India’s Love For Fair Skin Made Believe I Was Ugly
200 years of Colonial rule let colorism dig deep roots in our psyche.
The world is revolting against years of systemic racism in America, yet everyone’s hush hush about gendered colorism India. Even now, people dismiss discrimination against dark-skinned women that people as non-existent.
Being a dark-skinned woman in India invariably means ugly, lower caste, inferior, incompetent. Sadly, people who make colorist remarks are often family, friends, and boyfriends.
I’ve been on the receiving side of those comments. Here’s my story.
How It All Began
In the summer of 1997, a new girl in my school was asked to sit beside me. I was delighted to make a new friend, but the girl howled and cried her eyes out. No matter what the teacher said, she would not stop sobbing.
When a lighter skin-toned girl sat next to her, her tears stopped.
“I don’t want to sit beside her. Her knees are so dark,” the girl said.
I can’t put into words how hurt and flabbergasted I was. Were my dark knees going to smear her light skin dark?
From that moment on out, I stopped wearing clothes that exposed my knees. I believed I was ugly. I wanted people to like me.
Little Moments
No boy in school ever gave me a rose on Rose Day or showed any kind of romantic interest. But all my light-skinned friends got multiple roses.
I wanted boys in school to woo me. I wanted to be that girl with fair skin who could wear clothes of any color and apply baby pink lipstick. If I wore anything other than blue, black, maroon, brown, and grey I got frowned upon.
When my sister and I would go out to play in the park with the other kids, we (along with a little girl from Nigeria) would not be allowed in the coveted “girl gangs” and fun parties.
These girls, who’d discuss world problems like grown-ups, called my sister horrible names because she was darker than I was.
Then, we became friends with an elderly lady who lived in the same building and loved both of us dearly.
She’d say, “Your sister is so beautiful!” I smiled and wondered, “Does she really mean that? Isn’t dark ugly?”
At home, relatives were very concerned. “How will they get married?” They had firsthand accounts of how difficult it can get for dark-skinned girls to get grooms. In the local newspapers, the matrimonial columns read, “Looking for a very fair, beautiful, and slim girl for…”
I started applying a face mask made of besan and haldi, hoping to lighten my skin color.
Years later, after I graduated from an esteemed University in South India, I returned home and met my first Prince Charming.
A few months into the relationship and he started calling me “kaali and moti” (dark and fat). His constant derides and ridicule led me into depression and self-loathing. After numerous begging not to ridicule me, I left the toxic relationship, scathed but stronger.
At least that’s what I thought.
Then I met the guy of my dreams who loved me for who I was. But my dark skin, freckles, and adult acne bothered the hell out of his mother.
I did not have the right skin to get married to her newly-NRI (Non-Residential Indian) son. I was back to square one.
A friend recently made some colorist and body-shaming comments. When I confronted him, he said, “it’s your insecurity. I am not responsible for that.”
This might seem like a valid argument. “Don’t let it affect you” is a piece of common advice I heard from well-wishers. But no one ever advised the person making such remarks that colorism and racism are ridiculous and prejudiced.
Colorism Has Prevailed In India For Ages
200 years of Colonial rule let colorism dig deep roots in our psyche.
Colonial rule and colorism has taught us that light skin means a better quality life, upper caste, and Colonial favor. Dark skin means lower caste, no education, no favors, low-quality life, and generations of poverty and hunger (4).
It divided us then. It divides us now.
After Colonial rule, dark-skinned people, especially women, fell prey to companies that leveraged India’s obsession with a light skin tone like the “mem shabis.”
They sold their skin-lightening products in the name of confidence. The confidence that helps you get married or land a job.
An Indian cosmetic giant, which started after India’s independence, produces no dark shades of foundation for varied Indian skin tones. They’re in business for over 50 years, yet they are pulling an ostrich when it comes to dark-skinned women’s needs. It feels as if to them, we do not exist.
TV programs depict the Devas (Gods) as fair-skinned, good-looking, and slim. In contrast, the Asuras or Dasyus (Demons/Devils) had dark, had curly hair, white big teeth, and very tall and oversized.
Weren’t the Gods like Lord Shiva, Kaali Mata, and Lord Krishna, referred to as dusky or “blue-skinned”?
Conclusion
Colorism in India has existed across all demographics; it’s an invisible divide that most participants do not accept openly. But the sales graph of skin-lightening products, matrimonial columns, the entertainment industry, and the numerous research papers will tell you the true story of how intra-racial and inter-racial colorism still exists and affects the psychology of dark-skinned women.
Be kind to people, irrespective of gender, color, caste, and religion. Apologize genuinely if you have hurt someone unintentionally.
Most importantly, see a human being as a human being and not as a bunch of adjectives.
