Happily, protest against the unchallenged exploitative nationwide campaign mounted by several consumer goods multinationals to perpetuate white supremacy over gullible, brain-dead Indians by addicting them to skin whitening creams and potions, is not restricted to this publication which has protested it on this page on several occasions. Somewhat belatedly, the hardselling of lightening products, which is big business for corporates, is also being protested by pillars of Indian academia.
Writing in the Hindu (September 9), the highly respected Dr. Krishna Kumar, director of NCERT (National Council for Education Research and Training) Delhi, excoriated manufacturers and marketers of skin lightening creams for undertaking a major push in rural India. He describes the marketing campaign of an (alas) unnamed company under which “malnourished poor girls are learning to draw the digit 8 on their faces” with the company’s skin lightening cream. “In the next stage of the contest, Saroj (a class I dropout) and her friends will apply the cream for 28 days after which the company will judge who looks the fairest,” writes Prof. Krishna Kumar who gave full credit to an Outlook Hindi edition correspondent Bhasha Singh for unearthing this story of corporate exploitation of the gullibility of rural children.
Although Prof. Kumar has blown the lid off a dirty national secret, typically, he has stopped short of naming the impugned company. One wonders why. What does he have to lose if he exposes this amoral company? Or should one suspect the blue pencil of N. Ram, the Cadillac communist editor of the Hindu, who is ideologically neutral when safeguarding the commercial interests of his best-selling daily?
Unlike the editors of this puny publication which has targeted the billion dollar multinational Hindustan Unilever for unethically plugging its best-selling skin lightening cream, Fair & Lovely, and losing lakhs of potential ad revenue. Time to learn how to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds!