“While movements like Black Lives Matter have had a profound impact in the West, in South Asian countries it is still a long battle,” he said.
Ms. Emmanuel said that skin tone biases had the greatest impact on marriage and social issues, but that in some fields, including entertainment, hospitality and modeling, “the rating goes without saying that it should be fair skinned, especially for women. “
However, other commentators insisted that colorism in India is different from racism in the West.
“The preference for lighter skin is largely aesthetic and has no structural power or economic consequences,” said Dipankar Gupta, a well-known sociologist.
“It’s not like a policeman routinely harasses darker-skinned people,” added Gupta. “Indians can recognize class and status through various markers, but skin color is not one of them.”
Still, across India, there is great social pressure for people to search for fair-skinned spouses.
Mohinder Verma, a businessman, defended placing an advertisement in a newspaper in which he was looking for his son a “tall, pretty” girlfriend with “fair skin” who has a university degree but prefers to be a stay-at-home wife.
Mr. Verma, 72, said that parents in India felt pressure within their social circles to find girlfriends for their children who look “gori” or fair, although he agreed that “this thinking needs to change” .
“It is somehow ingrained in our minds,” said Verma, who lives in the northern Indian state of Punjab. “When you have a dark-skinned daughter-in-law, people talk behind your back. They ask what wrong we had committed in our previous life. “
A 2017 study of 1,992 Indians found that more than half said television commercials influenced them to appear lighter-skinned.
