'I Dig Black': Kerala Chief Secretary Shuts Down Trolls On Dark Skin, Comparison To Husband
Kerala Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan called out social media trolls for ridiculing her dark complexion. She also emphasised that "black is beautiful."
Kerala Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan on Tuesday called out a section of social media users who ridiculed her for her dark complexion and compared her with her husband and predecessor, V Venu.
In a lengthy Facebook post, Muraleedharan wrote she needed to own her blackness, and mentioned she had written a post but deleted it later because she was “flustered by the flurry of responses".
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Muraleedharan reposted it and stated she had been facing such comparisons for the past seven months, ever since she took charge as the Chief Secretary.
She also recalled asking her mother to put her back into the womb and bring her out again “white and pretty".
“Heard an interesting comment yesterday on my stewardship as chief secretary – that it is as black as my husband’s was white. Hmmm. I need to own my blackness. This is a post I made today morning, and then deleted because I was flustered by the flurry of responses. I am reposting it because certain well wishers said that there were things there that needed to be discussed. I agree," Muraleedharan wrote on Facebook.
“Why did I want to call this particular one out? I was hurt, yes. But then these last seven months have been a relentless parade of comparisons with my predecessor, and I have become quite inured. It was about being labelled black (with that quiet sub text of being woman), as if that were something to be desperately ashamed of. Black is as black does. Not just black the colour, but black the ne’er do good, black the malaise, the cold despotism, the heart of darkness," she wrote.
“But why should black be vilified? Black is the all pervasive truth of the universe. Black is that which can absorb anything, the most powerful pulse of energy known to humankind. It is the colour that works on everyone, the dress code for office, the lustre of evening wear, the essence of kajol, the promise of rain," her post read.
“As a four year old I apparently asked my mother whether she could put me back in her womb and bring me out again, all white and pretty. I have lived for over 50 years buried under that narrative of not being a colour that was good enough. And buying into that narrative. Of not seeing beauty or value in black. Of being fascinated by fair skin. And fair minds, and all that was fair and good and wholesome. And of feeling that I was a lesser person for not being that – which had to be compensated somehow," she added.
“Till my children. Who gloried in their black heritage. Who kept finding beauty where I noticed none. Who thought that black was awesome. Who helped me see. That black is beautiful. That black is gorgeousness. That I dig black," the post read.
Meanwhile, her post garnered love and attention from social media users, who told her not to be bothered by petty minds.
“Black is beautiful," a comment read.
“I am wondering why a person who had fought against challenges in her very beginning of her IAS cadre to the top of the state civil service is carried away by the petite comment of an absurd mind," another one wrote.
“Black is fearless and confident, imbibes negativity ..People are bothered about that quality of black and try in their own ways to neutralize it in vain…One is just a reflection of inner self be it black or white…" a third comment read.
Sarada Muraleedharan has is a 1990 batch Indian Administrative Services officer.
She took over as Chief Secretary of Kerala on August 31, 2024, after Venu retired from service.
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