The senior-most bureaucrat in India’s most gender-equal state had something to say to an unnamed commenter, who compared her tenure “as black as her husband’s was white”—a reference to her skin colour. Even if the inane comment was meant as a ‘joke’, Sarada Muraleedharan was not going to take it quietly.
“High time for me not to feel defensive about either the fact that I am a woman or that I am dark,” the Kerala chief secretary wrote in a Facebook post that was initially deleted, but then restored because “there were things there that needed to be discussed.”
Muraleedharan took over as Kerala chief secretary in September 2024 after her predecessor V Venu, a fellow 1990-batch IAS officer (coincidentally, also her husband), retired.
She is the first woman to hold the top bureaucratic job in a state that does well on most gender indices, notably sex ratio (#1 at 1,084 females for every 1,000 males in 2011). Her own career has been nothing short of impressive: head of Kudumbashree, the state government mission to reduce poverty and empower women, from 2006 to 2012; chief operating officer at the National Rural Livelihoods Mission at the ministry of rural development, and a stint at the ministry of panchayati raj.
And yet, here she was, being judged not by her professional achievements but the colour of her skin.
Muraleedharan’s long post addresses her own childhood trauma in dealing with the cultural fixation with fairness. Even as a four-year-old, she was made aware of the colour of her skin. She had asked her mother “whether she could put me back in her womb and bring me out again, all white and pretty,” she shared. “I have lived for over 50 years buried under that narrative of not being a colour that was good enough.”
Finally, it was, she continues, her children, “gloried in their black heritage”, who helped her understand “that black is beautiful… That I dig black.”
Within hours of being posted, Muraleedharan’s post went viral. At the time of writing this on Sunday, it has close to 3,500 likes, 900 comments and an equal number of shares.
The beauty myth
With its associations with the leisure class, colonial masters and India’s obsession with ‘fair’ skin is neither new nor limited to only this country.
The proliferation of so-called “fairness creams” in Asia, Africa, and India is proof that the notion of fair is beautiful has not been dislodged. The launch of Fair & Lovely by Hindustan Unilever in 1975 launched a deluge of similar products, including those for men. In 2019, the fairness cream market in India was estimated at ₹3,000 crore.
“The market has capitalised on the Indian subconscious idea of equating beauty with fairness,” said Ranjana Kumari, chairperson of Women Power Connect.
Social media, globalised ideas of beauty, and the entertainment industry ensured that fairness continues to hold sway. The idea of ideal skin colour is so ingrained that makeup artists even in small towns now routinely paint brides five or six shades lighter, in a grotesque bid to make them ‘beautiful’.
“There are so many ways to see beauty, but we are all following the western grid of the shape and look of beauty,” says Swati Bhattacharya, global head, Godrej Creative Lab. “The sinister lie that female worth depends upon looks, and a certain kind of looks, has become a universal truth validated by the global culture machine,” Swati wrote in a 2016 piece for the now defunct website, The Ladies Finger.
There has been a push back for sure. For instance, fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee has used dark-skinned and plus-sized models in his campaigns.
In 2013, Nandita Das launched a Dark is Beautiful campaign to challenge the belief that success and beauty are determined by skin colour. And in 2020, in a nod to changing times, Fair & Lovely cream was renamed Glow & Lovely. In 2023, it was reported that the market for fairness creams declined by 3%.
Not your business
By questioning prejudiced ideas of beauty norms, Muraleedharan has focused welcome attention on an old problem. Beauty, she reminds us, is not a “single thing”.
But her post also raises an equally crucial question on how and why women should be judged on the way they look rather than on their achievements.
Why should the way a woman looks—short, tall, fair, dark, fat, thin—be a matter for people to comment on at all? Who gives people that right?
A 2023 survey of 10,000 female-identifying women in the UK, Germany, Spain, Mexico, the UAE and Saudi Arabia found that 97% believe they are judged on how they look with 61% receiving negative comments and abuse about their appearance.
In India too, everyone and their brother believe it’s ok to comment on how women in public life appear. This holds true for women politicians as well as female athletes.
If Muraleedharan—and for that matter any professional woman—is to be judged, it must be only on the basis of her professional work. And that is a conversation that can only be welcomed by all.
