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The fictional story of Nangeli depicts the story of a woman to have lived in the early 19th century in Cherthala in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore in India, and supposedly cut off her breasts in an effort to protest against a tax on breast.

Viewed as a village tale, it is not officially recognised in any of the historical accounts. It gained much attention since the publication of a 2016 BBC article on this subject.

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 after a petition stating "history narrated in the book was incorrect and some of the contents 'degraded' the entire Nadar community".Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Legend

According to the legend, 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. Nangeli revolted against the harassment; chopping off her breasts and presenting them to him in a plantain leaf. She died soon from loss of blood and her husband Chirukandan, seeing her mutilated body was overcome by grief and jumped into her funeral pyre. The couple was childless.

After her death, 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.

Historicity

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

Historian Manu S. Pillai says both men and women had poll tax called talakkaram and mulakkaram, respectively. Contrary to its name, "breast tax" is a misnomer and had nothing to do with breasts. "Mulakkaram" was a term to distinguish female taxpayers from males, and "the tax was not based on the size of the breast or its attractiveness, as Nangeli's storytellers will claim, but was one standard rate charged from women". Covering breasts was not a fashion in Kerala at that time as people lacked a sense of morality. Victorian standards of morality penetrated into the society decades later via the British colonialists, which led to subsequent class-struggles for the right of the lower caste to wear upper cloth. He believes Nangeli might have protested against an oppressive tax regime that was imposed upon all lower castes, "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".

Earlier, India's Central Board of Secondary Education had treated this incident in a syllabus intended for class IX students in social sciences, in a section entitled Caste, Conflict and Dress Change which discussed the agitation of women from Nadar and Ezhava castes for their right to wear upper-body clothes. The article was later removed following an order by the Madras High Court after a litigation was filed claiming the "history narrated in the book was incorrect and some of the contents 'degraded' the entire Nadar community", and represented the Nadars as "migrants".

In popular culture

Nangeli was featured as a character in the 2022 period film Pathonpatham Noottandu, directed by Vinayan.

See also

• Kannagi
• Chithrakaran Murali

References

1. "The Legend of Nangeli". She is no heroine of the written history. Some say she is just a legend of the times. Some say she is part of folklore. Some say, 'Show us the proof.' There are some who argue that Nangeli is a fabrication because no 'records' exist of her.
2. "The breast tax that wasn't". www.telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
3. "The woman who cut off her breasts to protest a tax". BBC News. 27 July 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2022.
4. ^ "The woman who cut off her breasts to protest a tax". BBC News. 28 July 2016.
5. Tripathy, Anwesha (17 May 2021). "The Story of Nangeli and The 19th Century Travancore Breast Tax". Pop Culture, Entertainment, Humor, Travel & More. However, the story has gained much traction over the last couple of years after BBC article covered it in 2016.
6. "Dress code repression: Kerala's history of breast tax for Avarna women". The News Minute.
7. ^ 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.
8. ^ Allen, Charles (2017). Coromandel : A personal history of South India. London: Little, Brown. p. 285. ISBN 9781408705391. OCLC 1012741451.
9. Surendranath, Nidhi (21 October 2013). "200 years on, her sacrifice only a fading memory". The Hindu. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
10. Singh, Vijay (7 March 2016). "She died fighting 'breast tax', her name lives on". Times of India. Retrieved 15 April 2017.
11. Nidhi Surendranath (21 October 2013). "200 years on, Nangeli's sacrifice only a fading memory". The Hindu. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
12. "Remembering One Woman's Ultimate Tax Protest On International Women's Day". Kelly Phillips Erb. Forbes. 8 March 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
13. "Cherthala seeks Nangeli memorial". Sajimon P S. The Times of India. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
14. Gautam, Swati (14 January 2021). "The breast tax that wasn't". Telegraph India.
15. Cite error: The named reference oneindia was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
16. "The CBSE Just Removed an Entire History of Women's Caste Struggle". The Wire. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
17. "Vinayan to make film on discarded revolutionary Nangeli - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
18. "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.

• Kingdom of Travancore