Kerala chief secretary Sarada Muraleedharan, the state’s highest-ranking bureaucrat, will be retiring from her post at the end of this month. She took over duties from her spouse, Dr V Venu, in September 2024 upon his own retirement. Muraleedharan’s tenure in this post is short; those in her state will probably know more about her work during this time. But as it comes to an end, she has made an impression on a national level through sharing personal musings on being a dark-skinned person and the discrimination she has faced as a result. Dr V Venu happens to be fair-skinned.
In a social media post that was deleted and then reposted, Muraleedharan wrote: “Heard an interesting comment yesterday on my stewardship as chief secretary — that it is as black as my husband’s was white.” The ugly comment went as far as to associate dark skin with a poor track record. She showed a meaningful vulnerability by displaying her hurt, as well as thereafter asserting her own beauty and personal (or perhaps also political) power: “I need to own my blackness”.
We can understand ‘blackness’ here to be derived from Indian languages wherein darker skin is described as ‘black’ and tanning as ‘blackening’. It is not about Blackness, i.e. any relationship to or appropriation of the experiences of peoples of African origin. To a person unfamiliar with languages like Malayalam or Tamil where deep skin tones are all described as ‘black’, this may seem confusing or even wrong, but in this context is only reflective of Muraleedharan’s first language.
Like Sarada Muraleedharan, I am a dark-skinned person myself, and I enjoy my skin tone and do not wish for it to be lighter. Like any South Asian child or adolescent, I heard derogatory remarks about it, but when I look back, I suppose they had rather little impact, because I grew to like my complexion quite quickly. I also like when my colour deepens after some time in the sun. (Yes, like anyone with social media and disposable income, I do use sunscreen — widely marketed in India for tan prevention and fairness preservation, which it is not for and does not provide). While I hesitate, perhaps because I think, read and write in English, to embrace my ‘blackness’, I profoundly understand Muraleedharan’s sentiments. In her short post, she writes poetically: “It is the colour that works on everyone, the dress code for office, the lustre of evening wear, the essence of kajol, the promise of rain.”
Colourism is far from a thing of the past in India — and it may disproportionately affect women too — and each time a public figure speaks up about it still matters. What I really like about the fact that Muraleedharan has done so is that she is not from the
entertainment industry, where limited aesthetic parameters rule above all. She is from a field where looks aren’t supposed to matter (charisma does in politics and by extension the civil service, of course, but this transcends appearance). Yet even today, in 2025, at almost 60 years old, this kind of discrimination is levelled against her. As it is at many others.