Is sunscreen or anything similar to sunscreen common and considered important in Tamil Nadu nowadays?

So I grew up in Tamil Nadu, where I did my schooling and bachelors degree. About 6 years back, I moved to a city in a foreign country, to do my masters and work.

We all know that Tamil Nadu gets extremely hot and humid in the summers. In the city where I live right now, the summers are hot and dry (as opposed to hot and humid in TN) while the winters are pretty cold.

When I was in TN, I never used sunscreen and I never heard of people using sunscreen or giving importance to it. I did know some people who used powder but I never did.

However, where I live right now it is considered important to use sunscreen especially in summer. People say that not using sunscreen would make us susceptible to sunburn, skin damage, skin cancer etc. Google also seems to agree with this. So I started using sunscreen here.

I recollected that sunscreen was probably not commonly used in TN and I don’t think the poor people in TN can even afford it. So is sunscreen actually necessary and important? If not sunscreen is it necessary to use something else at least, for instance powder.

What do Tamilians think about the necessity for sunscreen especially during the scorching summers? Is it the case that Tamilians genetically don’t need sunscreen unlike the people in western countries?