Chetan Bhagat is right: Don't waste time ranting about discrimination against dark skinned Indians on FB

BJP MP Giriraj Singh, possibly missing his little place in newspaper headlines, decided to make a comeback of sorts. So he made the comment on the consequences of Rajeev Gandhi marrying a Nigerian woman. In the wake of the debate on racism that it stoked in India, Chetan Bhagat wrote a column in The Times of India, urging his readers to not put people in little boxes based on skin colour.

He writes about India’s colour bias, “Women, in particular, bear the worst of it. I remember my darker-toned cousins being told to not drink tea while growing up (because tea makes you black, as per Indian home science, never mind the English never turned dark despite fighting wars for tea), or to study harder because they were dark and hence it would not be easy to marry them off. “

The same may ring true for many Indian families.

In course of the article he makes a pertinent point: he says that Facebook activism won’t change the way people feel about their colour and how some others tend to discriminate on the basis of it. He urges people to realise that they are not defined by what stereotype defines their skin colour.

However, he doesn’t mention  one important aspect of the business of insecurities in India - and that’s an entire cosmetics industry thriving on India’s colour bias.

Chances are, if you have watched an Indian television channel for over an hour, you end up liking your skin a little less than usual. You’re told how the air around you is making you three shades darker that normal, how your skin may look perfectly fine to you but is actually shrivelling up inside like parchment in rain and so on. Some skincare products companies resort to telling you that you’ll even live better lives had you been two shades fairer. It most cases, the Fair and Lovely-s of the world will suggest, you can crack the IITs and fly a plane, only if you are fair. Well, almost.

Most of these skincare products are manufactured by corporate giants who have several other consumer products and business interests. The point here is that rather than just ranting about discrimination against dark skin on social media why not boycott these products that feast on  low self esteem? Sure, the road to protest is not easy. But you can start by identifying  companies which market such products and then make sure you buy nothing from their stable. Shift to a brand or company that does not indulge in such practices.

Yes, the road to protest is long and tortuous and requires effort and dedication,  which is why our protest remains restricted to just Facebook rants, most of which create ripples (or not) on Facebook and die their natural death. Nothing changes, no one cares, in the process.

Perhaps then, celebrity voices like Bhagat, should speak up more vocally about the root of the problem. However, more often than not, you’ll find  youth icons in the country endorsing the same mothballed stereotypes. Case in point, Shah Rukh Khan endorsing Fair and Handsome.