The BL interview. ‘Why is fair always lovely? Why can’t dark be so?’

JD(U) MP Sharad Yadav has once again riled feminists by linking women’s skin colour to the debate on FDI in insurance. After facing an aggressive Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, who asked him to withdraw his remarks in Parliament on Monday, Yadav repeated his resolve to start a debate on the subject. In an interview to BusinessLine , Yadav asserted that “black is beautiful” and explained why he does not regret his controversial remarks on parkati auratein (short-haired women).

Are you being deliberately provocative? What do you mean by telling Smriti Irani that you “know what she is”?

I meant exactly what I said. Who are these people preaching me morality and women’s rights? I have said nothing that I should be ashamed of. In fact, I will say it again.

Sharadji, there is a term called structural sexism. You personify it by talking about women and skin colour when the debate is about FDI in insurance. Any civilised person would object.

I won’t be lectured on civilisation and structural sexism. I represent the victims of this civilisation that discriminates against people on the basis of their caste, religion and colour.

(Interrupting) There is no racial discrimination in India.

Then there is a problem with your understanding. Let me tell you why I talk of skin colour during a debate on FDI in insurance. I am trying to explain how the international market has come to dominate the socio-economic, political as well as cultural aspects of an Indian’s life.

At the time of an economic downturn, our public sector banks and insurance companies bailed us out. But the successive governments want to sell them off because they blindly follow the West and the market.

In a semi-feudal, backward society like ours where caste-discrimination is still a main factor behind economic inequality, it is important to understand how the market is penetrating the socio-cultural sphere to our detriment.

I cited skin colour because it is a good example of the way the beauty industry now defines what is beautiful, what kind of body structure women and men should have and the clothes that they should wear. This is because the beauty industry, fashion industry, skin clinics, dieticians have made a business out of complexes they create among a vast majority of our people, especially women.

You have to be “fair and lovely”. You can’t be “dark and lovely”. You have to be thin enough to fit into the clothes that the fashion industry sells in our market. They decide the body shape.

Moreover, skin colour continues to be the basis of discrimination, in the West as well as in this country. We are psychologically dominated by the whites.

This is not what you said in Parliament. You were talking about South Indian women, their colour and how they dance.

If only the media would get over its haste to make headlines, you would notice that when I talked about skin colour and dance, I was making a reference to the profound cultural rootedness of our people in the South. Raja and Radha Reddy are not our models. Aishwarya Rai is.

Brinda Karat should support me on this. I don’t know why she is speaking the same language as Smriti Irani.

Let’s face it Sharadji, your message was lost. Your statement was sexist and smacked of a patriarchal mindset just like when you referred to the supporters of women’s reservation in Parliament as parkati .

That is colloquial term for a modern woman. And I have no regrets about using it. Let all of them turn against me. I speak for the silent majority. They understand me even if you don’t.

COMMENT NOW