A news concerning Kerala Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan is trending on social media for a couple of days now. The reason is bizarre as it is not due to any administrative decision, but due to an insinuation to the colour of her skin. The top bureaucrat chose to speak out against it, only to trigger a debate on social media.

It all started with an acquaintance comparing her stewardship as Chief Secretary with that of her husband and predecessor V Venu by saying “it is as black as her husband’s was white”. Piqued by the comment, Sarada took to her facebook account posting her agonizing tale of colour bias she suffered for last 50 years. She also narrates how her children made her see beauty in blackness.

Sarada first deleted the post, only to repost later with an announcement that she is doing it because certain well-wishers said that there were things that needed to be discussed. And she was right it is being hotly debated now. Though it is not the first time that the issue of colour and gender biasness has been raised in the public domain, but the reason that a top serving bureaucrat too feels victimized by these biases has generated public interest. Sarada feels society needs to change its attitudes and overcome these biases as it virtually sullies one’s self-respect and questions a woman’s worthiness.

She goes on to philosophize it by saying that the comparison not only referred to her dark complexion but carried a “value connotation” about the current governance being “black”.