The recent comments by the Kerala Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan calling out discrimination on ground of colour and gender has sparked off an interesting debate, both on social media and mainstream. This is a discrimination, specially on ground of skin colour is something that we saw – and still see – very often during the matrimonial advertisements and on ground too, within our homes when girls are cautioned against staying in the sun for too long and to use creams that will add some degree of fairness to their complexions.
The Kerala Chief secretary was calling out a colleague who had linked her work to the colour of her skin saying that her work was as dark (ie not up to the mark) as her skin, while her husband (who is of a fairer complexion) was fair as was his work.
There has been widespread agitation over the years that has made somewhat of a dent on judging a person by their skin colour. It was a hangover from our colonial past where the elite or the ruling class was of a fairer colour. But since then, creams that advertised Fair is Lovely have been castigated and now are called the more politically correct, Glow and Lovely; so there has been course correction but obviously not enough. We all have grandmothers that equate good looks with fair colour and warn us against sitting in the sun too long.
Dark does come with some negative connotations. Recently I did a podcast where I used a chess board to explain what was happening in Parliament. It just happened that I moved the Opposition first (and so used the white pawn) and the counter move from the government came from the other side, which happened to be the black pawn. And the first criticism that I got was that, aapne government ko kala kar diya (you made the government black!). Black is considered as the colour of bad deeds, of corruption whereas the clean chit comes in the form of a white paper ! That’s just the way the optics have worked out but should it be translated so crassly towards our skin tones?
Apart from the gender and colour bias, what was also objectionable was the nature of personal comments at the place of work. Why do men think they can get away with commenting on their (women) colleague’s looks, colour of her skin, her wardrobe or even whether she looks her age or not. Comments in the place of work should be limited to just that.
However at the same time optics do matter. What matters is not the colour of your skin but instead the way you carry yourself, the confidence with which you enter a room, wearing well cut ironed clothes instead of crumpled attire and being well-groomed. These are added extras that can make or break your work interview as much as your CV. But these are rules that apply to both men and women.
Given the fact that the Kerala Chief secretary was reacting to a comment made about her is a clear indication of the fact that this kind of a mindset that judges people on the basis of their skin colour still prevails, and thereby such conversations still need to be had.
