Colourism in Kerala is like a bad smell in a stagnant loft, a stink so long dissolved in our breath, that we no longer recognize it as a kind of pollution. Babies barely born encounter it the moment that they fall into the lap of the earth. The excitement of the new birth soon gives way to desperate attempts to lighten the baby's skin or preserve the 'whiteness' by rubbing special oils and ointments on it. The little one's senses catch references to how 'fair' or 'dark' almost as soon as they begin to open towards the world. The micro-aggressions that ride on such differences are a part of 'normal' growing up and protesting is often discouraged as lack of grace. The boy-God Krishna who most savarna Hindus encounter early in life is supposed to be dark-skinned, is sad because of it, but is anyway bluish, we are told, and of course, in stories, there can be no questions.
Culturally, colourism is inherent in the self-imagination of Malayali elites and is often directly attributed to caste. Good physical grooming to enhance good looks was once a caste privilege. This is one element of the traditional order of caste that slipped easily into the emerging modernity in Malayalam-speaking regions of the nineteenth century.
So, the ideal modern woman, the eponymous heroine of O Chandu Menon's Indulekha, was of such a golden complexion that it was hard to make out where her skin ended and the golden brocade border of her garments began. That of course was the Malayalam version of the roses-and-cream-complexioned beauties in nineteenth century British novels.
Not that we had any dearth of moon-faced beauties in elite traditional literature in Malayalam, though. So much so that an 'unacceptably dark' complexion is instantly read as a sign of being born in a historically-marginalised caste (read 'lower caste' in elitist everyday speech).
In the pre-modern caste order, a person's caste was read from the dress-codes that they followed. This gave way in the high-tide of social democratization that happened in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but now instead of clothing, skin became the object from which a person's caste could be read off. Many people of historically-privileged origins (usually referred to as 'upper-caste') who complained of colourism were actually complaining of what they did not want to really name: caste misattribution.
The social media post by Kerala's top bureaucrat Sarada Muraleedharan does not really take this head on. It is about the mapping of colourism on gender and inefficiency – an indirect reference to complexion that is simultaneously a disparaging remark about the targeted person's gender and their alleged lack of efficiency. In the excited discussion on the topic that followed, caste seemed to be of least importance.
No wonder, the quick step that she takes from the poignant account of childhood perceptions of colourist violence and submission to the beauty norms privileging 'fairness' towards 'digging black' through strong support of her children seemed to be lacking in one crucial detail. That detail is the unspoken, dreaded misattribution of caste.
I have been speaking with the ASHA workers who are on strike in front of the State Secretariat since the past forty-eight days. A substantial share of themm belong to the oppressed castes. I have been listening to them recounting their lives and the colourist violence that has shaped them. Because it is so mingled with caste, they can barely distinguish it from casteist aggression.
In a society in which caste contempt is neatly hidden under other, more 'secular' sounding qualities – 'lack of hygiene' for example – the scorn against darker skin tones is often the way in which casteist exclusion is actually experienced in everyday life. I even think that in order to identify this as 'colourism' even, the person identifying it has to be either of historically-privileged birth, or they must gain a certain clear distance from their historically-marginalised birth. So while our Chief Secretary is able to speak of, and speak out against, colourism, even though she still cannot articulate a critique of its unspoken referent, the striking ASHA workers speak with eloquence and passion about how disdain for their skin and bodies among the elites is in real terms, disdain for their caste and class belonging.
Anyway, no amount of speaking out about colourism or colourism/casteism is going to make any difference, it seems. The ruling government in Kerala is the worst offender. I cannot help comparing the formal and fairly warm welcome it extended to the members of the WCC – well-groomed women with 'acceptable' complexions – when they sought an audience to speak about their issues. There was quite a flood of photos in the media with the Chief Minister posing with them and looking utterly at ease. The exact opposite is happening now.
True, the WCC has received no justice, but at least they received te minimum dignity due to citizens: an audience with power that promised redress. The ASHA workers of Kerala are the very opposite of well-groomed privileged women. They work long hours, and are exposed intensely to the elements, they are the poor and even malnourished development workers that keep the wheels of our social development, as well as our 'social development' bragging, well-oiled.
The state government's brazen refusal to treat them as humans, to deny basic citizenship respect to them, is not just because of the presence of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist). It is also a direct response to a colourist reading of their bodies that classifies them as being from historically-marginalised caste origins, and worthless females. It is also a total denial of the skills in health communication, crisis management, and data collection and entry that these women have amassed over the years (besides the many formal training they have received in diverse medical skills, from palliative care to midwifery to the use of data-collection apps).
In short, what this unknown aggressor did to our Chief Secretary, the Kerala government is doing the same – just that the pitiless malevolence is multiplied many times -- to Kerala's COVID warriors.
It is a hard world. Privileged women have many ways to get around colourism. Excellent concealers, foundations for every shade of skin colour, highlighters, filters for images… Only the working poor are exposed to the ruthless sun and dust and battle not just colourism, but actually colourist/casteism.
But the people of Kerala seem to have been ridden of colourism, or at least temporarily set it aside. The ASHA workers have been speaking in TV shows over the past month and a half. They have revealed to the world that the ugly underbelly of Kerala's health achievements rest on the backs of hapless women workers, underpaid and undervalued. They have spoken bravely about the truth of their own struggles in life, and the audience has not been able to look away.
The TRPs of these shows have remained stable over forty-five days now. Perhaps it is their truth – as usual, it is unattractive, grey and depressing but it cuts through pretty lies – that is now holding down our colourist prejudices.
(Professor J Devika's areas of specialisations are the history of, and present developments in gender, politics, development, and culture in Kerala; Sexuality Studies; the history of cosmopolitanism in Kerala; local self-government in Kerala; intersectional histories of subaltern places; translations and translation studies; Malayalam literature; contemporary politics; methodology in the social sciences.)
