Unfair and unlovely

Column for Mathrubhumi

(Translated in Malayalam)

If you replace the word "Fair" with "Glow", is it proof that you are not concerned about skin colour? Thanks to the Black Lives Movement in the US, which has drawn attention to the pernicious problem of race, here in India multinational companies have been compelled to question the content of their marketing campaigns and the nature of their products. 

One multinational company, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), which has raked in millions of dollars selling the dream of a fair skin to generations of Indian women, wants us to believe that it has had a change of heart by changing one word in its product. The reality, however, is very different.

For decades, women's groups have objected to the very idea of a cream that will turn darker women fair and in turn, make them more attractive, more successful and certainly more presentable for the marriage market.  They argued that such a concept is not just racist, because it decides a person's worth according to skin colour but in the Indian context it is also casteist, as the marginalised castes are always represented as being darker.  For women, this kind of equation of skin colour and self-worth is even worse in a society where they are regarded and treated as second class citizens because of their gender.

Despite these campaigns, the company went ahead selling the product with the same message: fairer is lovelier.  It made a few changes in its advertising campaign, trying to show so-called "empowered" women but it made no change in either the formulation of the cream, or its name. 

Its success in India only goes to illustrate how our society continues to believe, and reinforce in so many ways, that fair is beautiful and dark is ugly. Generations of little girls grow up believing this, seeing pictures in books, in films, in advertising that always show beautiful women as fair.  Even actresses who have darker skins are forced to take steps to look fairer in order to be successful.

The main objection to this type of product and the message it was sending came from women who were fighting for the rights of women as human beings.  They argued that the worth of a woman should not be reduced to the colour of her skin, or the shape of her body.  Women ought to be respected as citizens, as individuals who have capabilities and talents like anyone else.

Yet, the disease of fairness, that is deeply rooted not just in our colonial past but also in the entrenched system of caste that differentiates between people, will not disappear.  Girls born with a darker skin are always made to feel as if they are inferior.  Their fair-skinned counterparts grow up being liked and applauded for something they did not achieve but something they were born with.  Even if a darker skinned girl is more talented, and indeed more beautiful, she has to struggle much harder to gain recognition than a girl with a light skin, even if she is less intelligent or talented. 

In the US, companies are withdrawing products that promote fair skin.  This is what we need in India, not just a name change.  Only then can companies that have manufactured and promoted such products convince us that they have understood the message that the Black Lives Movement is sending. 

That message is that the colour of your skin should not decide you destiny. That societies that discriminate against their citizens on the basis of their skin colour are racist and unequal. And that to build a just society, the scourge of racial discrimination, and in our case in India also caste discrimination must end.

The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, March 29, 2015

Thank you, Sharad Yadav…

Many women in India are really mad and irritated with Sharad Yadav. The Rajya Sabha MP, who belongs to the Janata Dal (United), thinks nothing of drawing comparisons between Indian women, their skin colour and shape and provisions of the Insurance Bill. Others might find it difficult to make the connect. But not Yadav. Nor some of his fellow male compatriots who were caught on camera laughing at his remarks.

Yet those of us who ‘know’ Sharad Yadav should not really be surprised at what he said. How can we forget his performance as a member of the ‘Yadav Troika’, that band of brothers who have fought determinedly and spiritedly against increasing the representation of women in Parliament? This is the same Sharad Yadav who, in the debate on the Women’s Reservation Bill, attacked Indian women with short hair, charging them with conspiring to increase women’s representation in Parliament.

Since then, there are probably more women in India who have short hair although this has not been the chief reason that the law that Sharad Yadav detests, also known as the 108 Constitutional Amendment Bill 2008, did pass in the Rajya Sabha. Again, we were not surprised to learn that certain members who objected to the Bill had to be physically evicted from the House.

Given his recent verbal history, we should not be alarmed at Yadav’s comments about women’s skin colour. He is being entirely consistent at a time when consistency is not a quality found in many Indian politicians. In fact, perhaps we should thank him. For without meaning to, Yadav has reminded us of something we forget: the fair-skin obsession among Indians. He has also nudged us to remember that the Women’s Reservation Bill still awaits a vote in the Lok Sabha.

Let’s take up the latter first. Much has been debated about the pluses and minuses of this Bill. Without going into that, we should remember that the party now in power, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supported the Bill. There are memorable photographs of women Members of Parliament including Sushma Swaraj of the BJP in the company of Sonia Gandhi of the Congress Party and Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) celebrating the passage of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha. Cutting across party lines, women politicians came together in support of the Bill.

Unfortunately, we do not see such solidarity among the women on other issues. Brinda Karat, in a recent comment on Sharad Yadav’s behaviour in the Rajya Sabha, lamented the absence of solidarity among the few women who were in the House the day Yadav held forth. She recounted how difficult it had been in the past, when such anti-women remarks were made, to get the attention of the chair. Surely, if one third of the House consisted of women, men like Yadav would not escape unscathed. That’s another reason to have more women elected.

In any case, the BJP government seems to have forgotten about this particular Bill. In its hurry to push through seven Bills, it has been afflicted by amnesia as far as the Women’s Reservation Bill is concerned. So perhaps Sharad Yadav’s soliloquy in the House will stir the memory of the party honchos that here is one more law that needs to be passed quite urgently.

And the other aspect of skin colour? We need not be reminded of that. Just turn on the television. There are plenty of reminders in the advertisements you see. If you want success, as a woman or a man, you must be fair and good-looking. No less than Shah Rukh Khan tells you this. Or read the matrimonial columns of newspapers. ‘Beautiful, fair, slim’, three words that are repeated. Or go to dating and marriage websites. The story never changes. The shape of the woman and the colour of her skin are essential qualities for ‘a suitable match’. Unfair, many women would say, but Indian society continues to plum for ‘fair’ over all else.

As a result, since they were first introduced in 1975, ‘fairness’ creams and skin-lightening agents have grown into an incredible Rs.3,000 crore business in India, expanding at the rate of 18 per cent a year. Their appeal has caught the interest of men since the introduction in 2005 of special men’s fairness creams.

Despite studies that reveal the harm these creams can do, their sales continue to climb. A 2014 study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) revealed that skin-lightening lotions contained harmful chemicals such as mercury. Far from lightening the colour of your skin, they can harm it and also cause other adverse reactions. The CSE tested 32 skin-lightening creams and found that 44 per cent had mercury content despite mercury being banned for use in cosmetics under the Drugs and Cosmetics Acts and Rules.

So thank you, Sharad Yadav for reminding us of a forgotten bill and a cosmetic that we ought to forget.