Abhay Deol, who was one of the first Bollywood stars to criticise celeb endorsements of fairness creams, described Hindustan Unilever's decision to remove the word "fair" from its "Fair & Lovely" range of products, as a "small step in the right direction." In an Instagram post on Friday, Abhay Deol, who has long been an advocate of the anti-colourism, wrote: "It took a world backlash and the Black Lives Matter movement to give us a push in this direction. But make no mistake, all of you who have been vocal about the need for a cultural shift in regard to the sale and endorsement of fairness creams in our country contributed to this victory." Abhay Deol had earlier posted about the Black Lives Matter movement, which ripped through USA, condemning the death of George Floyd, a man of colour, who died after being pinned down by an officer in the Minneapolis.
The Dev.D actor, who recently shared a long list of fairness creams, which continue to be popular choices on Instagram recently, highlighted in his new post that we have a long way to go about redefining the concept of "beauty": "We have a long way to go in breaking our conditioning of what constitutes for beauty, but this is a small step in the right direction. It's the starting point to a long road ahead. What a beautiful beginning," he wrote.
Read Abhay Deol's post here:
Earlier this month, Abhay Deol posed this query to his followers, which was his way of calling out celebrities still associated with fairness products: "Do you think Indian celebrities will stop endorsing fariness creams now?" read his post, which was accompanied by a note on how fairness creams "evolved" from using to the term "fair" to replacing it with "euphemisms like 'skin brightening/ whitening', or 'lightening creams'". In 2017, a year after the #OscarsSoWhite movement in Hollywood forced the Academy to make reforms, Abhay Deol wrote powerful Facebook posts, criticising several Bollywood biggies for endorsing fairness creams. Those on his list included the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and Sonam Kapoor, with whom he's co-starred in Aisha. In her response to Abhay, Sonam had plugged in Abhay's cousin Esha Deol's reference in her tweets. Sonam was trolled for bringing in Esha in the conversation and later deleted her tweets while Abhay's posts were responded with likes and comments supporting his view.
Abhay Deol, known for being fiercely outspoken on social media, won hearts on Twitter for criticised celebrities for their reluctance to comment on pressing issues such as injustice and oppression at home after some of them joined the #BlackOutTuesday movement, posting black screens to condemn the death of George Floyd: "Now that 'woke' Indian celebrities and the middle class stand in solidarity with fighting systemic racism in America, perhaps they'd see how it manifests in their own backyard?" he wrote along with the hashtags: "#migrantlivesmatter, #minoritylivesmatter, #poorlivesmatter."
Actress Bipasha Basu also wrote about her skin tone - her "duskiness" to be precise - being a major point of "discussion" when she became an actress. "In most of my articles for all the work I did, my duskiness seemed to be the main discussion... it attributed to my sex appeal apparently," he wrote and added: "Many skin care endorsements with loads of money was offered to me in the last 18 years (some were very tempting)... but I stuck to my principle always."
Actress Nandita Das, who headlines the anti-colourism campaign Dark Is Beautiful, wrote in a Mumbai Mirror article about how the campaign was supported by an overwhelming response: "In 2013, a Chennai-based organisation approached me to support their campaign, Dark is Beautiful. While I knew that the impact of colour bias is far-reaching, insidious and deeply affects our sense of self-worth and confidence, I didn't realise it would touch such a raw nerve. It suddenly went viral and brought attention to this prejudice which has been normalised over the years. By default, I became the face of the campaign. Probably because most actors were becoming lighter with every film."