It would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic. Barely had we finished celebrating the life of Kalpana Chawla as an Indian woman who broke through all barriers, including those in space, comes the bickering over whether women's lib should come in light tones or dark. The story so far: the issue reached Parliament when the All-India Democratic Women's Association sent letters in protest against some commercials on TV deemed offensive, following which the i&b Ministry sent notices to a few channels to take the ads off the air. A handful of commercials were deemed objectionable, including those of ICICI, Jockey underwear, Kamasutra condoms and Bacardi Breezer. But directly in the line of fire was the beauty industry's most uncomfortable success story: fairness cream advertisements, a segment whose annual market size in India is estimated at Rs 650 crore. Singled out were Hindustan Lever Limited's Fair & Lovely commercials.

NOT FAIR: ads under fire, (from top) the bride bags a groom by using Fair & Lovely; dusky girl turns career woman by turning fairer; friends obsess over skin tone

As the debate continued amidst some confusion-some channels claimed to have taken off the ads, others did not, owing to World Cup commitments to the advertisers-came another little twist to the storyline. Even as feminists called the ads " humiliating and ludicrous", the offending brand, Fair & Lovely, quietly put out a press release announcing the launch of the Foundation for the Economic Empowerment of Women with the backing of "prominent women organisations and achievers" such as Mallika Sarabhai and Dr Snehlata Deshmukh, former vice-chancellor, University of Mumbai.

What's going on? The timing was "an unfortunate coincident", says Sangeeta Pendurkar, marketing manager, Skincare, Hindustan Lever Limited. "We had planned the launch to coincide with International Women's Day and we decided not to deviate from the plan because of the controversy. It is unfortunate that the initiative is being read in conjunction with the controversy." In all fairness though, isn't there a dichotomy in promoting economic empowerment and simultaneously putting out ads that show women as inferior? One of the ads has the father of a girl saying, "Kaash mera ladka hota (If only I had a son)", after which snub the girl applies the HLL cream, becomes fair (and therefore pretty) and lands the coveted job of no, not rocket scientist, but air hostess. Another shows a father worried that a prospective groom will reject his daughter, as he had rejected the daughters of a few others for the "sin" of being dark (Fair & Lovely steps in to solve the problem again).

Pendurkar, however, says there is nothing "schizophrenic" in the brand's advertising and marketing initiatives. "Both the foundation and the ads offer choices to women-choices that will ensure them a better future." This, predictably, has feminists in a fit all over again. According to statistics, fairness creams worth $70 billion (Rs 3,36,000 crore) are sold in Asia. This, despite unanimous expert opinion that no fairness cream can make you any fairer than you were at birth. What they can do is reverse the damage done by unprotected exposure to the sun, through ingredients like hydroquinore that prevent the formation of melanin-producing cells and kill existing ones to make the skin lighter.

The whitening business is present in every segment of the market: in the low-end category, the fairness creams available-besides the in-the-news Fair & Lovely-are Godrej Fair Glow, Freschisa and Vicco Turmeric; the middle end ranges from Samara Fairness Cream to Lotus Fairness Gel. Then there is the high-end segment, with western companies bombarding the Indian market with their own versions: L'Oreal, Lancome, YSL, Clinique, Estee Lauder and Elizabeth Arden.

Despite suspicions about the actual benefits of these creams, manufacturers and advertisers have shown that the products pass technical requirements. And though fashion may have learnt to celebrate melanin-where once Madhu Sapre was the only dark horse. a host of dusky beauties now rule the runway-the rest of India, as the success of the fairness cream proves, continues to equate fairness with beauty.

While the ads bring to focus once more the issue of monitoring content on TV as put forward in the as-yet-unenacted Communication Convergence Bill, there seems little chance of any end to the nation's embarrassing preoccupation with "whiteness". Says lawyer Swati Mehta of the Indira Jaisingh-headed Lawyers Collective: "Though these creams are absolutely offensive, legally it is not possible to do anything about them. Education and awareness is the only long-term solution."