Mumbai: The organisers of the Femina Miss India 2019 pageant have found themselves in the middle of a controversy about India’s obsession with patriarchal beauty standards.
The pageant had recently released the list of its thirty state finalists for this year’s competition and to no one’s surprise the head shots in the official advertisement had girls with similar straight hair and fair skin tone.
In an age when countries like US are becoming more diverse and entirely removing a swimsuit round from their pageants this seems to be a huge setback for India. Twitterati was furious that in a country like India that stands as a diverse nation with many beautiful skin tones and hair types; such an ad could make the cut.
Miss India contestants. 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. So much for India being a 'diverse' country. pic.twitter.com/L4yXG0WvRu
— labellagorda (@labellagorda) May 27, 2019
My tweet from last year 😂😂😂 nothing changes.
– The future is here. We will all be clones and look like photocopies of each other…#clones #photocopies #same pic.twitter.com/8fArH2TOpT— Ruchira Mittal (@taruche) May 27, 2019
https://twitter.com/BabyLuu34/status/1134395363060867072
https://twitter.com/Margiebgood1/status/1134400984254484480
Its time for parents to teach young people early on that in #diversity there is beauty & there is strength. We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry & we must understand that all threads of tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. #MayaAngelou.
— Raman Sehgal رمن سہگل (@ramansehgal) May 28, 2019
It's like one of those 'spot the differences' puzzles..
— littlepoet (@shruthirchandra) May 28, 2019
Perhaps such contests should be done away with as they keep perpetuating same eurocentric beauty standards that will be validated when these ladies move on to miss world / universe.
— Chirag Wakaskar (@chiragwakaskar) May 27, 2019
How else will they be the next face of Houseful 5 starring against a man double their age? 🤷🏻♂️
— शान्तनु (@Wicked_Nawab) May 27, 2019