Suman Rao from Rajasthan has recently been crowned the Femina Miss India World 2019 beauty pageant during a star-studded ceremony at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Indoor Stadium in Mumbai. Shivani Jadhav from Chhattisgarh clinched the Femina Miss Grand India 2019 title and Shreya Shanker from Bihar won the Miss India United Continents 2019 title during the grand finale of the beauty pageant.
Suman will represent India at Miss World 2019 in Thailand. “When you get yourself determined towards a particular goal in life, every single nerve and fibre of your body starts working into that direction for a victorious journey,” the 20-year-old college student said in an interview.
The prestigious event was adjudged by Bollywood choreographer Remo D’Souza alongside actresses Huma Qureshi and Chitrangada Singh, fashion designer Falguni Shane Peacocka and Indian footballer Sunil Chhetri among others. During the event, film stars including Katrina Kaif, Vicky Kaushal and Mouni Roy enthralled the audience with their dance performances.
The event was hosted by the Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar and actor Manish Paul. The beauty contest came under intense scrutiny after a collage featuring all 30 participants was published in a newspaper, RT news channel reported. The composite image sparked a heated online diversity debate over the girls who all looked remarkably similar with fair skin and dark hair.
Organisers of the pageant were slammed for appearing to prefer a single look and beauty standard. Some critics went so far as to say that the women resembled ‘clones’ rather than representatives of the nation’s ethnically diverse beauty.
Skin-tone in particular had been a hot topic among women in India, as some females attempt to reverse the historical preference for fairer skin and counteract society’s emphasis on whitening cosmetic procedures.
These days, beauty pageants try to focus more on participants’ intelligence and talent in an apparent effort to steer away from the traditional judging and ranking of physical attributes which has been labelled anti-feminist. However, the contests still face criticism internationally for their objectification of women.
Recently, India’s Miss Charming 2017, Garima Yadav, received praise for choosing to pursue a career in the army over progressing to the next stage of the pageant.
Who is Suman Rao?
Suman, a resident of Rajsamand, Rajasthan was crowned Miss India 2019 last night. Last year’s winner Anukreethy Vas from Tamil Nadu crowned her successor, Suman, in an emotional moment. The 20-year-old model was born on November 23, 1999. Suman also has the title of Miss India Rajasthan 2019 under her belt. And the gorgeous model is all set to represent India in the coveted Miss World 2019 that is going to take place in Pattaya, Bangkok in the month of December 2019.
During Miss India 2019 competition, she also won the Miss Rampwalk award. Suman, who was born in Rajsthan was brought up in Mumbai. She is currently pursuing a Charted Accountancy course from New Delhi along with B.Com. The model, who has become the 56th Miss India, has time and again declared her love for dance as her passion and is also learning the classical dance form, Kathak. However, she counts modelling as her biggest passion.
Suman, during a pageant, also spoke about the how strongly she feels about gender inequality and the stereotypes that we face in the world. Talking about the community she comes from, in the same pageant she said, “I come from a community where gender inequality and other stereotypes are still into existence, so when I saw two primary choices in front of me, to either accept the conditions those were in existence or to take the responsibility for changing the same, I chose the latter one.”
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