Being 'Dark skinned' in India

It's OK to be dark in INDIA-a Historical facts survey and interpretation.

These are loosely correlated facts hypothesizing a seemingly obvious fact.

Historical correlation of 'whiteness’ with purity and 'blackness' with filth seems like a conscious/ unconscious effort over our civilization/ culture. Every would-be mother, at least in the inner mind asks for a fairer child, every teenage girl in India wishes ' if she could be as fair as the Bollywood starlet', most mid20's girl's parents look for a ‘fair, handsome, financially stable' groom.

There is historically established hierarchy in Indian Hindu culture. The fairer complexion correlated with aristocracy and affluence and vice versa. The fair skinned benevolent gods always fighting darker skinned 'asura' (demons) in hind mythology.

In 'Padma Purana ' (Hindu religious text),Lord Shiva makes fun of Parvati (Lord Shiva' wife), then darker colored, she get's angry and finds inner strength and becomes fair/ gold colored. I am not arguing that Hindu scriptures are promoting color based profiling. Then again, there is 'Krishna' the powerful Hindu god with blue/black skin.  My personal interpretation is Hinduism evolved over ages in our Indian subcontinent. Various versions and interpretations lead to the evolution all the available Hindu manuscripts now. Thus the conflicts arise in spiritual concept between Valmiki's Ramayana  (in Sanskrit) and KambaRamayanam (in Tamil). Which ever version got more publicity influenced our understanding what is cool or not cool; even in skin color.

I think the British rule in India for almost a decade further compounded our 'color interpretations' as lighter color emerged as the symbol of power, superiority. The white colored ' British beauty' traveling in fan fare was identified as the culmination of pristine beauty. Thus the extreme eagerness of Indian women to be lighter skin, similar to our 'famously beautiful' colonizers.


This eagerness has been wonderfully exploited in Indian business world as 'fairness cream products' which is endorsed by stereotypical fair Indian beauties (mostly Bollywood starlets) as the secret to their 'beauty'. In the western world the fashion beauty industry stereotyped 'beauty' leading to 'eating disorders and cosmetic surgeries. In our part of the world historic concept of beauty is intertwined with religion, political past etc. The "marketability" in the marriage arena for an Indian woman clearly dictated by beauty which is strongly correlated to skin color, with darker bride will have to compensate for her physical shortcomings by paying a higher dowry (Illegal in India, but still common practice). In a world where beautiful people earn more than average looking people (Productivity or Discrimination? Giam Pietro Cipriani, Angelo Zago, 16 FEB 2011), the mix of skin color in the definition of beauty in Indian subcontinent makes it very hard for a darker colored Indian. Well……Our culture is still evolving.


Do check out  an interesting video about how skin color affects psyche. http://vimeo.com/16210769