Colourism fundamentally means discriminating or having a prejudice against people of a dark tone. It is very prevalent in India. We belong to a country where the parameter of beauty is set upon how much melanin one’s body produces. Let's take a look at Bollywood, one of India’s largest entertainment industry. It's no secret that Bollywood has always preferred light skin people, this oppressive attitude usually seeps out in a not-so-subtle way when almost in every movie the lead actor is a light-skinned man and the antagonist, dark-skinned. When needing to use dark-skinned people whether it be in movies, advertisements or songs; Bollywood blackfaces light-skinned actors instead of considering people of dark tones. Actors are always seen endorsing or promoting skin lightening and bleaching products, these advertisements act like a subliminal for the brain instilling that the fairer you are the more opportunities you get. This notion became so successful that the net worth of these skin lightening/bleaching products now stands at a whopping ₹270 billion. Its value increasing by 8% per year. These products quite literally remove the top layer of the skin making it prone to skin cancer, liver and kidney damage. Many of them contain mercury too. This absurdity manifests itself in our day to day life when in a stereotypical Indian household one can still hear people saying, “don't go out in the sun you'll get dark”, “don't drink chai/coffee it’ll make you darker”, “whos going to marry you if you have this complexion” etc. Colourism concerning marriage is another pressing issue, men prefer the stereotypical tall, fair, and beautiful woman whereas women prefer tall, dark, and handsome men. Dark skinned women are constantly berated and rated low on marriage sites as they are viewed as someone who doesn't take care of themselves and are “dirty”. Well known marriage sites like shaadi.com even had a fairness rating filter which has been taken down. Constantly getting rejected because of skin colour takes a toll on one’s mental health. People are conditioned to automatically view the fairness of skin as equivalent to the fairness of character. This perspective has been ingrained in our brains since the Mughal and the British era. Back then, entry to restaurants and educational institutes were prohibited for “black Indians”, light-skinned Indians were kept as allies and were given extra advantages. Segregation was evident when East India company named their St George settlement “white town” and the Indian settlement, “Black town”. Colonization embedded the idea that fair-skinned people were more desirable, powerful, and belonged to the ruling class. Even though things have been changing, such as fair and lovely rebranding itself to glow and lovely, the Malayalam entertainment industry changing the dynamics for dark-skinned people, and activists raising their voice against injustice; We still have a long way to go. This is ironic because India’s population largely comprises of darker-skinned people. It's important to note that the colour of your skin determines nothing about you except for how much melanin your body produces, and dark is beautiful