The senior-most bureaucrat in India’s most gender-equal state had one thing to say to an unnamed commenter, who in contrast her tenure “as black as her husband’s was white”—a reference to her pores and skin color. Even when the inane remark was meant as a ‘joke’, Sarada Muraleedharan was not going to take it quietly.
“Excessive time for me to not really feel defensive about both the truth that I’m a girl or that I’m darkish,” the Kerala chief secretary wrote in a Fb submit that was initially deleted, however then restored as a result of “there have been issues there that wanted to be mentioned.”
Muraleedharan took over as Kerala chief secretary in September 2024 after her predecessor V Venu, a fellow 1990-batch IAS officer (coincidentally, additionally her husband), retired.
She is the primary girl to carry the highest bureaucratic job in a state that does properly on most gender indices, notably intercourse ratio (#1 at 1,084 females for each 1,000 males in 2011). Her personal profession has been nothing wanting spectacular: head of Kudumbashree, the state authorities mission to scale back poverty and empower ladies, from 2006 to 2012; chief working officer on the Nationwide Rural Livelihoods Mission on the ministry of rural improvement, and a stint on the ministry of panchayati raj.
And but, right here she was, being judged not by her skilled achievements however the color of her pores and skin.
Muraleedharan’s lengthy submit addresses her personal childhood trauma in coping with the cultural fixation with equity. At the same time as a four-year-old, she was made conscious of the color of her pores and skin. She had requested her mom “whether or not she might put me again in her womb and produce me out once more, all white and fairly,” she shared. “I’ve lived for over 50 years buried below that narrative of not being a color that was adequate.”
Lastly, it was, she continues, her kids, “gloried of their black heritage”, who helped her perceive “that black is gorgeous… That I dig black.”
Inside hours of being posted, Muraleedharan’s submit went viral. On the time of penning this on Sunday, it has shut to three,500 likes, 900 feedback and an equal variety of shares.
The sweetness fantasy
With its associations with the leisure class, colonial masters and India’s obsession with ‘truthful’ pores and skin is neither new nor restricted to solely this nation.
The proliferation of so-called “equity lotions” in Asia, Africa, and India is proof that the notion of truthful is gorgeous has not been dislodged. The launch of Truthful & Beautiful by Hindustan Unilever in 1975 launched a deluge of comparable merchandise, together with these for males. In 2019, the equity cream market in India was estimated at ₹3,000 crore.
“The market has capitalised on the Indian unconscious thought of equating magnificence with equity,” stated Ranjana Kumari, chairperson of Girls Energy Join.
Social media, globalised concepts of magnificence, and the leisure trade ensured that equity continues to carry sway. The concept of ultimate pores and skin color is so ingrained that make-up artists even in small cities now routinely paint brides 5 or 6 shades lighter, in a grotesque bid to make them ‘stunning’.
“There are such a lot of methods to see magnificence, however we’re all following the western grid of the form and look of magnificence,” says Swati Bhattacharya, world head, Godrej Inventive Lab. “The sinister lie that feminine price relies upon upon seems, and a sure sort of seems, has turn into a common reality validated by the worldwide tradition machine,” Swati wrote in a 2016 piece for the now defunct web site, The Women Finger.
There was a push again for positive. As an illustration, dressmaker Sabyasachi Mukherjee has used dark-skinned and plus-sized fashions in his campaigns.
In 2013, Nandita Das launched a Darkish is Lovely marketing campaign to problem the idea that success and sweetness are decided by pores and skin color. And in 2020, in a nod to altering instances, Truthful & Beautiful cream was renamed Glow & Beautiful. In 2023, it was reported that the marketplace for equity lotions declined by 3%.
Not your corporation
By questioning prejudiced concepts of magnificence norms, Muraleedharan has targeted welcome consideration on an outdated drawback. Magnificence, she reminds us, just isn’t a “single factor”.
However her submit additionally raises an equally essential query on how and why ladies ought to be judged on the best way they give the impression of being quite than on their achievements.
Why ought to the best way a girl seems—quick, tall, truthful, darkish, fats, skinny—be a matter for folks to touch upon in any respect? Who offers those that proper?
A 2023 survey of 10,000 female-identifying ladies within the UK, Germany, Spain, Mexico, the UAE and Saudi Arabia discovered that 97% consider they’re judged on how they give the impression of being with 61% receiving unfavourable feedback and abuse about their look.
In India too, everybody and their brother consider it’s alright to touch upon how ladies in public life seem. This holds true for girls politicians in addition to feminine athletes.
If Muraleedharan—and for that matter any skilled girl—is to be judged, it have to be solely on the premise of her skilled work. And that could be a dialog that may solely be welcomed by all.
