Nearly two years after Chirayu Jain, a law student from Bangalore took crayon manufacturer Hindustan Pencils to court for naming a shade of crayons “skin”, he has finally won a small victory against colour-based discrimination.
Navneet Education Ltd, another stationery and crayon company, agreed last week to rename its “peach (skin)” crayon and merely call it “peach”, four months after Jain’s non-profit forum Brown n’ Proud began urging it to make the change. In an April 13 email to Brown n’ Proud, Navneet promised to remove the word “skin” from the next print run of all its plastic crayons.
Meanwhile, Jain’s legal case against Hindustan Pencils is still being fought in the Karnataka State Consumer Commission, while an online petition against the company’s “skin”-coloured crayon has gathered more than 3,100 signatures since 2013.
“The battle will not be won until all crayon makers change the name of their ‘skin’ or ‘flesh’ colours,” said Jain, 22, who is now in his final year at Bangalore’s National Law School.
How it all began
In April 2013, Jain made a phone call to the office of Hindustan Pencils, which manufactures the popular Nataraj and Apsara pencils and Colorama art materials. Jain wanted to know why Colorama’s peach-coloured crayon was labelled “skin”, even though it was clearly not the skin tone of most Indians. He requested the company to change the crayon’s name.
“The staff member at the other end of the line did not even begin to understand my point,” said Jain, who had already founded Brown n’ Proud in 2012 to fight rangbhed or “colourism” in Indian culture. “He told me that if red is called ‘red’, then skin colour would obviously be called ‘skin’.”
To tackle such deeply-ingrained associations head-on, Jain filed a complaint against Hindustan Pencils at the district-level consumer forum in Bangalore in June 2013. The complaint accused the company of being racist for promoting the idea that there is only one kind of acceptable skin colour – a light, peach one – in a country where most people have darker skin in varying tones of brown.
When he lost the case at the district forum in October 2013, Jain took it up to the State Consumer Commission. He has also asked for a compensation of Rs 100,000 from the company for hurting his sentiments. Jain intends to use the money to fund an expansion of the Brown n’ Proud campaign, which is already holding talks on colourism in college campuses and has launched an online project called Kaali Tales to attack traditional notions of beauty through feminist rewritings of fairy tales.
The petition
In July 2013, Jain began an online petition demanding that Hindustan Pencils change the name of its crayon. “In a country with as many skin tones as ours, labelling one particular shade as ‘skin’ colour and that shade in turn being used to represent skin in all human caricatures unknowingly, subconsciously deepens the fair and lovely syndrome at a very tender age. This has serious social consequences,” the petition reads.
Though Hindustan Pencils is not the only brand with a "skin"-coloured shade, Jain decided that it would be strategic to single it out in court. Faber-Castell and Camlin have colours called "flesh tint", says Jain, but neither of them are Indian companies. Navneet, which has now agreed to rename its crayon, is a relatively smaller company. “Besides, when a brand is named ‘Hindustan’, it needs to be considerate about the message it sends out to the people of India,” he said.
Jain cites his own experiences to emphasise the impact that the ‘skin’ coloured crayon can have on young children. “When I was in Class 8, I used to be very embarrassed about the colour of my skin and would buy a lot of fairness creams to lighten it,” he said. “I believe the ‘skin’ crayon played a role in this behaviour, because from a very young age, I thought that was the only right shade to use while drawing people.”
This is perhaps the first time that crayon names have created a stir in India, but the debate isn't unfamiliar abroad. The popular American brand Crayola chose to rename its "flesh" crayon as "peach" back in 1962, a nod to the US civil rights movement. In 1992, responding to consumer feedback, Crayola also introduced a special set of eight “Multicultural Crayons” representing different skin tones.
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Navneet Education Ltd, another stationery and crayon company, agreed last week to rename its “peach (skin)” crayon and merely call it “peach”, four months after Jain’s non-profit forum Brown n’ Proud began urging it to make the change. In an April 13 email to Brown n’ Proud, Navneet promised to remove the word “skin” from the next print run of all its plastic crayons.
Meanwhile, Jain’s legal case against Hindustan Pencils is still being fought in the Karnataka State Consumer Commission, while an online petition against the company’s “skin”-coloured crayon has gathered more than 3,100 signatures since 2013.
“The battle will not be won until all crayon makers change the name of their ‘skin’ or ‘flesh’ colours,” said Jain, 22, who is now in his final year at Bangalore’s National Law School.
How it all began
In April 2013, Jain made a phone call to the office of Hindustan Pencils, which manufactures the popular Nataraj and Apsara pencils and Colorama art materials. Jain wanted to know why Colorama’s peach-coloured crayon was labelled “skin”, even though it was clearly not the skin tone of most Indians. He requested the company to change the crayon’s name.
“The staff member at the other end of the line did not even begin to understand my point,” said Jain, who had already founded Brown n’ Proud in 2012 to fight rangbhed or “colourism” in Indian culture. “He told me that if red is called ‘red’, then skin colour would obviously be called ‘skin’.”
To tackle such deeply-ingrained associations head-on, Jain filed a complaint against Hindustan Pencils at the district-level consumer forum in Bangalore in June 2013. The complaint accused the company of being racist for promoting the idea that there is only one kind of acceptable skin colour – a light, peach one – in a country where most people have darker skin in varying tones of brown.
When he lost the case at the district forum in October 2013, Jain took it up to the State Consumer Commission. He has also asked for a compensation of Rs 100,000 from the company for hurting his sentiments. Jain intends to use the money to fund an expansion of the Brown n’ Proud campaign, which is already holding talks on colourism in college campuses and has launched an online project called Kaali Tales to attack traditional notions of beauty through feminist rewritings of fairy tales.
The petition
In July 2013, Jain began an online petition demanding that Hindustan Pencils change the name of its crayon. “In a country with as many skin tones as ours, labelling one particular shade as ‘skin’ colour and that shade in turn being used to represent skin in all human caricatures unknowingly, subconsciously deepens the fair and lovely syndrome at a very tender age. This has serious social consequences,” the petition reads.
Though Hindustan Pencils is not the only brand with a "skin"-coloured shade, Jain decided that it would be strategic to single it out in court. Faber-Castell and Camlin have colours called "flesh tint", says Jain, but neither of them are Indian companies. Navneet, which has now agreed to rename its crayon, is a relatively smaller company. “Besides, when a brand is named ‘Hindustan’, it needs to be considerate about the message it sends out to the people of India,” he said.
Jain cites his own experiences to emphasise the impact that the ‘skin’ coloured crayon can have on young children. “When I was in Class 8, I used to be very embarrassed about the colour of my skin and would buy a lot of fairness creams to lighten it,” he said. “I believe the ‘skin’ crayon played a role in this behaviour, because from a very young age, I thought that was the only right shade to use while drawing people.”
This is perhaps the first time that crayon names have created a stir in India, but the debate isn't unfamiliar abroad. The popular American brand Crayola chose to rename its "flesh" crayon as "peach" back in 1962, a nod to the US civil rights movement. In 1992, responding to consumer feedback, Crayola also introduced a special set of eight “Multicultural Crayons” representing different skin tones.