Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala chief secretary Sarada Muraleedharan has taken social media by storm through her stand against colourism. She has reacted strongly to a comment stating that her tenure in office so far has been as ‘black’ as it was ‘white’ during her predecessor’s time. Her predecessor happens to be her husband V Venu, who retired seven months ago.
Muraleedharan took to Facebook and posted: “Heard an interesting comment yesterday on my stewardship as Chief Secretary – that it is as black as my husband’s was white. Hmmm. I need to own my blackness. “
She went on to attack the deep-seated prejudice against dark skin and described how her seven-month tenure has been riddled with relentless comparisons to her husband.
“It was about being labelled black (with that quiet subtext of being a woman), as if that were something to be desperately ashamed of …… Black is as black does. Not just black the colour, but black the ne’er do well, black the malaise, the cold despotism, the heart of darkness. But why should black be vilified?” she wrote.
She has mentioned how, as a four-year-old, she had once asked her mother if she could be reborn fair-skinned, believing that only fair was beautiful, only fair was good enough. It took her children – who took pride in their dark skin – to make her see what society had refused to show her: “That black is beautiful. That black is gorgeous-ness. That I dig black.”
It is not normal for bureaucrats to come out in protest against such issues that affect society. Muraleedharan’s post has revealed how the malaise is no longer restricted to a certain section of society, but has crept into everyday discourse, even in professional spaces. If the competence of the topmost bureaucrat of a progressive state can be judged on the basis of her skin colour, it isn’t too difficult to fathom what a common person faces.
The 1990 batch IAS officer’s post has received overwhelming support from netizens.
