An Indian film star is campaigning against cosmetic products promoting fair skin, and in the process has called out some big Bollywood stars who are endorsing such products.
Well-known Bollywood actor Abhay Deol has slammed his colleagues including big stars such as Shahrukh Khan for doing ads for products promoting fair skin.
"My first exposure to racism came from my own country. I grew up believing fairer is better," he says.
In India, he says, even school textbooks sometimes say being fair skinned offers better prospects of finding a partner, and that commercial advertising preaches that fair skin gets a better job, a happier marriage and more beautiful children.
"We are conditioned to believe that life would have been easier had we been born fairer," says Abhay Deol.
Last month, he decided to call out one by one the stars from his own fraternity, offering his own take on the ads they were featured in, some profound and some cheeky.
"We are not a racist country!"
He captioned an advertisement for a moisturiser promoting whiter and fairer skin featuring actor John Abraham.
Fairness products have a huge market in India and some of the biggest stars endorse these products in advertisements which are splashed across newspapers and TV.
"Everyday someone is killing another based on a prejudice that is usually only skin-deep.
"If colour is what we are obsessing about, when are we ever going to discuss the more important issues of caste, religion, corruption, poverty, and malnutrition?” he writes in an opinion piece for Hindustan Times.
The alleged obsession for 'fair skin' in India recently made headlines when a former parliamentarian belonging to the ruling party made an on-air gaffe on an international television network.
Tarun Vijay when asked to comment on allegations of racism following the attacks on African students in India, he said if Indians were racist why would they live with the South Indians (implying they were dark-skinned).
"If we were racist, why would we have all the entire south... Tamil, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra... why do we live with them? We have black people around us,” he responded.
Though Vijay later apologised for his comments, it snowballed into a big controversy.
Actor Abhay Deol says everyone needs to do play their role to eliminate the prejudices against dark skin.
"How does a newspaper that has to print the truth take money from a sponsor who sells the public a half-truth?"
He exhorts media organisations in India to stop running ads of brands that promote fair skin.
"Stop asking actors why they continue to endorse such brands, because you continue to advertise them!
"Don’t ask why a brand uses language and imagery in this country that they would apologise for in other countries. It is because you continue to look for a 'fair' bride or bridegroom in your matrimonial ads, and because you continue to point the finger away from yourself."
