My father emigrated from Mombasa to the United Kingdom in the 1960s. My mother joined him from India shortly after their marriage. They belong to the first generation of Indian migrants who moved to the United Kingdom in search of better opportunities. I myself may be regarded officially as a British citizen, born in London and more fluent in English than in my native language Gujarati. However, I grew up surrounded by an intimate community of first-generation South Asian migrants, all of whom have maintained close familial, social, and cultural ties to India. As a result, I have often felt that I have had access to two very contrasting worldviews: the more “progressive”, held by myself and my generational peers in the West, and the more “conservative”, held by the parent generation here in the UK and those still living in South Asia. This particular vantage point has regrettably allowed me to recognise several instances of anti-black racism amongst South Asians, both within my own extended family and my community. Unfortunately, I cannot say that my experience here is unique: I am confident that it is something many in my position have encountered at some point in their lives. Even though I live in London, a city which has one of the highest densities of multiculturalism in the world, sentiments of anti-black racism can be found throughout the diaspora, whether it be implicit or explicit. Yet, these feelings wane in comparison to the anti-blackness practiced on the South Asian continent. Recent popular movements directed towards achieving racial equality, such as BlackLivesMatter, have had a tendency to focus on the institutional and interpersonal racism found within the West. This is no limitation on their part; our influence can only extend so far from where we stand. However, it is important to recognise that global racial equality cannot be realised until the anti-black racism we so frequently observe amongst South Asian communities is addressed. Admittedly, the task that lies ahead is difficult, but a first step might be taken by challenging the colourism that is so widespread within Bollywood.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Bollywood film industry is the largest in the world. Though Hollywood may surpass it in terms of revenue (due in no small part to the exchange rate between the dollar and the rupee), it cannot compare to Bollywood’s sheer size. Statistics provided by Yahoo!Finance reveal that in 2016, Bollywood produced almost three times the number of films produced by Hollywood, and that approximately 2.2 Billion Bollywood movie tickets are sold annually throughout India, almost 800 million more than are sold in Hollywood. A further 2018 YouGov poll conducted on 1,000 respondents in India showed that every 1 in 6 cinema-goers watches a film every week. Whilst these figures focus on India, the same love of cinema can be observed in its neighbouring countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Part of the reason why Bollywood may be so popular in South Asia may be due to the fact that countries such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are obsessed with celebrity culture. As Aditya Gupta illustrates,

Such parasocial relationships are common throughout the sub-continent, but the obsession with celebrities goes beyond the bounds of intense fandom. Rather, film stars, and the heroes and heroines they play on screen, often assume positions as inspiring role models in the lives of their fans. Indeed, walk through the gullies of any Indian town or city and it is common to observe men and women proudly imitating the looks, style, and mannerisms of their film star role models. This tradition of imitation can be observed as far back as the 1960s in films such as Sholay and ShehenShah, which had strong influences on the behaviour of South Asian males by laying the foundations for masculinity. As Meghna Mehra writes, ‘this era showed the idea of being a man as the idea of being tough, rowdy and well, macho’, and this view on masculinity could be seen imitated by the male viewership. As Bollywood has progressed through the decades, the focus has shifted from such high-action Westerns to more family-orientated movies such as Hum Saath-Saath Hain, which have themselves enforced strict gender roles and internalised misogynies. The effect of these films on ideas of masculinity and gender roles are things I have witnessed personally in the lessons that were taught to me as a child regarding what it meant to be a “man” and the “head of the household”, and I observe them still in the mentalities of my peers in India. Even today, there is an expectation on myself as the eldest son to take on the role of the “man of the house” after my father, much to the aggravation of my older sister.

If Bollywood films can be observed to have such a strong influence on the behaviours and thoughts of their viewership, it is because film, as a storytelling medium, has a powerful capability for intersecting with our lives, thoughts, and beliefs. It does so, through two means: the first, by providing us with role models on whom to model our own behaviour, and the second, by showing us versions of reality we desire, which we then seek to produce in our own lives. Attempts to empirically prove the effect of stories on our behaviour are explored in psychological theories such as the Narrative Transportation theory, which considers how transportation into a narrative can produce real-world effects on viewers beliefs and thoughts. In their 2000 study, Melanie C. Green and Timothy C. Brock found that ‘[t]o the extent that individuals are absorbed into a story or transported into a narrative word, they may show effects of the story on their real-world beliefs’ (Green and Brock, 2000). This is evident clearly of course in the effect that Bollywood films have had in directing notions of masculinity in the later decades of the twentieth century. Beyond this, the practice of finding role models in actors and film protagonists also has a significant impact on viewers’ behaviour and thoughts. A 2020 article by Fiona Murden showed how imitating our role models shapes our brains in particular ways (Murden 2020). Murden finds imitation to be a natural process in social learning, stating that role-modelling is a way to learn the nuances and complexity of human behaviour and emotions. The effect of this process is at its greatest in infancy, but even in adulthood the behaviour of those we surround ourselves with has a strong impact on our lives by shaping our beliefs, value systems, and experiences. As Murden finds, ‘in 2007 a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine observing more than 12,000 participants for 30 years found that people are more likely to gain weight if those they interact with gain weight. The chances of gaining that weight increased by an astounding 171 per cent if a close friend had done so.’ Over long periods of time, these imitations amount to ‘habits and lasting behaviours that become part of who we are, altering our characteristics, beliefs and nudging our values without us even realising.’ But what is the impact of all this on racial equality? Murden is hopeful that if imitation can be proven as a significant method of social learning, it could be employed to produce positive social change by improving attitudes surrounding diversity and inclusion, LGBTQ+ rights, Black Lives Matter and mental health. Taking into account the deep influence of Bollywood films on South Asian viewers, it follows that an effective method of changing South Asian attitudes of anti-blackness may be to provide role models who are more racially inclusive in the narratives that are produced by the Indian film industry.

It is perhaps out of recognition of this very power that films hold that in recent years the Indian film industry has taken on a more active role in encouraging social change. Recent examples include the widely-acclaimed Pad-man, which aimed to target the stigma surrounding menstruation in India, and My Name is Khan, which addressed islamophobia in post-9/11 America. Whilst these films are important in their own regard, there still seems to be little coming out of Bollywood which addresses the problem of racism, and specifically, anti-blackness. Instead, stereotypes and racist misconception surrounding black people continue to have an insidious employment in the Indian film industry as methods of dramatic effect. In the 2008 film Fashion, for example, the morally questionable Meghna Mathur, portrayed by Priyanka Chopra Jonas, finds her lowest point when she sleeps with a black man. Characterising this act as the lowest point in her life, when previously we see her struggle with real problems such as alcoholism, is illustrative of how little value and respect the Indian film industry, as a reflection of Indian society, places on black men. Yet, as I said at the beginning of this piece, addressing anti-black racism through Bollywood will not be an easy task. If one were to make a film addressing anti-black racism or promoting racial equality which sees, for example, a relationship between an Indian woman and a Black man, they would be more likely to elicit backlash and outrage from narrow-minded viewers than meaningful social discussion. The path to racial equality through Bollywood must be more subtle if it is to have effect, and to this end, a starting point may be to challenge the colourism that pervades the industry.

Bollywood’s obsession with fair skin is no surprise. Its roster of lead actors and actresses is filled with fair-skinned men and women such as John Abraham and Deepika Padukone, who exclusively assume the protagonist role, whilst dark-skinned actors are relegated to portraying the antagonists or the “poor.” The association between dark skin, poverty, and evil is recurrent in Bollywood’s history. In the song Aa Jane Jaan from the 1969 movie Intaqam, actors donning black-face dance around in a scene intended to depict the savagery of Africa. One man is shown beating his chest and banging the bars of his cage whilst a blonde hair-blue eyed actress teases him. The scene is a disgraceful indictment of the racism that was inherent in the Indian film industry in the 1960s, and whilst we may hope that such scenes will never be re-created, the same racism can be observed in more subtle and implicit ways in the obsession with colourism. In the 2019 drama Super 30, for example, Hrithik Roshan is seen donning brown-face in order to portray the poorer citizens of the Indian state of Bihar. In the same year, Ranveer Singh in Gully Boy was also made a few shades darker to represent a poor rapper from Mumbai’s slums. Both films were commercial successes, and both, in their own implicit ways, reinforced the association between dark skin and poverty. But beyond the associations created within the films themselves, Bollywood’s roster of lead actors and actresses can also be held as complicit in perpetuating the association between dark skin and poverty through their promoting of skin lightening products such as the widely popular Indian brand “Fair and Lovely.” Skin lightening is unfortunately a deeply ingrained practice in India, from skin-whitening in family portraits to the mentality that one must “scrub” the darkness from their skin when showering. I myself have memories of my mother being covered in layers of white foundation by a make-up artist for my aunts wedding in a bid to make her appear more fair and ‘beautiful’. Unfortunately, the resultant look appeared more like a badly-executed geisha imitation than anything else, much to my mother’s horror. Nonetheless, young men and women throughout South Asia are encouraged to maintain fair skin if they are to stand a chance at marriage, and in the case of women in particular, notions of beauty are tied strongly to the possession of fair skin.

This obsession with fair skin is rooted first and foremost in India’s own historical prejudice towards those with dark skin, as observed both in its cultural myths and in the classist structures of its ancient caste system. On the first part, depictions of popular religious myths such as Valmiki’s Ramayana, whether in the form of films, paintings, or children’s picture-books, almost exclusively portray the heroic trio Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita, as fair and radiant, whilst the antagonists, Ravana and his sister Shurpanakha, are depicted predominantly as dark-skinned. Shurpanakha in particular is mentioned by Valmiki as being a demonic woman "grim of eye and foul of face", "of unlovely figure”, and "hideous fiend, a thing to hate.” Compare these descriptions to visual representations of the character as being dark-skinned, as in the following picture, and one can begin to understand how deep the roots of colourism go in India.

On the second part, attitudes of colourism are culturally institutionalised by the Indian caste system which has structured Indian society for more than 2,000 years. There are five classes, in descending order being: the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, and Dalits, who are the lowest and often referred to as “untouchables.” In more ancient times, Dalit people, from working outside all day under the heat of the Indian sun, developed darker skin, whilst the richer classes could stay sheltered and maintain fairer complexions. Hence, dark skin gradually became attributed to the lowest Dalit class of persons, whilst fair skin was attributed to the higher classes. The classism enforced by the caste system in India is so deeply-ingrained that for many it is taboo to even marry those of a lower class than oneself. Tackling colourism and changing pre-conceptions surrounding dark skin in South Asia is a project of enormous proportions then, yet it must be the first step taken towards challenging anti-black racism. Efforts to challenge these notions have been made in the past by the darker-skinned populations of South India, such as Tamil poet Kambar’s Kamba Ramayanam, which re-imagines Shurpanakha as a tragic hero rather than a demoness. Kambar’s version deviates from Valmiki’s on a few important aspects. Firstly, he portrays Shurpanakha as a “ravishing beauty”, rather than a “hideous fiend”, as she is described in Valmiki’s version. Kambar’s description is as follows: This positive physical description of Shurpanakha both reflects and asserts her status as a woman of royal descent, and importantly, justifies her attempted courtship of Rama and Lakshmana as actions within her prerogative. As such, when Rama insults Shurpanakha and Lakshmana permanently disfigures her by cutting off her nose and breast, Shurpanakha is viewed more accurately by Kambar as the victim of injustice rather than a conquered antagonist. Thus, Kambar’s version rightly depicts Shurpanakha not as a demoness or temptress, but as a strong-willed and independent woman who is wronged by Valmiki’s “heroes” simply because she dared to approach them. Yet, such efforts have regrettably had little effect, and despite the scholarship surrounding the Kamba Ramayanam, for the majority of Indian readers, Shurpanakha remains an antagonist. Instead, in recognition of the influence Bollywood has on South Asian viewers' beliefs and value systems, addressing the colourism that is perpetuated by the industry may be considered a more effective first step to inciting a meaningful shift in attitudes.

Some recent films have attempted to challenge these notions of colourism in South Asia, such as Amar Kaushik’s 2019 film Bala. The primary story revolves around Balmukund Shukla, a man suffering from male pattern baldness, and aims to both highlight and remedy the humiliation balding men face in Indian society. In the midst of this narrative is a secondary story following Latika Trivedi, a dark-skinned girl who also struggles with discrimination and social pressure, albeit on the basis of her complexion. The film begins with a young Balmukund and Latika re-enacting the story of Kubja from the Bhagavata Purana for a school drama performance. In this scene, the Hindu god Krishna meets the “ugly and hunchbacked” Kubja, a mid-servant of King Kamsa of Mathura. Noticing Kubja’s inner beauty, Krishna rescues her from the King and makes her “beautiful”. In Bala, the re-enactment of this scene for a school performance demonstrates how colourism is enforced systemically and from a young age, through the schools choice of casting the dark-skinned Latika as the “ugly”, Kali (black) Kubja, only to be replaced by the fair-skinned student Shruti upon her transformation. It is a haunting moment seeing the young Latika standing backstage and watching the audience applaud the fair-skinned Shruti as the example of beauty. As the older Latika states later in the film, the story of Kubja illustrates that when God has set the precedent that dark skin is ugly, you cannot expect humans to think any different. Following from this prologue, the film fast-forwards sixteen years to find an older, balding, Balmukund working as a salesman for a cosmetics company called “Pretty You.” Standing in front of a room full of dark-skinned adolescent girls, he advertises Pretty You’s skin-lightening products without the slightest awareness of the impact his words have on the confidence and self-esteem of the girls in the crowd. The scene is a concise indictment of India’s deep-rooted social prejudice towards dark skin and preference for fair skin. As part of his pitch, Balmukund quotes lyrics from famous Bollywood singers such as Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan which praise girls for their fair skin, such as “O goriya, chura na mera jiya” from the 1995 song “Husn Hai Suhana.” The lyrics translates roughly as, “Oh fair-skinned girl, don’t steal my heart.” Using examples taken from newspaper ads of men seeking wives, Bala further notes how the single most important demand men had when searching for wives, is that the girl have fair skin. He states, “Sirf gori ladki chahiye”, which translates to “men only want fair-skinned girls.” And, at the end of the pitch, he makes the important point that this is not just his opinion, but rather, “the thought of our times.” Watching the expressions on the faces of the young women in the audience, one cannot help but feel sympathy; it is shameful that from such a young age, dark-skinned girls are made to feel guilty for their complexion and fed the narrative that they cannot find love unless they lighten their skin.

Bala opens the discussion on colourism and discrimination in India on many fronts, yet, when watching the film, one cannot help but feel that the conversation surrounding colourism is but a footnote accompanying the main story of baldness. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that a meaningful shift in attitudes surrounding colourism can be achieved by a film which considers the social stigma of baldness to be a more pertinent issue than that of colourism. Beyond this, there is also another notable issue with the film, which lies primarily with its insensitive choice of casting. Firstly, the choice to cast Yami Gautam as the face of Pretty You, when previously the actress had featured on an advertisement for the real Indian skin-lightening brand Fair and Lovely, seems insensitive in a film that attempts to challenge the practice of skin-lightening and address the discrimination faced by dark-skinned persons. Secondly, despite the importance of Latika’s character to this aspect of the film’s message, she is portrayed by fair-skinned actress Bhumi Pednekar, who uses brown-face to imitate the character’s dark skin. As we have seen before in films such as Super 30 and Gully Boy, the use of brown-face is common throughout Bollywood. Yet, the decision to use brown-face in Bala seems absurd when one considers the message the film intends to communicate. Indeed, the question Bala puts forward is, if the film is intended to be a portrayal of the discrimination dark-skinned people face in society, why not hire a dark-skinned actor to fulfil the role? According to the director, the choice to cast fair-skinned actress Bhumi Pednekar was made on the basis of her talent, yet I find it difficult to believe that a dark-skinned person could not have possessed the same degree of talent. If Bollywood is to tackle the issues of colourism frequently observed in South Asia, it must provide space for the positive representation of dark-skinned actors, not only in those films which speak of issues relating to colourism, but also in films which celebrate and reflect the diversity of complexions which constitute South Asia. Overall, though it is not without its share of problems, Bala is an adequate starting point for discussion, and fortunately there are more films making their way to Bollywood’s big screen which should continue the conversation. 2021 will see another attempt to tackle colourism with the film Unfair and Lovely, which already seems to resolve the issue of misrepresentation seen in Bala by hiring dark-skinned actress Ileana D’Cruz. We can only hope that this is a more sensitive and focused take on the matter. By encouraging dialogue on these matters through Bollywood films, and by putting the spotlight on the issues of colourism which are so subtle and inherent in South Asian society that they appear almost second nature, we might take an effective first step towards challenging the notions of anti-black racism that originate as an extension of colourism.