Relief, Patanjali doesn't think dark skin is a sickness. Sadly, Indians still do
It turns out the outrage machine got it wrong this time. Yoga guru-turned-FMCG entrepreneur Ramdev Baba does not consider dark skin an illness and a recent Patanjali ad that got him the brickbats — it listed dark complexion, dry skin and wrinkles as "skin ailments" — was really a message “lost in translation”.
Published in the English daily Deccan Chronicle, the advertisement carried text that was mistranslated from the Hindi original.
Responding to Karthik Srinivasan, the national social media lead of the advertising firm Ogilvy, who had pointed out the derogatory ad, Ramdev clarified on Twitter: “We approved the word - 'Skin Complications' (त्वचा के विकार), which by error, got changed in translation/copy-writing. I always talked about maintaining natural beauty and never supported colour discrimination.”
Patanjali is surely not guilty. But does that mean all Indians recognise that dark complexion is as normal and routine as sunshine? Not the least.
Indians obsess over fair skin more than they obsess over sanksar. Even at the end of two decades of the second millennium, it is not, at all, uncommon to see “fair” or “fair skin” listed as a criterion in matrimonial ads. In fact, dark skin, to a majority of upper caste Indians, especially in the case of matrimony, can be as big a deal-breaker as interfaith love.
Even in popular culture, especially in Bollywood, the hegemony of those with less melanin is inescapable. Of late, dark-skinned actors have gained prominence, but for the most part they never play leading roles. And even if dark complexion is appreciated, it is only “acceptable” up to a certain shade. Wheatish and dusky are fine. Anything darker is not. Terribly still, knowing full well that the fairness quotient drives careers in Bollywood, it is all too common for actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Varun Dhawan and John Abraham to endorse "fairness" products.
More recently, one has only to look at the 2015 AIB roast to note that even among progressive Indian millennials, standup comic Ashish Shakya, owing to his dark complexion, became the butt of multiple “black” jokes.
Or when Parched actress Tannishtha Chatterjee was subjected to humiliation, also in the form of jokes, over her dark complexion on Kapil Sharma’s comedy show.
And one would have to be delusional to not see that Indians are particularly racist towards people of African origin; the acts of atrocities against black people in India stands out as a stark trend.
So, Baba Ramdev may not endorse the idea that dark skin is an affliction. But it is undeniable that so many still do. Fair-and-Lovely like products no longer advertise around the premise that fairer skin gets you instant jobs and happiness. They advertise under the garb of nonsense like “clearer skin” or “better skin”.
But the target audience still knows what they are for and that is exactly why they continue to buy them.
Unfair? You bet.