Only Fair Is Beautiful: For Generations, We Have Sold This Insecurity To Young Women

India, following the Black Lives Matter movement, is witnessing a slow surge in awareness about racism. It has given an upswing in sensitivity amongst people, but what remains undiscussed is the deeply rooted concept of colourism that paves way for racism.

“I have always loved pastel colours, but since my childhood, I’ve been told several times to dress in accordance with the colour of my skin. My sister was born wheatish but due to skin allergy, she had toned down and was bullied as other children name-called her such as a witch or a buffalo. Even today a part of our inner voice that makes us believe that we are ugly”, says Aiswarya Kondru, a law student from Odisha.

Following the online trends only when they become trends is a temporary solution to bring about change to eons of conditioning that our society has brought forth in us. The most essential change takes place when children are given an exposure that does not pat the back of concept where “fairness is aesthetic”, an ideology that divided our nation under British colonial rule, as they preferred Indians with light skin and tormented the ones with a dark complexion.

Fairness Is ‘Not’ Aesthetic

Older age groups, who suffered the curse of colourism since their childhood till getting blamed for staying unmarried due to their complexion, still think being fair is an ultimatum to power and beauty. Wait! Why do I talk about mid-age groups, when I have witnessed the inheritance of the same mindset in my own surroundings. My very first, unaware and traumatising, encounter to such an ideology was in fifth grade when a boy had called me “kaali” (black). I remember going back home and washing my face frequently and scrubbing it with my nails to get rid of my complexion, thinking it would get off like dust.

Being in fifth grade and knowing that I was not the only one, as I saw how other kids got ridiculed for the same reason irrespective of their gender. How power and beauty belonged to the ones with lighter skin. How our elders kept blaming our mothers to not have eaten “the right ingredients” during pregnancy and hence resulting in an unapproved complexion that was their identity too.

“In my TamBrahm family when girls reach puberty, they have to take turmeric bath after every menstrual cycle. As now that we have reached the stage of womanhood, we cannot afford to have dark skin”, says Shruti, a 23-year-old hailing from Tamil Nadu.

However, reform in this generation starts with the youth and what is being fed to them in the form of knowledge is their future’s identity. Their knowledge that does not only come from textbooks but from co-curricular activities, where the talent of a child is rejected because of the colour of their skin— where playing a role of princess or prince is designated to someone with a light complexion, where choir chooses to place the fairest child instead of finest, where badge holders representing schools are preferred to be fair and lovely— instead of being worthy.

It is not only the complexion that endures discrimination but rather young minds, as the difficulties of children with fair complexion has always been avoided, given they got every opportunity they never asked for.

Ananya, a 15-year-old adds, “I remember getting forced to participate as a lead in one of the programmes at school irrespective of my choice, because I was in kindergarten. All the lead roles were given to kids who were fair. The fascination that teachers had for fair skin was outrageous and inane.”

It would be wrong to decipher that the ones favoured by society do not suffer. Be it fair, wheatish or dark; children’s mental health has suffered from being stressed about the colour of their skin. Children who are like blank boards in their initial stage, do not understand either the privilege or stress given to them, these become writings on their mind that they grow up with subconsciously, disintegrating their pragmatic ability.

It takes years to realise the incorrect nature of their outlook that they have been nurtured with. This very mindset, if successfully ingrained, hampers the growth of innocent life and the future development of society. This very mindset generates bullies. And this ideology of colourism acts as a needle that takes the thread of racism and runs its course throughout the generation.