Shah Rukh Khan has agreed to be the face of a skin lightening cream

As both an A-list Bollywood actor and the host of India's answer to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Shah Rukh Khan sets hearts aflutter for all manner of reasons. Now, however, he has been accused of peddling a dream too far - in an advertisement for skin cream.

Khan, 41, a heart-throb star likened to an Indian Tom Cruise, has agreed to promote Fair and Handsome, a skin-lightening cream which panders to a widespread Indian desire for fairer skin. While darker-hued Indians spend a total equivalent to £160 million a year on such products - despite doubts about their effectiveness - the sight of Khan's chiselled features endorsing the cream has angered campaigners, who say it is "racist" to promote lighter skin as superior.

"We are against the product," said Brinda Karat, the president of the All-India Democratic Women's Association. "It is downright racist to denigrate dark skin."

The row over Khan's deal with the Emami cosmetics company reflects growing embarrassment among modern Indians about the popularity of skin-lightening products, which stems from a centuries-old cultural belief that equates fair features with high caste status, good looks and eligibility for marriage.

Protests by Miss Karat's group recently forced another company - Hindustan Lever, the Indian arm of Unilever - to withdraw television advertisements for its women's fairness cream, Fair and Lovely. The advertisements depicted dejected, dark-skinned women, who had been snubbed by employers and men, suddenly acquiring new boyfriends and glamorous careers after the cream had lightened their skin.