The BLM movement has brought attention to colorism and racism all around the world, including India. People demanded changes from companies like fair and lovely because of the blatant colorism shown in advertisements. Due to the backlash, Fair and Lovely changed their name to Glow and Lovely. They also got rid of the use of fair and light in their advertisements. Fair and lovely is a big contributor to the skin whitening industry in India. The skin whitening business is worth more than 500 million dollars. The reason why this industry makes so much money is because of the beauty stereotypes in India. Many people associate lighter skin with beauty, wealth, and status. This stereotype is seen in the Indian movie industry. Many Bollywood actresses have done skin lightening treatments to seem more pretty. Actresses like Kajol and Sridevi have gone through these treatments. The movie industry also makes dark skin actors and actresses play poor and unattractive roles. Due to the extreme colorism in India, many dark-skinned Indians use skin whitening creams. These creams are very dangerous and are not recommended by the World Health Organization. The mercury in the products can lead to long term skin damage as well as kidney damage. Skin bleaching treatments can lead to kidney failures, burn your skin, and have long time damage on your nerves. Even with these side effects people still use these creams and bleach their skin to hide their complexion.
Colorism wasn't always this big of a problem. Ancient India was more accepting of skin color. Many poems written during those times compared dark skin to the beauty of a Neel kamal(blue lotus). Skin color was not associated with beauty back then. Colorism was heavily influenced and introduced by the British. The British perceived dark-skinned Indians as “dogs” and unintelligent and claimed themselves to be bright and superior. During British rule, light-skinned Indians were more favored than dark-skinned Indians. Even after the British rule colorism continued. In 2014 a 29-year-old girl killed herself due to the amount of hate she got for her skin color. Allegedly most of the hate she got was from her family members. In 2018 a 14-year-old girl committed suicide due to bullying she faced at her school. Dark-skinned Indians are still called derogatory terms and are degraded. Many demons shown in Hinduism are often portrayed as dark, connecting dark-skinned people to evilness. It’s very hard for dark-skinned women to get married in India because of the skin color bias. Marriage sites like Shaadi.com had a skin color filter on their site. They only recently got rid of it only because of the extreme backlash they were facing. Skin color should not be the main factor for marriage. Skin Color is something you can't change. South Indians tend to have higher melanin because of their Dravidian roots. The other reason is that South India is closer to the equator, which means more heat rays are delivered causing people to tan. Even though we have taken steps to abolish colorism there is still more we can do. The beauty stigma of comparing lighter skin to beauty has to stop. Dark-skinned people are very beautiful and so are light-skinned people. People should not compare skin color and try more to equalize all skin tones. We should also try to acknowledge our internalized colorism and try to grow from it. When I was growing up I had my own internalized colorism. I was scared of tanning because when I did people would make remarks about how I was “losing my color”.Colorism is further cemented by the lack of dark-skin representation. There has to be more dark-skinned actresses and models shown in Indian media. There is more dark skin male representation then dark skin female representation. Seeing more dark-skinned representation can help girls and boys be more proud of their skin. Dark skin is nothing to be ashamed of for it is natural and beautiful.
