Giriraj Singh’s remarks about “white-skinned” Sonia Gandhi shocked a lot of people this week. Tasteless though the comment was, it did bring out a prevalent Indian attitude about the colour of one’s skin. Indeed, one thing that baffles me about India is our love for fair skin. Not unlike many African and Asian countries, Indians too obsess about having a lighter skin colour, consider people with lighter skin as more beautiful and, in the worst case, even ascribe a higher status to them. From the multi-million-dollar fairness products industry to the fact that all children in our baby product ads are fair, one no longer needs to debate that Indians love lighter skin. We do, and that might have just been one of those many Indian quirks had it not had harmful effects on our society. Indians are not fair-skinned on an average, and thus millions have a complex about their skin colour.

Women, in particular, bear the worst of it. I remember my darker-toned cousins being told to not drink tea while growing up (because tea makes you black, as per Indian home science, never mind the English never turned dark despite fighting wars for tea), or to study harder because they were dark and hence it would not be easy to marry them off. Apart from judgments about looks, there is something more onerous when it comes to skin colour and Indians. Dark-skinned people get fewer opportunities in India. This is not racism, but is sometimes referred to as colourism or pigmentocracy. Fair-skinned people are more likely to be hired in certain jobs (when was the last time you saw a dark-skinned flight attendant on an Indian airline?).

We must address this. Not merely in lip service or by raising your voice with catchy slogans for Facebook, but by honestly seeing what is the root cause driving all this.

The key reason why this happens is the associations related to colours, and also to people of a particular colour.

First, is it just the intrinsic colours? White. Black. What do these colours signify to you? White is often used in the context of clarity, purity and cleanliness. Black is used to describe the opposite. White is clean, black is dirt. Is some of this carried through when we refer to the same colours in the context of our skin?

Of course, not everything black is seen as unaesthetic. Thick and shiny black hair is associated with youth, health and beauty. Images of dark brown chocolate, associated with deliciousness, can make one’s mouth water. The little black dress, which can accentuate one’s figure, is considered beautiful. Hence, it isn’t just the fundamental black and white colours that make us find one pretty and the other not so. It is what those colours are associated with. And here is the real reason why our minds are almost conditioned to prefer white skin.

A lighter skin is associated with European or Caucasian ethnicity. People from these countries are much richer and considered more successful on an average. They are also seen as happier. Their media and celebrities have a global impact and are considered aspirational. Darker-skinned people are associated with those who are poorer, work in the sun and hence a couple of shades darker, perhaps even less educated and less aspirational. Hence, the skin colour of the aspirational becomes aspirational itself.

How to fix this? Well, awareness campaigns help, but only so much. What we need to change is to separate our aspirations from skin colour, as the latter has nothing to do with it. We also need to broaden our understanding of what is attractive in a person — is it just skin colour, or is it also things such as physical fitness, a charming personality, and overall grooming? Stars like Rihanna or Will Smith are considered extremely attractive physically, even in the West. We need to fight our inherent low self-esteem, this sense of being ashamed at all things Indian, whether it is the vernacular language or the native skin colour. We are not a fair-skinned race, and that is ok. What matters is we are capable, hardworking, progressive and compassionate. We also need to grow our economy and make our country rich so this sense of shame at ourselves goes away soon. Be proud of who you are, country and colour included.

In reality, our skin is just our soft outer covering, no more than a couple of millimetres thick. Its main purpose is to protect our internal organs and aid sensation. In all this, the skin’s colour has little relevance. What makes a person beautiful is much more than the outer wrapping we come in. Open your mind and discover it for yourself.