“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!” — Ted Grant
Few Weeks ago I read an article about a Dark skin campaign that seeks to change the mindset of society and to create awareness about the deep-rooted prejudice that fair skin is better than dark skin. Nandita Das led that campaign has created a lot of controversy by filing a Public Petition against Emami and Mr. Shah Rukh Khan to take down the Fair and Handsome ad and to also focus on promoting healthy skin not on Fair skin. The issue is not that whether Bollywood or Different Actors/Actress Should be Blamed for this Ad. Or not but what are the social implication of this 2-3 Min Ad. On our Society.
Albeit we are in the 21st century but still Most Indians opt for an arranged marriage – a traditional setup in India, whereby the parents pick out a suitable spouse for their children. Matches are found by word of mouth or through matrimonial advertisements. The advertisement’s basic elements include physical features, religion, salary and educational qualifications. An overwhelming amount of matrimonial ads in newspapers and online portals read “looking for a suitable match for tall, slim, fair girl from the same religious background” or along those lines. But, have these parents ever Thought how a Dark Skinned Girl feel about all these? How she feels when a boy rejects her only because she is dark skinned. Even parents of that girl start giving synonyms like ‘unfortunate dark skin girl!’ to her. And this is followed by the million dollar question: who will marry a dusky girl, it will be difficult to find a good match for her.”
Dusky Girls are not experiencing a problem only in the case of marriage. but they are also discriminated in their personal and professional lives. Things are getting worse in the Rural and Semi-urban part of India. Not only poor but Middle class Families also don’t want girls to be born in their family because of Dowry System and the pain they have to undergo to get them married. Collectively these all issue leads to serious Problems like Female foeticide.
So, now what ? we can better say that there is an urgent need to change the mindset of the people. It’s true that this all may not happen overnight but we should come forward to discuss and debate this sensitive issue. The mindset of society will change when it realizes that beauty is only skin deep. Or when “society starts accepting that girls and women are people in their own right, not only with physical attributes, but endowed with talents and the potential to be artists of their own lives – that people are more than the color of their skin.”