Letters

HAVING BEEN EXPOSED TO WHITE people for a long time, I have come to appreciate my Indian complexion more and more. Your article “Beneath the White Complex” by Lavina Melwani (August 2007) described Rani Mukherjee as having a “dusky” complexion. May I say that Rani is a Maharani, very beautiful and highly desirable. If my fellow Indians back home continue to be unappreciative of Indian beauty, it is their problem.

DR. VISHWANATH AYENGAR, Wappingers Falls, NY
 

NEEDLESS TO SAY, THE WHITENESS of the skin is the single biggest criteria among many South Asians in grading beauty. However, I do not believe finding someone attractive based on whiteness is any more wrong than preferring the smell of the rose to that of jasmine. It has more to do with human nature, irrational and unexplainable as it may be, than the British or the Vedas. 

It is no more wrong that finding someone attractive based on their height, the size of their nose, or their speaking accent. 

However what is wrong is violating someone’s right based on the color of their skin e.g. denying them a job, hurting sentiments by making inappropriate comments, mistreating people, etc. Physical attraction is an essential component of marriage and so it should come as no surprise that whiteness of the skin is a desired attribute. But if that is the major criteria, or God forbid the only criteria (as is the case when a desi aunt is involved in the selection process), then God help that marriage.
RAZA RIZVI, Houston, TX
 
IT IS NOT IN INDIA ALONE (OR AMONG the darker races alone as in Mexico, Malaysia, etc.) that a preference for a light skin is to be found. Nor is the preference a legacy of European colonial rule. It existed among European people right down to recent times. It is a well known fact that the English at the time of Queen Elizabeth I took considerable trouble to whiten their faces. 

  The preference arises from the fact that the lower classes throughout the world had to work in the fields under a hot sun, and grew dark. Over the course of time the dark skin became an indication of one’s social position. The idea is embedded in the English word fair itself, which has the meaning, beautiful. “Fair and lovely” is a common English expression.
JAYANAND VASUDEVAN, Via eMail
 
IT CANNOT BE ARGUED THAT INDIAN society has long perpetuated the “benefits” of fair skin. I agree with Aneel Karnani that the cosmetic industry has done what any industry likes to do – they found a niche and cashed in on it (The White Complex,” August 2007). 

It’s now time that India took a different route. I would love to see India follow the example of Australia, another sun-drenched country, and emphasize the risks associated with excessive sun exposure rather than the aesthetic rewards of having lighter complexions. Companies such as Fair and Lovely need to become socially responsible and stop hawking these potentially harmful creams and instead focus on the harmful effects of the sun in the form of skin diseases, such as vitiligo and leukoderma, both common amongst Indians and other darker skinned peoples. They need to manufacture and market high level protective sun blocks. 

Doing this follows Karnani’s advice by empowering Indian women (and men) by supplying them with knowledge about the sun’s effects on our skin. It can simultaneously widen the margins of beauty, as the Dove corporation has successfully done in the U.S., emphasizing the beauty of soft, healthy skin, regardless of color. 

In a slightly different vein, the fashion industry can also jump on the “Knowlege is Power” bandwagon by emulating countries such as China and Korea who manufacture and market wide brim sun hats. While these hats may have initially been marketed as a means of preserving a fair face, if a somewhat darker skinned, but nonetheless radiant star such as Bipasha Basu, posed for an ad wearing a sun hat and promoted the correct message, then there is certainly hope for change. Thank you for exploring this serious and ever present issue in our society.

ANYA IYENGAR, Adjunct Professor
San Jose City College, San Jose, CA
 
THE ARTICLE “INVADING THE SACRED” (August 2007) by Dr. Krishnan Ramaswamy is thought provoking. 

I am not at surprised that even scholars do not have a clear understanding of our culture and heritage. Why should they? For years we neglected talking about our culture and allowed others to define us. Now we are reaping the results of our own abandonment of defending our culture. When evening news programs discuss world religions, they never mention Hinduism.

Even today, some educated Indians are apathetic toward anything Indian and shy away from answering people who question their culture and beliefs. Stop a Christian or a Muslim on the road and ask him about his religion and you will hear an earful. Stop a Hindu and ask him about his beliefs and he will run away. 

Of course, Paul Courtright’s book Ganesa: Lord of the Obstacles, Lord of the Beginnings is despicable and disgraceful. Under the cover of scholarship, he has manufactured facts without any scriptural backing. What he did is deplorable. 

Educating ourselves about our culture is one way to stop people like Pat Robertson and Courtright from propagating falsehoods about our culture. Just visiting temples and doing some rituals will not make anyone proficient enough to answer questions. We are building million dollar temples, but very few of them have libraries and assembly halls where people are invited for lectures.
ED VISWANATHAN, Via eMail
  
I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED THE THOUGHT provoking article “Invading the Sacred” by Krishnan Ramaswamy.

It was remarkable that you exposed the teaching of Hinduism/Sanskrit by pseudo scholars. Affluent Indians who pour funds for establishing chairs in American universities in these disciplines are less interested in promoting our culture and languages, and more keen to secure the friendship of whites, tax-savings, and for getting closer to the wealth-making and propaganda machine of mainstream America to further their wealth and fame.

 You made a mistake by contacting Paul Courtright and agreeing to publish his views in the September issue. You should not publish his remarks, as that will give him another chance for Hinduism bashing, as he will repeat the same arguments from his book on Lord Ganesh, which I have carefully chosen not to read, and suggest no Indian should read. You may feel the need to try to present both sides of a controversy. The mainstream American press, when they print derogatory remarks about India, Sanskrit and Hinduism, do they ever contact an Indian scholar for opinion? Never. They don’t even publish the views of Indians even when we try. Then why should you let the guilty explain his position? Just ignoring Courtright and explaining what mischief he has done should be enough.
ARUN MISRA, Alpharetta, GA

I PERSONALLY KNOW AT LEAST THREE parents whose children were denied admission to the gifted program in public schools. “Reverse Discrimination” (August 2007). What can we do? My son was denied on the grounds that he was a high achiever, but not gifted. This is nonsense. If a child performs well in academic subjects then the public schools should not be in the business of holding him back. If a child can read well and do math at a grade higher but the school hrefuses to allow him in the gifted program, then it is due to bias. Many of the parents have just given up and just teach their children at home. I personally wrote to my congressman Charlie Howard and was told to home school my son. They did not say anything about returning my tax dollars. Many Indian parents don’t complain or fight the system, because it takes too much effort and is unlikely to succeed.
HEMALATHA SINHA, Via eMail
 
I AM IN THE UNITED STATES TO SPEND some time with my grandchildren. What a pleasant experience it was to go through your August issue. Congratulations for bringing out such an excellent magazine. I have read every word in the issue. That’s no exaggeration, believe me. I am now eagerly awaiting your September issue.
M.V. NAGAVENDER RAO, Grand Ledge, MI
 
AFTER READING THE AUGUST 2007 issue, I was struck by how the theme of acceptance and struggle for equal rights seemed prominent in so many of the articles. Accepting ourselves regardless of how dark or light our skin is and accepting other people regardless of the skin color or gender of the person they choose to love is indispensable in a socially and politically just society. I was also pleasantly surprised to read about Sonu Niiggam’s expression of solidarity with another marginalized community, the hijras. I wasn’t too familiar with Niigaam’s work before reading the interview, but I’ll be sure to buy and support him in the future.
ANITA CHIKKATUR, Philadelphia, PA
 
THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE EVER written to your magazine, but I had to comment on the photo contest winner. The photo of the guy in Indian dress playing the Wii is so much funnier than the typical Taj Mahal touristy “clever” shot. Next time, please select a photo that hreflects “Indian life in amusing contexts.”
S. PATEL-MCGAUGH, Via eMail

I AM A REGULAR READER OF LITTLE India and greatly enjoy your highly interesting articles on different subject areas. I was fascinated by the article “Indian Independence and the African American Struggle” by Murali Balaji (August 2007). Congratulations to him for throwing so much light on the involvement of Indians with the African American struggle in the 1940s and 1950s. Many of us fail to understand that Indians and other Asians have been beneficiaries of the civil rights struggle of African Americans. It is very unlikely that the immigration hreforms would have been approved without this struggle. The big Asian migration (including Indians) began after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was signed by President Johnson.
RAJAGOPAL RAMASWAMY, Via eMail
 
“EXPORTING HINDI” BY LAVINA MELwani (August 2007) misses the mark. There is historic evidence to prove that only commercial and trade compulsions are the driving force to learn foreign languages. Tamil, which is widely spoken in Srilanka, Singapore and Malaysia, is among their official languages not because of Tamil movies, but because for decades (if not centuries) most of the trading activities in those regions were in the hands of the Tamil settlers. That Tamil movies are popular in these places is only a consequence not the cause. Even the “literary richness” of a language can only impress a few individuals to learn it, but it cannot take any “alien” community by storm.

We Indians mastered English only because it was thrust upon us by the regimental British. So the suggestion that one can depend on Bollywood babus for piggybacking Hindi to the western countries is sheer drivel.
S. SWAMINATHAN, Billerica, MA
 
SHEKAR HATTANGADI’S ARTICLE “IS Suneeta Williams Really an Indian Idol” (July 2007) should have been totally ignored. I was sorry to read that people actually responded, giving it undeserved credibility.

 It is obvious that the article was intended to create a storm. However, it is nothing but a tempest in a tea pot. I would not be surprised that Hattangadi, in his innermost heart, does not really believe what he has written.
RAVINDRA S. TIPNIS, Sugar Land, TX