A simple emoji—perhaps a thumbs-up or a folded hand—was never meant to provoke introspection about who one is. It was designed to be effortless, warm, even whimsical. But in the age of hyper-personalised digital communication, even something as seemingly trivial as an emoji has acquired the weight of identity. And for the Indian diaspora, dispersed across more than 130 countries, this weight is becoming increasingly heavy.

One taps the thumbs-up icon on WhatsApp. Immediately, the prompt appears: choose your skin tone. Pale. Fair. Wheatish. Brown. Dark brown. Black. The hand that hovers over the options is no longer just making a gesture—it is being asked to make a statement.

For the Indian abroad, this is rarely a neutral moment. From Stockholm to Sydney, Durban to Dubai, London to Los Angeles, the question silently echoes: Which version of myself should I send? The choice of skin tone in an emoji—intended by tech platforms as a token of inclusion—has, for many, become a subtle and often uncomfortable act of racial positioning.

As New York-based Ashook Ramsaran, President of the Indian Diaspora Council and recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, points out: “In today’s prevalence of online communications, in particular social media, it is important that the choice of any skin toned emoji or other symbols be taken into account so that they are not disparaging or reflective of racial representation of a user or group of users… Whether subtle or by design, these symbols can be persuasive in establishing bias thereby skewing the dialogue from its intended content.”

Building on this, Dr Jean Regis Ramasamy, Historian, Journalist from the Reunion Islands, and also a recipient of the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, reflects on the deeper diaspora implications: “You rightly raise a point of detail that is also a point of identity. As you rightly point out, we already have a series of questions about the central government of India—questions that remain unanswered. As a reminder, we once had a ministry that dealt specifically with our relations with India. But that period is now over. In concrete terms, our belief in our identity in the diaspora is under threat. If we add yet another tool—like emojis, with their determination of skin colour—we risk a new crisis. We must not allow simple gadgets to take precedence over improving our relations. And without realising it, divide us further or distance us from the land of our ancestors.”