My Personal Experience
While living in a cocoon in my native place, I never experienced the harsh reality of racism that has been persisting in India. When I came to Delhi a couple of months ago, I started realizing the differences, in fact, the discrimination that these young minds have. Many people, whom I met(fellow aspirants of the UPSC CSE exam), gave one common discriminatory statement, "I thought you were a North Indian"(with a slight ridicule towards people in the Southern part, which I don't wish to mention). I could have inferred two conclusions(and could thus react accordingly) from this statement- one, I may feel happy that they considered me as a so-called North Indian just by complexion, and second, I should have been offended by the statement for the racist thinking of a person, especially who wants to be a civil servant in the future to ensure social justice and equality(Ideals are contradictory to the actions right?). I, myself propagating rationality to my friends, without conflicting thoughts would have chosen the second one and I did that so. I get offended by these statements, especially from educated minds. This irrational sense of attributing beauty to the complexion of a person and thus treating them as superior, even if it looks awkward, is still a sad reality!

Understanding Complexion and Adaptation
Coming to some rationale behind the complexion in the scientific sense, one might be aware of the pigment called ‘Melanin’, which is not only responsible for the complexion of a person but also protects such a person with high Melanin from the harmful Ultraviolet Radiation coming from the sun. As people around the world, living in tropical regions face persistent sunlight almost throughout the year, our ancestors got ‘adapted’ to this sunlight via high melanin content. This is the major reason for the comparatively darker complexion in the people belonging to the tropical part of our country. As they are closer to the equator, more would be the presence of sunlight throughout the year and thus more Melanin, leading to darker skin. This high melanin content not only protects the skin from skin cancer, skin burns, etc. but also protects it from tropical diseases. Thus the pigmentation, sometimes bullied or teased by irrational people, is a boon for those living in the tropical zone. Similarly, a fair complexion due to less melanin has the advantages of absorbing more vitamin D, protecting from extreme cold, etc. 

The Boon of Gene Flow
Still, India is so diverse that one may find human variations almost everywhere around the country. Why is this so? One major reason would be ‘Gene Flow’. This is a process through which the genes are generally distributed among various populations of the same species as a process of cultural assimilation, acculturation, etc.(as it always happened and happening in our country), i.e., transfer of genes to other populations through reproduction. This along with other factors like acclimatization, mutations, gene drift, etc. all together contribute to the great variations(like tall, short, dark-skinned, light-skinned, narrow nose, broad nose, etc.) even within the perceived homogenous populations in India.
 
One must remember that most of these biological variations through which people discriminate against each other in some cases, are the processes of natural selection along with mutations, gene drift, acclimatization, etc. 

Embracing Unity in Diversity
Given the scientific explanation with the paucity of my knowledge, I hope one may understand the benefits people in the tropical part of our country(particularly South Indians) have due to their skin complexion. Likewise, people in other parts of the country have their benefits as mentioned earlier. Hence, this discrimination based on complexion is irrational(especially in a rich diverse nation like India). One important thing we need to keep in mind is wherever we are from, we are all Indians! 



Note: Opinions expressed are personal
Pic credit: Pixabay