Garpal Gumnut
Ross Island Hotel
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Skin-whitening adverts ignite race row in India
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
The actors are beautiful, the sets are stylish and the message could not be clearer – the woman with the paler skin gets the man.
In recent weeks, Indians have been treated to an eye-catching television advert "mini-series" featuring three of Bollywood's hottest talents in a moody love-triangle. All in the name of skin-whitening cream.
The whitening market in India is worth millions of pounds, with men as well as women routinely buying bleaching lotions in an effort to "improve" their complexion. But the mini-series advert featuring Saif Ali Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Neha Dhupia has reopened a debate about India's obsession with pale skin and triggered an angry reaction from some who think the advert is discriminatory and outdated.
"It is strange. There is such a premium placed on pale skin," said Urvashi Butalia, a historian and director of Kali for Women, India's first feminist publishing house. "I am not sure where it comes from. It may have something to do with India's history of being colonised by various people and that there is a hangover of the idea that Aryan people are superior and Dravidian people – those who were already here – are inferior."
The new advert, being shown in mini-episodes, features Khan, with Dhupia as his girlfriend. But a chance encounter with an old sweetheart, played by Chopra, triggers the prospect of a possible revival of their relationship. For all the stolen glances and glossy production, there is nothing subtle about the advert; Dhupia's skin looks snow white while Chopra appears dusky.
The first instalment of the series of adverts
Australian police have been depicted as members of the Ku Klux Klan in a cartoon published in India.
In the cartoon, in Tuesday's edition of Delhi's Mail Today newspaper, an Australian officer is seen in a white hood, saying: "We are yet to ascertain the nature of the crime", News Ltd reports.
The provocative image was printed days after the death of Indian student Nitin Garg in a Melbourne park.
Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.
Skin-whitening adverts ignite race row in India
i dont think your on the money fishbulb
its easy to judge australians as racist because an indian was murdered in a park,
but we dont know how or what the motivation was, and if it was racist, and its certainly not correct that the police, government and populace feels the murder of an indian student needs covering up, nor do any feel the investigation of that murder be treated any less than any of the other murder investigations that have less notoriety
i agree with gg on the fact that the indians themselves are extremely racially biased, towards their countrymen with their class system, and towards their neighbours on all borders.
i also believe the indians treatment of their women and daughters is very much questionable
to brand the whole country as racist because of a murder is going beyond what is rational
The thread is about racism in India.
My premise is that racism in India is very very bad, in fact worse than in Australia.
Is it?
Lets talk about it instead of just arguing about "wet water".
Are all nations intrinsically racist, and just some more than others?
gg
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