OPPRESSIVE BRAHMINICAL ORDER AND CHALLENGING BACKWARD CASTES- NANGELI DIED FIGHTING BREAST TAX

This incident of oppressive brahminical order and challenging backward castes, tells us how miserable the conditions of the poor people in 19^th century. The king of Travancore is remembered for donating gold worth billions to the temple, but not criticised for the dubious methods he used to earn it.    Before the Britishers became Indian rulers, the local Kings of the time ensured the subjugation of the lower castes by imposing heavy taxes on them.

Their wealth was built on some of the worst taxes imposed anywhere in the world. Besides the tax on land and crops, lower castes had to pay taxes for the right to wear jewellery, the right of men to grow a moustache, and even the right of women to cover their breasts. The heavy taxes ensured that the lower castes were kept eternally in debt, while members of the upper castes flourished.

As yet another International Women's Day dawns, the coastal town of Cherthala(Kerala); recollects the extraordinary sacrifice by a young woman about a hundred years ago. Nangeli paid with her life to rebel against a brutal 'breast tax' (mulakkaram) which used to be collected from women if they wished to cover their breasts with cloth in public.

Nangeli, a lower-caste woman, was in her early thirties when she decided not to pay the humiliating tax to the king of Travancore. When the official tax collector repeatedly came to Nangeli's house to ensure she paid up her pending breast tax, she calmly asked him to wait for a while. Nangeli then placed a green plantain leaf on the floor, prayed, lit the holy lamp and then proceeded to chop off both her breasts. 

Her husband Chirukandan came home to find his wife lying dead and mutilated. He is said to have jumped into her funeral pyre out of grief. “The incident happened in 1803. It created a lot of anger and the practice of collecting breast tax was put to an end here by 1812.

The place in Cherthala where Nangeli made her sacrifice is known as Mulachipa rambu, which in Malayalam means 'the land of woman's breasts'. However, with locals reluctant to spell out this name, it is now popularly known as Manorama Kavala.