When Fair is Unfair!
Desh Bir
There is much hype about equality, constitutional rights, and remedies against discrimination on the basis of colour, caste and creed. Still the truth is that skin tone plays a major role in our daily societal interaction. If Nature has offered to you a light skin tone you feel proud of it and think that you stand a better chance of getting social recognition, respect and standing in society. The recent bad treatment meted out to George Floyd in the US leading to his death created global tremors. This is not a case of simple colour discrimination, it is racism!
For the white people of the west all Indians are dark or brown and therefore people of a subject race. Yet we have our own set of skin-tone valuations. The cosmetic industry pivoted around the idea of selling skin-whitening products runs its multi billion rupee business of dubious authenticity to encash upon the people’s effort to upscale their chances of success by improving their skin tone in the direction of fairness.
The moment a child is born in an Indian family they start asking about its complexion. If it is a brown or dark one, the parents get dismayed and the relatives become sympathisers because a fair, white or light skin is considered a passport to a better job placement or for finding a good husband or happiness.
The truth is that all these beauty aids or skin lightening aids only fetch profits for the concerned industry and what the people aspiring for a fair skin get is only frustration and enhancement in their feeling of inferiority.
Children with brown or dark skin live under a complex at home, at school ,in the market place , on the cultural stage and in the playground. They are disregarded and relegated simply because of their skin tone. They remain unnoticed, unrecognised and very often ignored. This creates a lifelong sense of deprivation and a kind of humiliation which they never deserved because no one ever chooses one’s skin tone . A white skin or fair complexion is considered a certificate for being a superior human being.
In films from Bollywood the lead role is played only by people with a very light , fair, snowy , silken skin and whenever people from lower strata are to be presented , the dark tone of skin is shown as naturally clinging to such strata. All advertisements advocating the use of cosmetics entice the women, young and old, to make use of possible creams, moisturizers and lotions in order to go up the ladder of skin-shades in order to pass for whiter beauties.
Many a young man and most of the young girls, during the preparation for wedding, undergo long sessions of treatment for fairness and end up spending a lot of money on an exercise which is both foolish and futile. Matrimonial advertisements expressly demand that the bride must be fair complexioned.
North Indians in general think of South Indians as dark skinned and falsely think themselves superior. Perhaps it is a fallout of the British rule in India because the English men gave more respect, better treatment and more employment opportunities to Indians with fair skin.
This preference fad for the fair skin is simply unfair because the dark is as beautiful as, or even more beautiful than white skin, if only you have a heart of gold!
(The author is a Retired Principal, Govt.College, Hoshiarpur, Punjab)
