Too blonde and too fair to be Miss India?

Jacinta Lal, participant of Miss India contest in New Zealand, received complaints about her participation. Is it another racial attack or something else. Read on to find more about this episode.

Jacinta Lal, 21, was at the centre of a controversy in the Miss India contest in New Zealand.

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Reason: The blue-eyed and blonde Lal, with a Fijian-Indian father and blonde mother, does not look Indian enough to win the contest.

Lal was also booed by spectators when she won the Wellington leg of the Miss India NZ contest. Organisers confirmed that they had received complaints about her participation.

Lal, however, dismissed the complainants as narrow-minded people. The row comes just days after the Indian government protested to New Zealand about alleged racial slurs by TV host Paul Henry.