Venezuela, vanity and wigs

For about a month it is being reported in media that women from Venezuela are selling their hair in desperation while crossing the border to leave their country. Wig and extension makers are buying their hair with the payment being made according to the length of the hair; the longer the hair, the higher the payment; and, in case the length of hair is less than 10 cm or the hair are too thin, there is no sale. This is the worst form of profiteering in human misery.

Why is this happening?

Venezuela, a South American country with a population of a little more than 3 crore and rich in oil & gas and minerals, is going through a highly catastrophic political situation. The current President Maduro has been ruling as a dictator since 2013 and is presently partially recognised as the president of the country. The United States has, of late, recognised the opposition leader Guaido as the President, who has already taken the oath of office, and also got recognition and support from some other foreign countries. The economy has been ruined and people are left with no jobs and no resources to support themselves. In desperation, many of them are crossing the border to enter the neighbouring Colombia in the hope of survival and making a promise to themselves to come back to Venezuela one day.

Having a demand for human hair is not surprising as these hairs are used for making wigs and hair extensions. Professionals in dramatics, movies and show business very often use them. Nothing wrong in that! But, using false hair as wigs or hair extensions for vanity is senseless and crass. Increasingly, people in different walks of life are using them and many a time making it too obvious. Politicians using them typically look unrealistic and funny. Some of the television anchors and newsreaders, in their overzealousness, use them to enhance their personality along with a lot of facial surgery making them look younger not by a few years but decades. Vanity in its most awful form!

Most of the sportspersons do not use wigs – if the hairline is fast receding or even if they are completely bald – during their professional life as very close contact with elements of nature during rigorous performance does not give them this option to exercise, but several of them sport them post-retirement as commentators and experts on television shows, and in public life in general. The world of intellectuals and academicians – once thought to be the domain of knowledge and wisdom – is also not untouched, where some persons believe more in beauty and brawn, rather than brain. The unnecessary dependence and insistence on artificial means to enhance one's personality – wigs and hair extensions are just a small part of this multi-million dollar industry – create the unending demand for human hair, leading to incidents taking place at the Venezuela – Colombia border.

Judges in courts earlier used powdered wigs, which were nothing but fancy methods of differentiating themselves from the ordinary masses, the minions, and the assumably unempowered lot. Some countries still follow the system of wigs for the judges, and some for the top lawyers also. It is laughable but true. Wigs do not make a judge a better judge; it is, truly speaking, better application of law to real life situations blended with common sense and milk of human kindness which make a person a good judge. The time has come to even say no to the long robes, but till the time it happens, one can be thankful that wigs are gone from most of the courts all over the world.

Rapunzel-like long hair can be any woman's dream but achieving even a quarter of Rapunzel-length hair by buying hair extensions made by hair sold by a desperate woman so as to be able to buy just a meal for herself and her children is a little bit too much and sickening. Naturally-grown long hair cannot be every person's possession and accomplishment, but excessive liking for artificial means like wigs and hair extensions must come to an end.

Till the time social norms and mores change, distressed selling of human hair must be stopped by law and government.

The author is a professor at IIM-A, akagarwal@iima.ac.in