forward a message of how fairer = prettier both in the eyes of the tik-toker and the general population itself. the very fact that we use filters to change our colour shows how much in a day to day life we perceive colour with beauty the very fact that now photogenic has become equivalent to fair skin shows this a very popular but irrelevant stream currently the likes of tik u can see that using multiple filters associated with this app ppl change their skin colour or complexion and one wouldn't recognise them if encountered in real life
the very fact that in tik-tok at least in India the popularity is proportional to the skin tone of the actor shows this fact
Another, region where colourism is become quite prominent in recent times (ok a good trace of this could be even seen in ancient times) most prominently in some groups in India in the region of relationship and marriage with the later being seen more prominently in arranged marriages. Let me start by talking about crushes because we are teens got to have those right.so, according to a 2018 survey in which a control group was selected and the questions based on the datebility and skin tone was raise in both the male and female category a 60%+ people chose a date based on the fairer skin colour alone, with the male population preference for fairness being upwards of 74%. These numbers are ridiculous I know, but this isn't the only set of numbers check out the graph below
the amount of foundation used is ridiculous. I wouldn't deny this anyway I have heard multiple rants about the colour o a bride or grooms skin within my family circle. Also, rather than make you scavenge the internet for these reports and graphs let me bring forward some good examples
here are some matrimonial ads can you spot what I common in them?
still not convinced? let's bring out the statistics
skin complexion vs matrimonial preference chart based on a control group of 15 lakh + people of different regions speaking a different dialect
Colourism has made dowry worse than it was. Now the amount of dowery depends on the colour of the skin SEE FOR YOURSELF HOW COLOURISM MADE A BAD ISSUE WORSE.
If you tell me but colourism hasn't provoked crimes then for you I have multiple examples of cases of honor killing and also cases like somera bibi .-ve stereotype haven't helped the cause.
How progressive are we if we talk of colour as a .....?
There are a lot more issues than I could highlight colourism in India(which includes how presentability being correlated with colour has to lead to the preferential job market or the fact that anti-blackness has a big prominence in India) but think these are enough for you to get a general idea. Now let's talk about how people and we have a community cope with this issue( which is an unhealthy obsession) and is it highlighted enough.
Well, firstly how we cope changes from one person to another person but it would be safe to say that the initial reaction to this isn't something that we can endorse the popularity of fairness brands itself can be considered as an indicator of this reaction which is we for some reason try to change our skin's complexion, I am guilty of it I was so fed up with comments about my colour that every time I got a tan I would try to remove it using lemon, several people take this to an extreme and society has a big part to play in this. I have seen people stop drinking coffee and doing way weirder stuff because they have an irrational fear of becoming darker. The next step that people make is treating their skin colour as some defect that they were born with or have gained which is not at all a healthy thing. In such scenarios colourism=insecurity and since we are insecure about one aspect other insecurities pile up.
ANY OTHER OF MY INSECURITY WAS AMPLIFIED I FELT I WAS UNATTRACTIVESo, what is the next step? the next step which I think is the most important of all is talking and spreading awareness about the issue at hand this article itself was inspired because I have heard someone else come out and highlight this issue in a manner I never could. THIS ALSO INCLUDES CONCLUDING THE FACT THAT IT DOSN'T MATTER WHAT TYPE OF BEIGE WE ARE. Obviously, in progression, the next step would have been to reach out to more people about this issue well absolutely and this as been done and you would be happy to know that social media has a great influence too. movements like the #unfairandlovely were important for people to come out and share their stories of colourism. When famous personalities have changed colour by artificial means we have raised concern and questioned them and the message they intend to propagate. People have realized to see people not based on the colour of their skin but who they are.now even popular media and entertainment industry has made it a point to high light his issue one show I would like to single out is Blackish.another thing that has helped is a knowledge of how all of us have a different colour and if you would like to know more about it just check out the info below. SCIENCE OF COLOUR OF SKIN
(THE COLOUR DETERMINED FROM MELANIN -UMELANIN AND THEOMELANIN
HOW CAN WE CONSIDER AN EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE LIKE THIS AS A DEFECT IN A PERSON?
MELANIN TYPE AND AMOUNT HELPS TO DEVELOP COLOUR THIS WAS A DEFENSE FOR PROTECTION FROM SUN
EVOLUTIONARY FITTER
LITTER SKIN ABSORB MORE LIGHT
ADAPTABILITY
BEIGE IS COMMON IN ALL COLOUR)these are just some vague topics for you to use to do your research into this issue
We have a community have reformed a lot, but realise this until even one of us refers to a person by the colour of our skin or a nickname for it colourism will persist. Let's ALL TAKE A STANCE AGAINST COLOURISM AND EMBRACE OUR SKIN TONE, IF THIS IS SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO I URGE YOU TO TAKE A SELFIE OF URSELF WITH NO makeup OR FILTERS AND POST IT AS A STORY ON YOUR PAGE TO SHOW THAT YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH WHAT COLOUR OF SKIN YOU HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH(USE # LIKE #UNFAIRANDLOVELY,#NATURALSKINTONE, #OWNIN_MY_SKINTONE,#nofilter,#embracingmyskintone,#naturalbeauty, #OWNINGMYCOLOUR, ETC TO CONVEY THE MESSAGE.
(P.S. I ASK YOUR APOLOGIES IF I HAVE SAID SOMETHING WRONG IN THE ARTICLE IT IS UNINTENTIONAL. I AM SORRY FOR CONVEYING IT IN MY ARTICLE. I DIDN'T MEAN TO OFFEND ANYONE BUT JUST WANTED TO BRING FORWARD THE ISSUE AT HAND THIS DISCRIMINATION)
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