Abhay Deol takes a dig at Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and a few others who have endorsed a fairness cream brand.

After a former BJP parliamentarian, Tarun Vijay’s statement on racism, there have been many people coming forward and talking about it. Recently joining them is the Bollywood actor, Abhay Deol.

The Happy Bhaag Jayegi actor recently had a long series of posts on his Facebook handle where he sarcastically criticized the endorsements of fairness cream brands. The endorsements which he included in his posts were of famous Bollywood celebs like Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Sonam Kapoor and Siddharth Malhotra.

In one of his posts, the Dev D actor mocks saying, “WE ARE NOT A RACIST COUNTRY! I will prove it to you”. Refering to an ad featuring John Abraham, he says, “In the picture below John holds a card with shades from white to dark. Hey! You can see the promise of darker skin too if you read the card from left to right! He’s not telling you to go from right to left. Duh! Even if the writing on the tube reads ‘Intensive fairness moisturizer’. It just means it’s ‘FAIR’ to all who use it.”

Taking a jibe at the ads, he says,“There’s a lot more of these campaigns that are blatantly, and sometimes subtly, selling you the idea that whiter skin is better than darker skin. No one at the top of their game in any field is going to tell you that it is demeaning, false, and racist.”

Putting a strong statement on the obsession of people in India for a fair skin tone, the actor posts on Facebook, “You have to see that for yourself. You have to stop buying into the idea that a particular shade is better than others. Unfortunately if you look at matrimonial ads you will see how entrenched in our psyche this belief is. We even use the word ‘dusk’ to describe the colour of someones skin!”

“While an individual may not be able to change this attitude in his/her community, he/she can at least start with the family,” he adds to his post.