Fashioning a similar set of symbolic oppositions, these pictorial stories link light-skinned femininity to beauty, wholesome family life, and happiness, whereas dark-skinned femininity manifests through embodiments of grotesque physical appearance, anger, promiscuity, and deviance."Ĭirculating in a society which already marginalizes dark-skinned people, especially dark-skinned women, “the currency of colorism in Amar Chitra Katha comics thus carries a highly inflated value in the commercial and symbolic economies of the marriage, film, advertising, and cosmetics industries in India.” This sort of phenomenon isn’t new or unique to India. Comic book illustrations dark-skinned masculinity … violence, brutality, stupidity, bestiality, and low caste status. " Amar Chitra Katha’s stories… associate light-skinned masculinity with divinity, strength, virtue, compassion, and upper caste status. There is a reason heroes and devas are shown with light skin, while villains and asuras are given dark skin: Parameswaran and Washington DC-based reporter Kavitha Cardoza illuminates some of the issues in these comics, particularly how “light and dark skin colour become symbolic vehicles to articulate a series of oppositional concepts-virtue/vice, valor/cowardice, nobility/bestiality, beauty/ugliness, and success/failure."īy analyzing a representative sample of Amar Chitra Katha comics, Parameswaran and Cardoza conclude that skin colour is intentionally associated with certain attributes. An article titled Immortal Comics, Epidermal Politics by Prof. However, these comics also perpetuate colourism among children, along with many other regressive attitudes. My own first introductions to Indian history and Hindu mythology came through reading stacks and stacks of Amar Chitra Kathas. There are over 400 comics in the series so far, and they have been translated into 38 languages. "We were introduced to the politics of color very early on in our lives, in the most surprising of places: in children’s comic books."Īmar Chitra Katha comics were independent India's first comic series, and aimed to educate middle-class Indian children on Hindu mythology, culture, and history. In almost every case, Hindu deities portrayed in this style have extremely fair skin. Calendar art has now become the de facto method of portraying Hindu deities in today's India and the diaspora. Pioneered by Raja Ravi Varma, calendar art became hugely popular as the lithographic press spread throughout India. This style emerged in colonial India in the late eighteenth century with the introduction of Western conventions, namely single-point perspective. ![]() ![]() Today, 'calendar art' is the most widespread artistic style through which Hindu deities are perceived. How does religion play a role in reinforcing these attitudes? One needs to look no further than our gods and goddesses themselves. Whatever the origins of colourism be, the facts remain that light skin is significantly preferred and valued over the dark in South Asia. ![]() From the Magazine AFSPA: Memories And Mourning In Nagaland’s Cycle Of Violence Manipur Under AFSPA: Poignant Stories Of Rape, Fake Encounter And Unending Wait For Justice Back To Where It Began: Six Decades Later, Assam Continues To Bleed Under AFSPA Darkness At Noon: Stories Of Pain And Suffering In Battle-Scarred Kashmir AFSPA: A Law That Is Discriminatory, Exclusionary, Racist
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