Kerala Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan has sparked a widespread discussion on skin colour bias after openly addressing a remark about her skin tone.
“Hmmm. I need to own my blackness,” she wrote on Facebook.
Her post was in response to an offensive remark about the contrast in complexion between her and her husband, Venu, the former Chief Secretary, after she received a comment stating that her tenure as Chief Secretary was “as black as her husband’s was white.”
She initially posted about the incident but later deleted it due to the overwhelming responses. However, encouraged by well-wishers who felt the issue needed to be discussed, she decided to repost it.
Muraleedharan, who took charge as Kerala’s Chief Secretary on August 31, 2024, said she had been used to comparisons with her predecessor for the past seven months.
“These last seven months have been a relentless parade of comparisons with my predecessor, and I have become quite inured. It was about being labelled black (with that quiet sub-text of being a woman), as if that were something to be desperately ashamed of. Black is as black does,” she said highlighting the intersectional bias she faced both as a woman and as a dark-skinned individual.
“Black is as black does. Not just black the colour, but black the ne’er-do-good, black the malaise, the cold despotism, the heart of darkness,” she wrote, questioning “But why should black be vilified?”
She described black as a colour that can absorb anything, calling it “the most powerful pulse of energy known to humankind.”
“It is the colour that works on everyone, the dress code for office, the lustre of evening wear, the essence of kajol, the promise of rain.”
She admitted that she had lived for over 50 years under the belief that her skin colour was not good enough, “And buying into that narrative”, until her children, “Who gloried in their black heritage. Who kept finding beauty where I noticed none. Who thought that black was awesome,” helped her see it differently.
“That black is beautiful.
That black is gorgeousness.
That I dig black,” Sarada Muraleedharan emphasised.
Her post has sparked a wide discussion about deep-rooted colour biases in Indian society.
Many including Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly VD Satheesan expressed solidarity towards Sarada Muraleedharan.
“Salute, dear Sarada Muraleedharan. Every word you have written is heart-touching. It deserves to be discussed. I had a mother whose skin colour was black,” Satheesan wrote on Facebook.
“Who said black is bad? I have heard people ask, if a crow bathes, will it become a crane? If a crane bathes, will it turn into a crow?”, asked CPI(M) MP K Radhakrishnan.
