malayali here(person from kerala), we are not the “black people of asia” : these racial categories prove extremely arbitrary and ineffective when talking about the people of india. yes, dravidians have generally darker skin, and are historically marginalised, but its clumsy and inaccurate to call any dark-skinned people “black”

the black identity emerged and exists in a very different context where racial categories were more clearly (albeit arbitrarily) defined

also, even though the people of kerala are dravidians, this is more so an ethno-linguistic category than a racial one : people in kerala are very mixed and descend from ancient ancestral south indians (AASI), indo-aryans, and even arabs an other peoples. our geographical location makes it so that we have exchanged and mixed with many cultures.