Photograph of Miss India finalists stirs debate over obsession with fair skin

New Delhi: What began as an innocent collage of this year’s Miss India finalists has evolved into a heated social media debate about India’s obsession with fair skin.

The image, published in the Times of India newspaper, had 30 head-shots of glossy-haired finalists who all appeared to share the same fair skin tone.

In a country with 1.3 billion people, hundreds of languages and myriad ethnic groups, Twitter users suggested that beauty pageant organizers were only choosing contestants that perpetuate Eurocentric beauty ideals. “They all have the same hair, and the SAME SKIN COLOUR, and I’m going to hazard a guess that their heights and vital stats will also be similar,” another Twitter user Prasanna Ratanjankar wrote.