​Kerala’s Chief Secretary, Sarada Muraleedharan, recently highlighted the persistent issue of color discrimination in Indian society

Challenges of Colourism in Society

• Personal Experience : As a child, I was told to avoid dark colours like black, as it would make me “invisible”. This led to a distaste for lighter colours and a personal preference for black as an adult.
• Negative View: Sarada Muraleedharan, Kerala’s Chief Secretary, highlighted how “blackness” is often viewed negatively, pointing to her own experience with the societal preference for fair skin. 
  • She reflected on her childhood desire to be “white and pretty” as a means to gain acceptance.
• Colour Hierarchy: In Kerala, and many other parts of the world, colourism creates a hierarchy of beauty. “White and pretty” is equated with attractiveness, while darker skin is often viewed as inferior.
• Reinforcing Prejudice: In school, children often compare their skin tones to determine their beauty ranking, reinforcing colour prejudice and offering reassurances based on academic or other attributes for those who do not conform to the beauty ideal.
• Examples: Miss Kerala beauty pageants have discriminated against darker-skinned women, often rejecting stunning candidates due to their complexion.
  • Arathi P M, a journalist, was once told that she was not “presentable” enough to read the news on live television due to her skin tone.
• Media Adjustments: A TV host once joked about lighting adjustments for a show, suggesting that darker skin tones required changes to be camera-ready, reinforcing the colourist bias in public perceptions.
• Reclaiming Blackness: Muraleedharan advocates for embracing dark skin and blackness, declaring it as the “most powerful pulse of energy”. 
  • She emphasizes how black is not only a colour but also a symbol of strength and beauty, used in evening wear, makeup, and more.
• Role of Caste: Rekha Raj’s response to Muraleedharan’s post highlights that in some communities, skin tone isn’t as significant, as people share the same complexion.
  • Instead, the insidious influence of caste remains more prominent, often overshadowing colourism in its own unique way.
• Caste-Based Discrimination: This makes it clear that colourism can often serve as a tool for furthering caste-based discrimination, complicating the dynamics of how society perceives privilege and marginalization.
• Acknowledgement: While there is an outward acknowledgment today of colourism, the question remains whether this is driven by political correctness or a genuine appreciation for the diversity of beauty.
• Popular Culture: Films often play a significant role in perpetuating a narrow beauty standard, largely defined by light skin and sharp features, ignoring the vast diversity present in the country.
• Ingrained Bias: Despite progress in make-up and lighting to accommodate different skin tones, beauty representation still fails to capture the true diversity of the population, presenting a conventional ideal based on deeply ingrained biases.
• Narrow Template of Beauty: The mainstream ideal of beauty often adheres to a template with sharp features and fair skin, dismissing the rich diversity of skin tones and facial features that exist across different regions and communities.

Way Forward

• Fighting Prejudices: The key to overcoming colourism and other prejudices lies in shifting the mindset, starting with children. It is essential that future generations are not burdened with the biases that have persisted in society.
• Broader Vision: Prejudice goes beyond physical appearance; it is rooted in a deeper, more pervasive mindset that assigns value based on superficial traits.

Conclusion

Inclusion should be the cornerstone of cultural representation, in the media, education, and society at large, as we continue to dismantle harmful beauty ideals and embrace the diversity that makes humanity unique.

DOWNLOAD PDF