How South Asia's colonial legacy impacts mental health and wellbeing

Shweta Aggarwal, a writer who has lived in India, Japan, and the United Kingdom, recalls how, as an 11-year-old, she used to save money. Except rather than spending her hard-earned cash on a chocolate bar she spent it on fairness cream. “At the young age of six, I was made aware of my [darker] skin colour and how different it was from that of my fair-skinned parents,” says Aggarwal, who is the author of an upcoming memoir, “The Black Rose”. 

“Over hundreds of years, we are brainwashed to believe that fair is beautiful, and I grasped on to that notion. It was like a seed planted in my head.” 

“I had internalised colourism,” Aggarwal says. “Bollywood stars are advertising fairness creams, it is so readily available, and millions of people are buying it, so I didn’t even stop to question colourism’s impact on my physical and psychological health.”

Over the years, Aggarwal endured hurtful comments, intrusive stares, bullying, and ostracization by the South Asian community. And even though she appeared outwardly confident, it affected her self-esteem. She found herself constantly seeking attention and validation.

It was only last year, during the Black Lives Matter Movement, that she had an awakening and decided to turn her experiences with colourism into a memoir.

“It was like I found myself,” she says after a small pause.

Aggarwal’s experiences aren’t uncommon in South Asian communities. Even after 75 years of independence from British colonial rule, the “white is superior” mentality is ingrained deeply into the South Asian psyche. A Washington University Global Studies Law Review paper titled “India and Colourism: The Finer Nuances” traces colourism to British prejudices against skin tone when considering Indians for employment. 

Light-skinned Indians were considered “allies” and had more job opportunities than their dark-skinned counterparts. The common man’s association of whiteness with rulers (Mughals, Europeans, British, etc.) has dictated and shaped a desirability for fair skin.

“Unknowingly, it has become a practice of attaching greater societal superiority and power to the fairer skin,” the paper explains. 

Generational trauma

As conversations of internalized racism, self-love, and acceptance have made their way into popular discourse, South Asians are facing the effects of a “colonial hangover” on their mental health and wellbeing. 

“A ‘colonial hangover’ is when coloniser attitudes have assimilated so much into our culture that they are now a part of our system,” explains Mamta Saha, a London-based psychologist. “The everyday example being skin colour – it is used to determine social hierarchy and acceptance in the subcontinent.”

While skin prejudices and the adoption of Eurocentric standards of beauty are a direct manifestation of this colonial hangover, there are several other covert ways in which it may present itself.

Dr. Pavna K Sodhi, a psychotherapist who offers culturally-responsive therapy in Ontario, Canada, shares that some of the themes that emerge in her work with South Asians include PTSD passed on through generations. “Generational trauma is felt when a previously experienced event has an impact on the current generation. For example, the 1947 partition of India is a significant event that had led to a variety of trauma-related responses.”

Sodhi explains that generational trauma passed down to individuals by their parents reveals itself in behaviors like hyper-vigilance, heightened anxiety, mistrust, fear of the future, panic attacks, low self-confidence, and a lack of identity or belonging. 

Fozia Raja, author of “Daughters of Partition”, a historical nonfiction based on her paternal grandmother, talks about how she often saw PTSD behaviours in her grandmother. She was abducted from India during the riots of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. Thirty years after being displaced she migrated to the UK.

“My grandmother often spoke about being displaced or thrown out of this country [India],” says Raja. “She had a hidden pocket in her kameez (a long shirt) and when asked about it, she said, ‘You never know when you will have to take your valuable items and leave.’”

“It was such thoughts and provisions, which appear so insignificant to someone who doesn’t know the thinking behind it, that were a part of her trauma.”

Raja also explains how she saw generational trauma reflected in her father. “A significant part of my father’s behaviors were reflected in finding a space and voice in society. Because his mother was always classed as an ‘outsider’ [in Pakistan] and wasn’t given the voice and place she needed in society, he grew up being exceptionally vocal and defensive.”

Another way that colonial legacy impacts mental health and wellbeing is internalising submission to authority. Saha, the London-based psychologist, explains that “internalised oppression” is frequently used in psychology and sociology to describe when a member of an oppressed group begins accepting the views of oppressors as reality and lets it shape their worldview. 

“Chronic oppression can have serious consequences on a person’s mental health, exhibiting in behaviours like inferiority complex, submissiveness, loss of identity, people-pleasing behaviors or overachieving tendencies.”

Priyanka Agarwal, an India-based author, blogger, and freelance writer jokes that her family members have submissive traits in them because Indians have an ingrained submissiveness to powers of authority. 

“I started working in my late teens and was taught that ‘the boss is always right. I internalised this mindset,” she says. 

“Earlier, there wasn’t mental health awareness, but now it is being normalised. As I became aware of my mental health, I realised that my emotions of frustration, fear, or anger were normal and valid.”

To break this cycle, Agarwal now practices mindfulness, assertiveness, and a collaborative approach to work. 

“It has made me stronger, and I no longer believe in cowering down to bosses or engaging in people-pleasing behaviour.”