The Special Report

21st May 2000

The new beauty superpower!

By Sidharth Bhatia

The trend was started in the early 1990s, when an Indian model narrowly missed grabbing the top spot in an international beauty contest. But that was just the appetizer: since then, no less than five Indian girls have grabbed the Miss World or Miss Universe crown. The latest winner was Lara Datta, a 21-year student from Bangalore, who became the New Miss World (or is it Miss Universe?) in Cyprus, relegating the contestant from Venezuela; the erstwhile beatify superpower, to second place. A proud day for all Indians indeed and one that was greeted with all the appropriate hype and hoopla.

The media went quite berserk though this time round after the first day's front-page rah-rah coverage, most of the newspapers and television channels stopped featuring the story. Its routine news, you see: we are so used to Indian girls winning these titles that we don't consider it newsworthy anymore. So poor Lara may not get the attention her predecessors like Sushmita Sen or Aishwarya Rai got. Yet, she is the new star on the horizon and will definitely get a rousing welcome when she returns home for the first time following her magnificent achievement.

Meanwhile, we have been treated to minute details of her costume, her likes and dislikes, her pet dog and how she worked hard to improve her pronunciation to remove all traces of an Indian accent. You see, beauty queens are not born or even made but manufactured and experts are deployed to perfect every aspect from her nose to her teeth and to her table manners and walk. It will just not do if she cannot tell the difference between a fish knife and a butter knife and doesn't know how to sashay down the stage. Many hands have worked overtime to transform her into a graceful swan, though it must be admitted that she was no Ugly Ducking to start with.

But strangely, the rest of the world has remained rather underwhelmed by this notable victory. No congratulatory messages, no kudos, not even editorials in the leading newspapers. Some commentators in India have suggested that the developed world is embarrassed by such politically incorrect cattle contests which belonged to the 1970s and do not fit in with these more enlightened times but could it be just plain old jealousy at the thought of "coloured" girls from poor third world countries setting the benchmarks for international beauty?

There are those who have poured cold water on the media enthusiasm about so many beauty queens by pointing out that this is one grand conspiracy to open up the Indian market to international cosmetic brands. That big time sponsors have plotted with the organizers of these shows to bring not only these obsolete western rejects to India but also create an aspirational value-system among Indians which will in turn translate into more buying of western manufactured consumer goods.

As conspiracy theories go, it certainly has an air of authenticity because many influential Indians are getting closely involved with the mechanics of the beauty contest system: no less a star than Amitabh Bachchan was the organizer of a Miss World in Bangalore some years ago and he gave up the rights to another Kenyan of Indian origin to hold it in Seychelles the year after, where, surprise, surprise, an Indian girl won. No one has yet suggested holding a match-fixing inquiry yet, but people are beginning to wonder if there is more to it than meets the eye. At the very least, there is a sense of discomfort among many social observers who feel that these things, apart from being outmoded and demeaning to women create a phoney value system that places too much emphasis on false notions of beauty. Indian successes have spawned a whole range of contests in small towns where middle-class girls see it as a passport to success and fame. But there is also disquiet that these events distract from other, more important news. People simply do not want to read depressing stories about female infanticide, dowry deaths or torture of women, like the case of a 22-year-old woman locked in a small room for two years in the capital. Her crime: her parents did not give enough dowry. More and more newspapers are catering to soft, lifestyle stories and the concern is that the attention of not only the general public but also policy-makers is shifting towards the needs of the consumerist middle-classes rather than those of the poor and the dispossessed.

Not many are doing such deep sociological analyses, or at least not publicly. The few objectors to making too much of these victories are being dismissed as party-poopers and certainly no one wants to be churlish about someone's success. If this puts Indian beauty on the world map, well, why not. Lara Datta like her illustrious predecessors worked hard and deserves her moment in the sun. But we need to keep these victories in their proper perspective and understand that they are, after all, only skin deep.

Inside the glass house

Editorial/ Opinion Contents