I saw a TV ad for a men's fairness cream. In the beginning of the ad a swarthy man offers a rose to a pretty stranger. She rejects his advances. In the next scene, he walks down a road full of pretty women after applying the cream, and the one who rejected his advances earlier now offers him a rose. He rejects her offer this time. What's interesting is that in the first scene, the man had put on make-up to look dark-skinned. It's obvious because he looks artifically tanned. So he moves from a fake dark tone to a fair one, which is close to his natural skin tone, instead of moving from his natural color to a fairer colour. Is this an indication of how ineffective the cream really is?!
The model's face in the first scene, reminds me of a movie Soul Man in which the main character takes pills to look 'African-American' and thus make use of affirmative action to get into grad school. The ad avoids the issue of race, but is subtly implying that fairer people are better-looking, and therefore more desirable by women (and therefore debatably superior?).
What makes modern Indians less conservative about sex but yet vulnerable about their skin colour? This vulnerability links us to our ancestors whose caste system was based partially on skin colour and to the racism our ancestors faced under later colonialism. Many people have commented on India's own brand of reverse racism called, "colourism."
Modern Indians' approach to race has been controversial. Recently, during the Australian tour to India, the local crowds made racist comments and gestures at Andrew Symonds who is of mixed parentage. A number of ads have a racist slant against the Chinese and Japanese (and other Asian people with Asiatic features). You may remember the ones for Bigen Haircolor, or the ones with Sumo wrestlers. The stereotyping of Africans in India as drug dealers etc. and calling them insulting names, is also testament to Indian people's racist attitudes.
At it's core, India is a racist country.
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