Fairness creams, BLM and the Colourism Saga

The uprising around the #BlackLivesMatter movement has shifted the focus back to racial inequality and bias and created ripple effects across the globe. One of the biggest targets have been brands selling skin lightening products who have been accused of racism, discrimination and blatant colourism. Well, marketers are known to ride on the mass sentiment to drive their targeting efforts and ad campaigns, of course peppering it up with ‘colours’ and spices to increase the appeal. But, are they right in doing so? May be yes, as they would quickly roll in the creativity angle – well supported by free hand of market forces where consumerism rules the roost. Also pertinent to ask, is it fair to blame them alone for perpetuating colourism? Not necessarily so, I’d argue, at least in the Indian context.

The fact is that the general notion in India is ‘Fair is beautiful’ and that fairness is a top perceived attribute of beauty. Fair skin has long been part of India’s national psyche and our obsession with lighter skin dates back to pre-historic times. Broadly speaking, this can be attributed to two causes. First is the colonial legacy where invaders, rulers and settlers in medieval times were relatively light-skinned and carried enormous racial prejudices. The most prominent being the British who ostentatiously held on to light-skinned Indians as allies while keeping rest of the ‘blacks’ in subservient positions. They even went on to name their favourite settlements as ‘White Town’ and denigrating the Indian settlements as ‘Black Town’. The second is the bias stemming from our caste and cultural roots – with origins in Hinduism. The four-tiered caste system had an inherent bias towards upper castes like the Brahmins and Kshatriyas who were regarded as powerful and elite and were fair-skinned, while lower castes like Vaishyas and Shudras performed drudgerous manual tasks and had darker complexions. Despite the economic and technological progress we have made over the years, our social structures are still ingrained in the dark ages, and ‘fair skin’ is still perceived as an evidence of financial and social status of a person.

What is worse is the fact that wounds of colourism are being magnified by blades of misogyny, patriarchy and sexism piercing hard through them – giving rise to ‘gendered’ colourism. If being dark-skinned was anything but a social stigma, being a dark-skinned woman exacerbates this even more. This has resulted in a stereotype that only fair-skinned women can be educated, successful, marriageable and beautiful. Indian matchmaking industry has for years been serving the cocktail of sexism, casteism and colourism through glorified Matrimonial ads which proudly and shamelessly describe prospective brides using different skin tone shorthand such as f= fair, vf= very fair, vvf= ver very fair etc. Have you seen similar descriptions for prospective grooms? Instead, “Tall, Dark and Handsome” is more than ok. Even the most celebrated Hindu mythological heroes – Lord Rama and Lord Krishna are depicted as “blue” as their skin was so incredibly dark that it had a bluish hue. Lord Shiva, commonly regarded as “Mahadev” or “The God of Gods” is also described to be intensely dark—even blue. And while the ancient scriptures portray Indian Goddesses Kali and Parvathi – revered for their power and strength, as dark-skinned, modern contemporary India has an unfettered association of divinity with light-skin. The much acclaimed Bollywood’s love affair with colourism has been featured in songs that glorify fair skin, often giving an impression that love and romance are the preserve of those with light-skin only.

So, going back to the question, companies selling cosmetics products such as Unilever, L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson weren’t the ones who initiated the skin tone bias, but they just capitalized and exploited societal prejudices that existed since time immemorial. Well, endorsing such rigid, prejudicial beliefs is not ‘fair’ (pun intended) on moral/ethical grounds, but marketing is a different animal. And marketers are yet to understand (let alone adopt) the concept of socially responsible ads, unlike their counterparts in the investing world. The recent makeover exercise involving dropping of words such as ‘fair’, ‘white’ and ‘light’ from marketing campaigns and replacing them with ‘brightening’ or ‘Glow’ and matchmaking portals removing skin tone filters, may at best serve as lip service to eliminating colourism. Importantly, it may help pacify the social media frenzy to boycott them, in the short term.

But beyond accusing cosmetics companies as being champions of colourism, we need to first learn to accept an inclusive and diverse form of beauty to reflect the modern, progressive and aspirational India. Its high time, we Indians shed the perceived negative undertones of melanin and instead start embracing and celebrating the natural skin color. Anything natural is truly ethereal, sublime, beautiful and ‘fair’.