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It's quite obvious that most Indians are usually classified as Brown. But a one month visit to India can easily make the classification of "Brown" fairly dubious. I myself lived in Delhi for seven years and remember clearly the treatment I received as one who was the darkest in the entire school. I believe some bitterness still lies with me even after all these years. I cringe every time I hear a Malayalee parent tell their daughter not to go out in the sun and cautioning her that she could "go black." The issue really got to the forefront a few months ago when Aishwarya Rai was asked on Oprah about the "skin-lightening" industry in India. Ms. Rai obviously skipped around the question in her usual irritating yet diplomatic style but it was obvious that Oprah Winfrey, an African-American, was not satisfied with the answer. Vikrum Sequeira addresses this point quite eloquently in a post entitled "Fair= Lovely" The writer's experiences in India with this seemingly national disorder provide an indepth look with a point by point analysis of why India is like this. Here is a good portion:

1. A fair-skinned person is considered attractive regardless of whether that person has a symmetrical face or a healthy figure. I've noticed that certain people who would not be considered attractive in the United States are considered beautiful here because of their light skin. The flipside is that some who are considered unattractive because of darker skin would be considered attractive in countries outside of India. The equation is simple: in India, light skin equals beauty.

2. In India, you can insult a person by calling her "dark." I've heard these absurd insults several times. For example, an acquaintance was trying to insult another woman by saying, "She's really dark. You know, really dark. She hides it with her creams and she keeps herself light but she is actually really dark." Good one! Zing! You got her good!

Read the rest here. Most of us who have been raised overseas have gotten over this stigma but it is still apparent in the older generation. One Malayalee uncle noted to me how "unfortunate" it was that I didn't get my sister's "color" (Note: color in the Malayalee sense actually means being light skinned.) "But," the ignorant man noted, "Some people get lighter as they get older." I, in some sense of utter resignation, just nodded and went on my way. But that man is not to blame, he is just outwardly expressing a belief that is internally structured through years of conditioning by a community. I remember when Aishwarya's appearance on Oprah was brought up at Sepia Mutiny, many individuals despaired that the famous movie star from India was not able to respond with the simplest answer of all: "It's because of the British". The theory, paraphrased, goes something like this: Because Indians were ruled by white skinned Britishers for a long time, we developed a inferiority complex which delegated the lighter skinned people to a higher authority and thus gave them deferred treatment." I would accept this theory if we hadn't already treated dark-skinned people this way. I have noticed in India that the poorest people always happen to be the darkest. I remember reading somewhere that in the Hindu religion, the lower castes were usually darker than the rest of the castes. This is really odd since my family was Brahmin yet I am extremely dark. 

By the way, correct me if I'm wrong on the Hindu part. Yet, religion or not, it is apparent that this is a cultural issue which has been encouraged by the Indian movie industry and the elites who are in place- and it makes sense that most of them are light also.

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