Nandita Das’s campaign against discrimination of dark skin comes from a personal space. “I have had directors or camera persons telling me that it would be good if I made my skin lighter as I was playing an educated upper-class woman,” recalls actor-filmmaker, who understands that the bias against dark skin in India stands at an intersection of class, caste and gender. “The fact [that] women are objectified, the pressure to look a certain way is enormous,” she says. “And while it is about pandering to the male gaze, it is also something that is deeply internalised by women.”
To spread awareness against the discrimination, Das has been supporting the Dark Is Beautiful Campaign since 2013, which was started in 2009 by a Chennai-based NGO, Women Of Worth (WOW). To commemorate 10 years of this campaign, Das collaborated with filmmaker Mahesh Mathai, music composer Ankur Tewari and chairperson of JSW Foundation, Sangita Jindal, to bring out ‘India’s Got Colour’, a rap video chronicling everyday instances of discrimination, and featuring Ratna Pathak Shah, Kanwaljit Singh, Gul Panag, Swara Bhaskar, Radhika Apte, Suchitra Pillai, Tillotama Shome, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Vikrant Massey, Shweta Tripathi and Ali Fazal. In the video, which is streaming on YouTube, there’s a doting mother giving advice to her pregnant daughter, a father finding a suitable bride for his son, a child being asked to stay away from the harsh sun, and an actress being photoshopped after a shoot. “What shocks me is that colour bias is something that people are socially comfortable displaying. There is absolutely no shame in being racist,” exclaims Das.
Caste and colour
The Manto- director acknowledges that the bias is systemic. In that light, how does she view the intersectionality between caste and colour? “Caste discrimination is at so many levels that the intersectionality with colour is bound to happen,” she says. “It is easy for some of us to say we don’t care or think about caste as it plays no or very little role in our lives. But those who face the brunt of it on a daily basis, they will tell you that colour is one more whammy, but is comparatively less significant than the oppression caste politics has on their lives.” Graduating from an actor to a filmmaker, Das now has both the responsibility and privilege of casting her characters the way she wants to. Casting for her is about how an actor’s “physical appearance can add to the believability of the character” and not how “beautiful or handsome” they are. In this process, it’s imperative for her to go beyond stereotypes. “Poor people, whether they are from villages or slums, are dark, and rich and upper caste people are fair. We know that this isn’t true,” she observes. “Also, skin tones vary from region to region, but we still tend to typecast while casting.”
Triggering conversations
Cinema, she believes, reflects the biases in our society. “In subtle and blatant ways, we often hear things like, ‘ uska rang saaf hai ’ for fair people as if the dark skin is dirty,” questions Das. “It is tough to combat a mindset that finds many manifestations in our Indian songs, stories, myths and fables.” Das wants the ‘India’s Got Colour’ video to trigger a conversation that addresses these layers of discrimination. “I am also urging people to translate and dub [the video] in various languages, so that the dissemination is wider,” she informs. On popular demand, the makers subtitled the video in English and Kavitha Emmanuel of WoW will dub in Tamil with the help of Tewari and the Tamil rappers in Dharavi. On a personal front, Das’ instinctive response to prejudice and discrimination is to find ways to engage, instead of battling them.
“Much of it is deep conditioning and unconscious bias, and those are the toughest to tackle,” she shares. But through the struggle, both big and small, her advice to young people is to be comfortable in their own skin and let not anybody rob them off of their self-esteem.
