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Decades of Miss Universe pageants reveal colorism in Indian beauty standardsWhen Harnaaz Sandhu, 21, was born in Punjab in the 2000s, she had generations of Indian beauty queens preceding her, a handful of whom had found success on the global stage like she did when she won Miss Universe this week. There was Sushmita Sen, who took the Miss Universe title in 1994. Aishwarya Rai secured Miss World that same year. Pale-skinned, green-eyed women with long hair and tall frames, the two were the portraits of the “ideal” Indian woman that was marketed by companies like Fair and Lovely over decades. The standard of beauty for South Asian women seems like it’s always been stuck there, experts say, with women especially experiencing routine discrimination based on color. But a new crop of actresses and models might signify a slow but important change. Brown-skinned girls like Sandhu are more often seeing the limelight. She says she sees an oppressive standard, enforced for generations by colonialism and casteism, slowly lifting. “So many young women all around the world have broken stereotypes about color, about physical attributes,” Sandhu told NBC Asian America. “And I hope that I’m breaking one of the stereotypes in my community about brown girls.”