'A' Political Pageant

Criteria to determine beauty have been challenged by feminists across the world, but some feel it can be liberating

- Abhik Bhattacharya & Agnideb Bandyopadhyay

IN 2019, after the photos of 30 finalists of the Femina Miss India pageant came out in public, a massive social media backlash ensued, accusing the contest of being 'racist'. When the photos of these women-mostly with similar haircuts and fair skin-found space in one of the leading national newspapers with the headline, 'Who will be crowned Miss India this year?", Twitter went abuzz with a cry against such typecasting. One of the users shared the photo and wrote: "Why can't a Miss India be a dusky or a dark brown or darker chocolate brown? So much for the love of fair skin. I believe we are the most racist country in the world...!"

Notably, this was the same beauty pageant that crowned Priyanka Chopra the title of Miss India.

Anti-colour activist Muna Beatty, while talking to the news agency Reuters, said, "You have youngsters, kids watching this and thinking to themselves 'if I don't fit these criteria or this skin tone, then I'm not beautiful' and... 'I'm not good enough"."

Though these protests were confined within the walls of social media in 2019, the history of beauty contests and the women's movement suggest that since the 1960s, it has always been a matter of concern for the feminists who have been trying to fight the essentiality of beauty and its determination through the male gaze. The Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss International and Miss Earth contests, better known as the Big Four of beauty pageants, that have been around since 1951, have seen an evolution of the stipulations, regulations and the platform through the decades.