HIGH SCHOOL FINALST - Eshwar Venkataswamy

Eliminating Dark Skin Stigma in the Indian Community

Eshwar Venkataswamy, Grade 11
Athens, Pennsylvania

THE PROBLEM

“Eshwar, ullē vā — you shouldn’t play out in the sun this long,” my mother yells from the kitchen, shaking her head in frustration as I continue to chase the young goat across the unpaved dirt road. Neighbors and street vendors glance at my light-skinned parents and, confused, ask “Is he your child?” Strangers place supportive hands upon my father’s shoulder, apologizing for my blackness and suggesting I use skin lighteners: Fair & Lovely or Pond’s. Even when alone, I witness television advertisements starring inspirational celebrities like Priyanka Chopra promote messages of dark-skin inferiority; in one, an unemployed dark-skinned woman receives multiple job offers from industry-leading firms after using Fair & Lovely. Films like Sivaji which I have watched hundreds of times carry scenes in which dark-skinned characters are shamed for their complexion, achieving comedic effect at the expense of dehumanizing blackness. Such experiences and explicit references to my dark skin have plagued my early childhood in India.

Colorism is the discrimination against people due to the shade of their skin. A prevalent issue, communities across India regard blackness unpleasant and evil, often stereotyping those with darker skin tones as dirty and poorly educated. On the contrary, according to a 2004 WHO survey, fair skin is associated with beauty, wealth, and high social status (Mwanza 2019). When asked to describe “prettiness” by Washington University researchers, 71% of sampled Indians included the words “fair” and “light” (Mishra 2015). Similarly, a University of Delhi study found that dark-skinned men and women are consistently rated lower on marriage ads than their lighter- skinned counterparts (Nagar 2018). In employment, dark skin marks one as an unskilled laborer, one who toils in the sunny fields or cleans human waste as opposed to one who leads a sheltered and privileged lifestyle. Fair skin’s correlation with higher socioeconomic status has resulted in severe gaps in income, educational attainment, and professional status among the more successful and desirable light-skinned Indians and dark-skinned ones (Jones 2013). Furthermore, one study discovered a correlation between symptoms of depression and Asian-American women who have dark skin (Tran et al. 2016).

The social capital associated with fairness in India has led many to use skin-lighteners and bleaching agents to whiten their skin. In fact, six of every ten Indian women use such products which make up half of all spending in the Indian skincare market and a $500 million industry (Dixit 2019). Most creams that capitalize on India’s obsession with fairness are not considered safe, containing chemicals like mercury and hydroquinone. The WHO has recently issued a warning about skin-lighteners, claiming that they may cause skin rashes, discoloration, scarring, and reduction of the skin’s resistance to bacterial and fungal infections as well as kidney damage (Pollock et al.

2021). Despite the vast majority of skin bleachers who understand the resultant pathological harms, some value fairness to such an extent that risk of bodily injury is ultimately neglected.

THE HISTORY

While colonizing India, British imperialists, to facilitate categorization of Indians during census-taking, equated one’s skin tone to their varna or caste identity (Dhillon 2015). Brahmins, priests and teachers, were associated with whiteness and purity while the Kshatriyas, warriors and soldiers, were represented by the color red, symbolic of their slightly darker pigmentation acquired from military training. The color yellow described Vaishyas, farmers; landowners; and merchants while the Shudras, artisans; laborers; and craftsmen, identified with the color brown. Excluded from the varna system were the Dalits who performed undesirable services such as cleaning waste and disposing of dead bodies and were signified by the color black. Varna did not initially organize Indian society by skin tone; “only much later in Indian history, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with the hardening of the Hindu caste system and the installation of more commercial ties with Europe, did the varna line become a color line” (Dhillon 2015).

In order to preserve a racial hierarchy that privileged whiteness, the British colonizers reconstructed the caste system in the general ascending order of dark to light skin. They did this through the export of Christian associations of light skin as virtuous and holy and dark skin as evil and base, reinforcing skin-color preferences in India. The British also claimed themselves to be a superior and intelligent race due to their fair skin, being born to rule the inferior and “black coloured” Indians who were more akin to crude animals than humans (Mishra 2015). Entry to restaurants and educational institutions was prohibited for “Black Indians”; in fact, even Nehru was denied membership to a famous British club due to the color of his skin (Mishra 2015). This segregationist attitude manifested itself in the East India Company’s Fort St. George settlement being named “White Town” while their Indian settlement was named “Black Town” (Mishra 2015).

Furthermore, since the number of British colonists was relatively small when they arrived in India, the British desired Indian manpower for the army and workforce. So, they provided employment opportunities to Indians by allowing them to complete odd jobs or low-ranking military positions; here, lighter-skinned Indians were preferred over their dark-skinned counterparts, being hired much more frequently (Mishra 2015). As such, Indians embraced skin-whitening products and skin lighteners to alter their natural skin tones and become fairer; this, they hoped, would provide access to better occupations, marriage prospects, and overall social treatment.

THE SOLUTION

For years, the matrimonial website shaadi.com asked its patrons to indicate their skin color using a scale of descriptors that ranged from “fair” and “wheatish” to “dusky,” permitting users to select their preferences in a potential life partner using skin tone as a filter (Bilkhu 2020). When a Facebook group of South Asian women in North America took note of shaadi.com’s skin tone filter, they immediately launched a petition which received 1500 signatures in 24 hours and pressured shaadi.com into removing the use of skin tone specifications in the matchmaking process (Bilkhu 2020). This small act of protest against traditional norms that ascribe social capital to fairness stimulated the advent of a much larger anti-colorism movement in 2009: the “Dark is Beautiful” campaign which provided a safe space for dark-skinned Indians to speak about their shared experiences, breaking the silence of and raising awareness for the pervasive colorism quandary (Abraham 2017). “Dark is Beautiful” runs media literacy workshops and advocacy programs in schools which explains skin color bias and serves to raise the self-esteem of millions of dark-skinned Indian children who have already been conditioned to view dark skin as ugly and fair skin as beautiful.

Social media plays a key role in dismantling these postcolonial colorist beliefs, especially since it unites individuals to like-minded allies who also question skin tone bias. Alisia Tran, a professor of counseling psychology at Arizona State University, claims that trending hashtags like #brownisbeautiful on Instagram and media literacy events “amass to eventually help us overcome generational prejudices that permeate our societies” (Basu 2020). Maximizing representation of dark-skinned Indians in mass media, casting them in lead roles, widely displaying their beauty, and characterizing them as antithetical to the negative stereotypes associated with blackness. Even popular TV shows like Indian Matchmaking and Never Have I Ever only cast light- skinned Indians. As such, movies like Colour Photo in which dark-skinned characters succeed despite their impoverished and difficult upbringings must introduce unconventional, anti-colorist thought into mainstream media and force its India audience to reconsider its skin tone biases.

India’s younger generations are crucial in paving the path to an anti-colorist world, especially by actively confronting the racist beliefs of their parents and grandparents. We can achieve this by discussing the hurtful implications of colorist comments like “Don’t eat too much soy sauce or you’ll become darker!” and “I prefer to date light- skinned.” By placing such instances of colorism in the spotlight, we may naturally raise awareness for and increase conversation on the issue. Always remember: dark- skinned individuals are humans, too!

REFERENCES

Abraham, Mary-Rose. “Dark is Beautiful: The Battle To End the World’s Obsession With Lighter Skin,” The Guardian, Sep 4, 2017. Accessed from: https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/sep04.

Basu, Brishti. “The People Fighting ‘Light Skin’ Bias,” BBC News, Aug 18, 2020. Accessed from: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200818.

Bilkhu, Raj. “Shaadi.com: Dating Site Removes Skin Tone Filter After Backlash,” BBC News, Jun 23, 2020. Accessed from: https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat- 53146969.

Dhillon, Komal Kaur. (2015). Brown Skin, White Dreams: Pigmentocracy in India. [PhD Dissertation]. Accessed from: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/73702.

Dixit, Neha. “Fair, But Not So Lovely: India’s Obsession With Skin Whitening,” BRIGHT Magazine, Jul 10, 2019. Accessed from: https://brightthemag.com/fair- but-not-so-lovely.

Mishra, Neha. (2015). India and Colorism: The Finer Nuances. Washington University Global Studies Law Review, 14(4). Accessed from: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/article=1553.

Mwanza, Kevin. “India’s Skin Lightening Industry Is Worth Almost $500 M, And 60 Percent of Women Say They Use Products,” The Moguldom Nation, Dec 27, 2019. Accessed from: https://moguldom.com/245117.

Nagar, Itisha. (2018). The Unfair Selection: A Study on Skin-Color Bias in Arranged Indian Marriages. SAGE Open. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018773149.

Jones, Trina. (2013). The Significance of Skin Color in Asian and Asian- American Communities: Initial Reflections. UC Irvine Law Review, 1105. Accessed from: https://scholarship.law.uci.edu/ucilr/vol3/iss4/11.

Pollock, S., Taylor, S., Oyerinde, O., Nurmohamed, S., Dlova, N., Sarkar, R., Galadari, H., Manela-Azulay, M., Chung, H.S., Handog, E. & A.S. Kourosh. (2021). The Dark Side of Skin Lightening: An International Collaboration and Review of a Public Health Issue Affecting Dermatology. International Journal of Women’s Dermatology, 7(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijwd.2020.09.006. Tran, A.G.T.T., Cheng, H., Netland, J.D. & E.R. Miyake. (2016). Far From Fairness: Prejudice, Skin Color, and Psychological Functioning in Asian Americans. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 23(3). DOI: 10.1037/cdp0000128.