After 40 years in journalism and running 12 newspapers I have to confess to two passions. Aviation and the pursuit of human dignity. In the second category, the judgement by the colour of one’s skin has always burned me up and I see it as the worst form of racism practised with sinister malice in India.

The agony and pain and mental degradation it spawns is criminal. Millions have been seared by our viciousness. So, even though I am not an expert on Bollywood (although I did work on Filmfare for a year) one of the guys I have had a pretty decent opinion about is Shahrukh Khan. Just a good sod.

A man like him who trumpeted about racist America not a few weeks ago now makes money telling 80 per cent of racist India that unless they are fair they are damned in the depths of hell and can never make the grade. Apartheid rightwingers could make him their poster boy.

We screwed the female psyche for years with all that ‘if you get dark no one will marry you’ crap, then we condemned all dark women to that nether world of self-loathing, flung the word ‘gori’ into all our songs and are now putting the colour sword to the men.

To shame millions because success and failure are fair and dark is sick and I am revolted to the pit of my stomach. Yes, I feel violently about it. I said that first up. My grown up daughters tell me I am being a phony, pious pratt and Khan has a right to be making his money any which way. It is commercial and not a pulpit pounding philosophy. “If someone paid you a million dollars to sell a skin fair cream, would you say no?”

I hope to hell I would have the courage to say no. Because I have spent years researching this issue and I have seen a great amount of the hurt and the confusion, the drop in self esteem and the ugliness of what we do to the darker amongst us.

Sorry, Mr Khan, you don’t get a free pass on this one…for what it is worth, shame on you, Sir, for perpetuating a national grossness. And shame on anyone else who would do the same. What’s wrong with you, man, why would you would do this?

And, hey, you, the media, where are you?