India’s Light Skin Obsession

Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels

‘Our family is cursed,’ screamed my mother-in-law when her daughter Sasmita was born*. Sasmita is darker than the rest of her family.

Her own daughter’s skin was so offensive to her that she thought the devil was playing tricks on the family.

Indian businesses and others in Asia have long sold ‘skin whitening creams’ or other methods essentially bleaching one’s skin, presumably making it…