Nangeli

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The village-legend of Nangeli is about an Ezhava woman who lived in the early 19th century at Cherthala in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore in India and supposedly, cut off her breasts in an effort to protest against a caste-based "breast tax".

Widely viewed as an urban legend among scholarly circles, the story of Nangeli has gained widespread attention since the publication of a 2016 BBC Asia article on it.[1][2]

Many historians have registered this incident and India's Central Board of Secondary Education has treated this incident in a syllabus intended for class IX students in social sciences, in a section entitled Caste, Conflict and Dress Change.. The article was later removed on account of an order by the Madras High Court judging it "misinterpreted historical authenticity arising from a fictional work based on the subject" in addition to falling under "objectionable content" and "hate speech" against persons of certain states and certain communities.[1][3][4][5]

Legend[]

According to the popular narrative, in the early years of the 19th century, the pravathiyar (village officer) of Travancore came to Nangeli's home to survey her breasts and collect the breast tax.[4] Nangeli revolted against the harassment; chopping off her breasts and presenting them to him in a plantain leaf.[6][7][4] She died soon from loss of blood[4] and her husband Chirukandan, seeing her mutilated body was overcome by grief and jumped into her funeral pyre - in what was supposedly the first male sati.[1] The couple was childless.[4]

Following the death of Nangeli, a series of people's movements apparently set off and similar folk-lores have been noted.[8] The breast tax system was supposedly annulled in Travancore, soon afterwards and the place she lived had come to be known as Mulachiparambu (meaning land of the breasted woman) is located in Cherthala ,Kerala.[1][9][10][11]

Scholarly reception[]

The tale is not recognized in any of India's historical accounts.[1]

Manu S. Pillai rejects the narrative in entirety and argues that covering breasts was not a fashion in Kerala's radically liberal and matriarchal society during Nangeli's life-span. Victorian standards of morality penetrated into the society decades later via the British invaders, which led to subsequent class-struggles for the right to wear upper cloth.[4] He believes Nangeli to have protested against an oppressive tax regime that was imposed upon all lower castes, which got appropriated with the passage of time, in pursuit of a different patriarchal fight for the preservation of female dignity.[4]

Popular culture[]

A film on her has been proposed by Vinayan.[12][13]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d e "The woman who cut off her breasts to protest a tax". BBC News. 28 July 2016.
  2. ^ "Dress code repression: Kerala's history of breast tax for Avarna women". The News Minute.
  3. ^ "The CBSE Just Removed an Entire History of Women's Caste Struggle". The Wire. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g S. Pillai, Manu (2019). "The woman with no breasts". The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History. Chennai: Westland Publications Private Limited. ISBN 9789388689786.
  5. ^ Allen, Charles (2017). Coromandel : A personal history of South India. London: Little, Brown. p. 285. ISBN 9781408705391. OCLC 1012741451.
  6. ^ Surendranath, Nidhi (21 October 2013). "200 years on, her sacrifice only a fading memory". The Hindu. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  7. ^ Singh, Vijay (7 March 2016). "She died fighting 'breast tax', her name lives on". Times of India. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
  8. ^ The encyclopaedia of Dravidian tribes. 2. International School of Dravidian Linguistics. 1996. p. 198. ISBN 9788185692166.
  9. ^ Nidhi Surendranath (21 October 2013). "200 years on, Nangeli's sacrifice only a fading memory". The Hindu. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  10. ^ "Remembering One Woman's Ultimate Tax Protest On International Women's Day". Kelly Phillips Erb. Forbes. 8 March 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  11. ^ "Cherthala seeks Nangeli memorial". Sajimon P S. The Times of India. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  12. ^ "Vinayan to make film on discarded revolutionary Nangeli - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
  13. ^ "മാറുമറയ്ക്കൽ സമരനായിക നങ്ങേലിയുടെ കഥയുമായി വിനയന്‍" [Vinayan with the story of Marumarakkal Samaranayaka Nageli]. Indian Express Malayalam (in Malayalam). 30 December 2018. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
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