Since I was born into the world on a chilly September afternoon in a sterile, barren hospital room to two Indian adults, I was forever attached to the Indian culture. I was exposed to Indian movies and languages. I came home to Indian food. Despite living in America, it was as though my house was some sort of culture bubble, where you walked in to one country and out to another. This is how my life has always been.
Then there’s the other, darker side (literally).
India is a beautiful country. It truly is. I love going there. I love seeing my family and comparing the culture and people with America. To me, it’s infinitely interesting seeing the richness and depth of the country itself. It’s amazing in all of its continuity.
But whenever you get to know something deeply, you begin to discover bits and pieces you wish didn’t exist, the kinds you pretend not to notice in the beginning.
In India, there isn’t really racism. I mean, there is always the potential, but a country occupied by a population with a miniscule variance in race doesn’t really leave room for racism to occur. Instead, there’s a different form of discrimination, one rooted in the traditions and customs of the past: colorism.
Everywhere you go (or perhaps it’s just me), there’s people talking about skin tone. The minute I meet my family members, there’s always that backhanded compliment they toss at me lurking in every initial conversation: “Oh, wow. You’ve gotten so fair.”
It’s interesting to me because it’s seen as a compliment, as though getting that comment is something to strive for. However, nobody seems to realize that the statement itself carries the connotation that having fair skin is something to cherish and dark skin is something inferior.
The skin care market there thrives on people’s insecurities regarding the color of their skin. Skin-lighteners dominate aisles in grocery stores and a large amount of ads on multiple platforms. Everyone wants lighter skin. Everyone wants to be more fair. Even though it’s not said out loud, people believe that lighter skin means a better, more pure, more beautiful, more worthwhile individual.
In India, there’s also a caste system, which basically means dividing people up based on their family heritage. At the top of this social hierarchy lie the Brahmins, a group of people known for being priests and religious figures. At the bottom lie the Untouchables, those who do the jobs “nobody else wants to do.” Another difference between the two? Brahmins are known to have fair skin, while Untouchables are known to be darker.
It’s everywhere, like some sort of eternal darkness which seeps through the cracks of conversations and dominates deeply believed stereotypes. People are seen as less beautiful because of the darkness of their skin. People are tossed to the side for the amount of melanin their skin produces. Being fair is a blessing, and being dark is a dreaded curse.
Even if it is less extreme now, it’s still there. Every minute somebody associates being more fair with being more worthy of common decency, they propagate this idea that somehow, in some way, skin color determines a person’s worth.
Discrimination is everywhere, in multiple forms, as though we humans constantly feed this desire to separate the population and dehumanize certain groups. No matter where you go, we divide ourselves from others based on arbitrary characteristics. It’s like we cannot even fathom the idea of living in a world in which people are judged for who they are, not the things they cannot control.
I’m not an expert, and I can’t speak for everyone, but I have a personal relationship with colorism. It pains me. It makes me feel like the country that I love, the country that I come from, might not love me back in the same way. It hurts me because I see such love and warmth from my people, but then I see this contradictory behavior as well.
I am not less of a person because of how dark I am. And the fact that I have to remind myself of this, the fact that this statement isn’t utterly obvious and already a societal standard, is where the problem lies.
