Fair & Lovely: Colourism in India

Mirror, mirror on the wall - who is the fairest of them all? The one with the palest skin, of course. Or that's the idea behind India's multibillion-dollar skin lightening industry, with a host of 'fairness' products appearing to offer dark-skinned Indians a lighter, fairer, better version of themselves.

First of all let’s see the chronological order.

Article-14 Of Constitution Of India

The state not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India. Protection prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, Caste, sex, or place of birth

And thus, Article 14 is introduced into the Constitution of India, 1950.

Fair & Lovely is a skin-lightening cosmetic product of Hindustan Unilever introduced to the market in India in 1975.

This how fair & lovely advertise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGepwMtV7R8

above add tiltle is 'fair & lovely FUTURE TUBE'. In short says that if you are not white than you can' be successful.

 The market size of the industry is pegged at around 50 billion rupees (US$661 million), and this segment dominates the country’s skincare market.

Fair & Lovely, manufactured by Hindustan Unilever, enjoys a market share of 40%. Launched in 1975, it became an instant success as lighter skin in India is often considered synonymous with beauty, and the matrimonial ads section in various newspapers are replete with entries seeking “fair-skinned” brides. This is despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of people in the country have a brown or dark skin tone.

Interestingly, this obsession with fair skin was not confined to women. In 2005, Emami launched Fair And Handsome as market studies had revealed that a sizeable percentage of users of women’s fairness creams were men. A host of other brands also entered this newly formed segment.

 

There are many matrimonial sites in India which differentiate the skin colour into fair, dusky and dark. For instance, Shaadi.com, a leading Indian matrimonial website, cites fair skin as the key factor(Currently they removed this type of filters ). The desire for whiter skin goes beyond the middle classes, but those who cannot afford branded, expensive products use a host of traditional remedies such as lemon juice, rose water, honey, egg yolk, cream or cumin. During the time of marriage, boy's parents prefer the girl who has white-toned skin; else the girl is rejected most of the time. Rejections sometimes create a lot of stress and depression for the girl's family especially the girl.

Additionally, there are lots of advertisements prevailing in the country since many years, which give preference to the fair skin only. Many Indian film stars have appeared in advertisements for whitening creams including Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, Sonam Kapoor , Preity Zinta, Yami Gautam, etc. For years, skin-lightening creams and other products have shown people mostly women with dark skin as having problems when it comes to finding jobs, getting married and generally being accepted by society. The makers of these ads include behemoths like Hindustan Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and P&G.

George Floyd : Black life matters and fairness creams

Throughout the years she was growing up in southern India, Christy Jennifer, a producer with a media house in the city of Chennai, was traumatized by episodes of prejudice. As she walked through school corridors, classmates pointed at her darker skin and teased her, she said. Even friends and family members told her never to wear black. She said she was constantly advised on which skin lightening cream to use as if the remedy to this deep-seated social bias lay in a plastic bottle.

“Every day, my dignity and self-esteem were reduced to the colour of my skin,” she said. “I felt a worthless piece of flesh.”
Colourism, the bias against people of darker skin tones, has vexed India for a long time. It is partly a product of colonial prejudices, and it has been exacerbated by caste, regional differences and Bollywood, the nation’s film industry, which has long promoted lighter-skinned heroes.

 

 But America’s intense discussion of race, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, seems to be having some effect. After the death of George Floyd riots started in USA and it impacted whole world. Now all companies involved in lightning cream product realize they are doing wrong.

 

This all started when Johnson & Johnson exit from fairness cream market. J&J said it will stop selling the Clean & Clear Fairness line of products, sold in India as well. Earlier this month. the company stopped its Neutrogena Fine Fairness line, sold in Asia and in the Middle East.

Though it has stopped selling the Neutrogena fairness creams, Clean & Clear Fairness products will be sold until the existing stock is exhuasted. In India, it is now available on ecommerce platforms and retail stores.

“Conversations over the past few weeks highlighted that some product names or claims on our dark spot reducer products represent fairness or white as better than your own unique skin tone,” J&J had said. “This was never our intention - healthy skin is beautiful skin,” the company said.Shadi.com removed their skin tone filter which makes you fair when you uplod the photo.

 Then came HUL who removed the word FAIR from FAIR & LOVELY and instead of that they added glow.

 Nina Davuluri -As Miss America 2014, she was the "first contestant of Indian descent to win the Miss America Competition". She spoke from her personal experience – after being crowded Miss America , articles were published that asked “if Miss America was too dark to ever be Miss India.”

After black lives matter incident she send an open letter to HUL to stop selling fairness cream and many petition were signed and due to which HUL got lots of pressure and removed the name Fair.

My opinion

If we see history we are all are originally from Africa. Africa was not connected to the world at that time and was a tropical region (hot region). Then started discovery of island and continents. Vasco da gama discovered India and Christopher Columbus found America and European exploration of Sub-Saharan Africa begins with the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, pioneered by Portugal under Henry the Navigator.

When he found Africa than colonization started. European spread propaganda ‘Whitman’s burden’and this was not an propaganda it should be called SLAVE TRADE. They said  “We are white and according to colour we are superior and it is our burden and duty to take black people towards goodness and truth”

 This was in 15^th century. Currently we are in 21^st century and due to one incident after so many years suddenly everybody started realizing  this.

 Let’s talk about India. Fair & Lovely started in 1975 and after 45 years they realized that we are doing wrong let changed name. They did this to avoid court case and being sued and they have just change the name from fair to glow which ultimately refers towards fairness indirectly and does the same thing.

 HUL is not the only to be blamed we India are equally culprits towards this. HUL was abel to do this because we used it we don’t accept what we are. They stayed in the market because we purchased it in order to be fair.

 I feel that our generation has energy and are also fearless but for temporary basis and on social media only. Just see almost every one of us has commented on the person on the basis of colour and many will continue to do so.  We stood against rape and sexually abuse when Nirbhaya case and boys looker room came into limelight. But ask yourself how long we hold on that? I am not telling that everyone do so but there are only few who stand against this.

 Guys truly speaking if we want to change this society than only one person can do that is ‘YOU’ if each and everyone speakout when something wrong is happening than only society will change . stop thinking ‘ Mere akele se kya hoga?’ just remember that akela(one) ultimately becomes 130 crore. So stand against the  wrong thing and be fearless.

Guys do comments your opinion.