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Critically viewing and revising our collective historical canon is incredibly crucial, especially in the light of newer and more jarring narratives.
In a very chaotic India, where hero-worshipping is rampant (case in point — our political narrative of recent years has been fraught with god-like statuses for the men who have been elected to power), these lessons are frequently lost on us. Often, the most privileged among us walk away with utmost attention. Unfortunate as these instances are, there are moments when silence makes its presence felt. In the story of Nangeli, drenched in blood as it is, we find a symbolic voice which echoes to this day, much like a substantial piece of history — a history that subverts and defies dominant ideological narratives.
The Travancore of the 19th century holds within itself the vestiges of Nangeli’s sacrifice. Popular notions hold the state of Kerala in the years before independence as one where caste and its allied issues had found little ground to blossom. Yet this view, one from outside the fringes of society, seems hazy. To the unknown eye, the words of Dr T.K. Ravindran, a historian, might confirm suspicions: “of all the territorial divisions in India, Kerala, particularly Travancore, took the sin of pride in the matter of extending the limits of social inequality.” (Vaikkam Satyagraha and Gandhi, Introduction, 1975)
It is here in Travancore — whose vast riches were founded on the shoulders of the ever-growing oppressed castes and classes — that one finds taxes levied on body parts, for both men and women. From growing a moustache to the right to wear jewellery, a price seemed to have been placed on every aspect of their lives. Ludicrous as it may seem, a tax called 'mulakkaram' was levied on a woman’s breasts.
Unlike oppressor-caste women, women of the oppressed Ezhava caste were not given the right to cover their breasts in public unless they paid mulakkaram. This ensured that the right to dignity was not available to women of the oppressed castes.
In a BBC article, Dr Sheeba KM, an associate Professor of Gender Ecology and Dalit Studies at the Shri Shankaracharya Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya in Kerala, said, “The purpose of the breast-tax was to maintain the caste structure.”
It was during this time that Nangeli, an Ezhava woman from Cherthala, decided to refuse the pravathiyar, the village tax collector, the money sought from her. Despite the humiliation and brutality that followed such acts, protests against such taxes had been sporadic and muted. Oppressed caste men and women often refrained from speaking out, preferring to spend their days painfully adhering to the rigid status quo, away from the voyeuristic eyes of their oppressor-caste overlords and the apathetic colonial masters.
Once the news of Nangeli's defiance spread around the village of Cherthala, the tax officer came to her home to collect the tax. Nangeli followed the rituals and prepared the plantain leaf on which the tax was supposed to be paid. Instead of the money, she came out of her home, drenched in her own blood, having cut her breasts, which she summarily placed in front of the officer, much to his horror. A few minutes took away the last shreds of life from within her and by that evening, Nangeli was cremated. Her husband Chirukandan, according to popular historian Manu S Pillai in The Hindu, “jumped into the pyre as Nangeli burned and perished in flames of grief — for him too there was sacrifice.”
The next day, Sri Moolam Thirunal, then the King of Travancore, abolished the tax by issuing a royal proclamation. Women from oppressed castes were now allowed to adorn a shawl. The home of Nangeli and Chirukandan where the incident took place became known as mulalchi parambu, the land of the breasted woman. Manu S Pillai also reiterates how feminist icons have been recast in our present historical discourses. He says, "Nangeli too was recast. When Nangeli offered her breasts on a plantain leaf to the Rajah’s men, she demanded not the right to cover her breasts, for she would not have cared about this ‘right’ that meant nothing in her day. Indeed, the mulakkaram had little to do with breasts other than the tenuous connection of nomenclature. It was a poll tax charged from low-caste communities, as well as other minorities. Capitation due from men was the talakkaram — head tax — and to distinguish female payees in a household, their tax was the mulakkaram — breast tax." (The Hindu Magazine, Sunday, February 19, 2017)
Maitrayee Chaudhuri, professor of sociology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, writes in her article 'Feminism in India: The Tale and Its Telling': “Cultural practices often chosen as emblematic of community identity pertain to women’s mobility, and control of sexuality.” She argues that the choices a woman makes, especially, an oppressed caste woman, either will aid her erasure or destroy her true identity within the norms of that cultural milieu. Here, it is both colonialism and the advance of the patriarchy in matriarchal Kerala that casts Nangeli in its shadows.
Today, however, this sacrifice, responsible for giving power to women in the community to challenge dominant social systems, seems to have lost itself to communal embarrassment. The land which witnessed the event now stands shared between several owners, bereft of any representation of Nangeli and her courage. Moreover, in the many texts which articulate the caste struggles of men and women in Kerala or the liberation movement undertaken by women, Nangeli’s story is missing. Her courage, however, has found a place in the autobiographies of local leaders like C. Kesavan and K.R. Gowri Amma. Prejudiced as it may be, history must be constantly rewritten and revised so as to take us away from what Gayatri Spivak terms as ‘sanctioned amnesia and ignorance'.
Nangeli’s story, amongst many others which speak of the silent strength of true heroes, is suppressed due to the overwhelming narrative of the patriarchal and Brahmanical history of our country. Manu S Pillai further states, “When Nangeli stood up, squeezed to the extremes of poverty by a regressive tax system, it was a statement made in great anguish about the injustice of the social order itself. Her call was not to celebrate modesty and honour; it was a siren call against caste and the rotting feudalism that victimised those in its underbelly who could not challenge it. She was a heroine of all who were poor and weak, not the archetype of middle-class womanly honour she has today become. But they could not admit that Nangeli’s sacrifice was an ultimatum to the order, so they remodelled her as a virtuous goddess, one who sought to cover her breasts rather than one who issued a challenge to power.”
Excavation of stories, forgotten, known but unwritten, and those which remain unknown due to lack of an audience, must benefit from the light of awareness. Nangeli’s story is still searching for pages to be written on but percolating her story will make her a powerful agent in our present day. This road that we trudge on today, has benefitted from the trailblazing gestures of Nangeli. Although the rust under us might have been replaced by concrete, it will not bode well for us to forget that our present is still founded on the shoulders of a faulty, injustice laden history, and that tales of resistance are necessary for a better, more inclusive, future.
