Colourism is a part of feminism in India?

                                                Credit: Female , It’s not white vs black, it’s your thinking vs racism

In 2019, the Indian Fairness Cream market was reportedly worth nearly Rs 3000 crore according to the Indian Fairness Cream Market Overview (2018-2023). Market revenues were expected to reach Rs 5000 crore by 2023 the study estimated. This is unsurprisingly considering skin lightening products take up about half of India’s skincare market, according to a 2019 study by World Health Organization.

Credit: New York Times blacks were treated as slaves.

But where did this whole idea of being “fair and beautiful” came from? It most popularly came here with Britishers in India but they haven’t introduced it directly but they did gave poor Indians a overview that white is beautiful, privileged and pure and brown and black represents unprivileged and ugliness always. And here we are living with the same thinking till the date too. From parlor to society to newspaper columns in newspaper for marriages you can clearly see a demand for fairness. Basically in newspaper the page for a girl or a boy needed for marriage necessarily include the line “fair and beautiful” girl required or girl is fair, slim and beautiful required a eligible groom for her. Even sometimes people comment to dark skin girls like “she got so lucky that a good looking boy married her despite her dark complexion” even I have seen people saying that. Girls were put under constant pressure to look fairer to have a great future which is how these fairness Industry advertises too to make the dark skin girls feel inferior and ashamed and offer them a so called “solution” for this problem ( which is not a problem obviously).

Beauty ideals are now governed by the media, which glorifies lighter skinned models both male and female who chosen to advertise almost all products over dark skinned models. Television stars, actors and actresses endorse “fairness” products. Sadly light skin is not just promoted by the “fairness product market” almost 90% of all advertisements show lighter skinned models and because of this pressure models suffers mentally and emotionally and sometimes use not so safe skin lightening surgeries.

Even though we have maintained this very well throughout the society but now with the more influential upcoming of western culture in India we are learning to break many norms like this even though India had always contained a large amount of brown and black skinned people since the ancient times but the difference is just that this wasn’t a problem in ancient times. The people now are slowly understanding that every skin color is Beautiful. United States of America is still under the protests named “Black lives Matter” which demands Justice for black people living in America and provide equal rights and freedom to them.

                                

Credit: Instagram

Many rappers, singers and actresses are now openly showing of their brown or black skin proudly and expressing their thoughts about being perfect in their own skin instead of depressing for fair skin. Rappers like Rajakumari proudly and beautifully shows her brown skin in her music videos which is also came to me as a powerful step.

Might be soon we can see a visible change in depiction of brown and black skin characters and empowerment for them depicted in more relatable way in the movies and serials. Directors and and producers should also give more importance to talent rather than just fair skin.