Martin Luther King's famous declaration about hoping his children will be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character has always fallen on deaf (and coffee coloured) ears in India, where light skin continues to be prized beyond all other attributes.
The 'Black is Beautiful' campaign in America in the '60s was never emulated in India because, quite simply, Indians don't believe the message. Black, for most Indians, is not beautiful.
What such an attitude says about self-hatred, weird self-images and insecurity is best left to psychiatrists, but I am constantly dismayed at hearing people around me define people in terms of their skin colour.
A man might have a tail and horns but it doesn't matter. If an Indian describes him, the colour of his skin will be mentioned before the unusual attributes.
My housekeeper has been using 'Fair & Lovely' for more than 15 years, wasting her money because her skin is no lighter – but she refuses to listen. The skin lightening industry is booming, as it is in many parts of Asia. Dark skinned Indians spend billions of rupees every year on skin lightening creams.
In a new ad for the skin lightening cream 'Fair and Handsome,' Indian film star Shah Rukh Khan throws a tube of the cream to a young fan. In the next scene, the boy's skin grows whiter, his smile brightens and his hopes rise. The message: Fair skin is a prerequisite for success. Mr. Khan is now under pressure from an online petition organised by Women of Worth (WoW), a group in Chennai, to stop endorsing such 'regressive' products.
Pitted against Mr. Khan is well-known actress Nandita Das, whose face is on the poster being used by WoW to make young Indians aware that 'Dark is Beautiful,' as the campaign is called. The campaign seeks to draw attention to the unjust effects of skin discrimination based on skin colour. The petition has so far gained almost 7,600 signatures.
The campaign focuses on Mr. Khan, but several other Bollywood stars endorse skin lightening products. No dark skinned actor has ever made it big in the Indian film industry. All the models in print ads and commercials are light skinned. The cultural preference for light skin is etched in the Indian psyche. Shallini Bharat, a psychologist in Mumbai says the mania for fair skin is a result of India's history.
"India's rulers have always been fair, be it the Aryans in the early centuries or the Europeans and British later. Fairness is equated with superiority, power and influence," she says.
In films and television, lower caste and lower class characters are played by dark people. In the matrimonial ads, mentioning the skin colour of the bride and bridegroom is de rigueur. African students in India get bananas thrown at them in the street – and are stared at.
"In my childhood, people said 'poor thing she is so dark' or 'you have nice features despite being dark.' Had it not been for my parents, I would have grown up believing I was just not good enough," says Ms. Das.
At first, it used to be only women who used skin lightening creams but Indian men are now big consumers: 'Tall, dark, and handsome' doesn't click here. It's been reported that more skin lightening creams are sold in India than Coca Cola.
I salute Women of Worth for their efforts. They have a long and difficult struggle ahead, as there currently is no awareness in India that a desire to be light skinned might be 'politically incorrect' and a sign of cultural and psychological insecurity. So, sadly, pregnant women will continue to consume 'white' dairy produce in abundance in the belief that it will make their baby white. Most controversially of all, an Indian company recently began advertising a feminine hygiene product that not only promised to keep a woman's genitalia "fresh" but also lighten the skin around the vagina.
Mercifully, the ad was banned from television screens. I have no idea if it is still being sold, but it probably is. It is, after all, a logical extension of the creams for the face. As with everything in India, it could take centuries to stamp out what is basically a form of racism. As one online supporter of the Dark is Beautiful campaign wrote: "Advertising for fairness creams is outright racism. I cannot believe that we as Indians follow such racism proudly, day in, day out."
Amrit Dhillon is a journalist based in New Delhi