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The breast tax (mulakkaram or mula-karam in Malayalam) was a tax imposed until 1924 on the lower caste and untouchable Hindu women by the Kingdom of Tranvancore (in present-day Kerala state of India) if they wanted to cover their breasts in public. The lower caste and untouchable women were expected to pay the government the breast tax when they started developing breasts. The lower caste men had to pay a similar tax, called tala-karam, on their heads. Travancore tax collectors would visit every house to collect the breast tax from any lower caste women who passed the age of puberty. The tax was evaluated by the tax collectors depending on the size of the woman's breasts.

The baring of breasts by the lower caste and untouchable Hindu women was a longtime Travancore tradition and a sign of respect to an upper caste person. It was considered part of the Indian caste system, and came to be challenged, when a woman cut off her both breasts instead of paying tax.

Background

The Kingdom of Travancore was known for its rigid and oppressive caste system and hence Swami Vivekananda called Travancore a "lunatic asylum". The breast tax was levied by Travancore on lower caste Hindu women, which was to be paid if they wanted to cover their breasts and was further assessed in proportion to the size of their breasts. This was seen as a sign of respect towards the upper caste and the lower castes including Nadar and Ezhava women had to pay the tax. Dr. Sheeba KM, professor of gender ecology and Dalit studies, says the purpose of the tax was to maintain the caste hierarchy.

The law resulted from Travancore's tradition, in which the breast was bared as a sign of respect to a higher-status person. Attingal Rani once had a lower caste woman's breast cut off as a punishment for wearing upper cloth. For example, the Nair women were not allowed to cover their breasts while in front of the Namboodiri Brahmins or entering the temples, while the Brahmins bared their breasts only to the images of the deities. The women of the even lower castes, such as Nadars, Ezhavars and untouchables castes, were not allowed to cover their breasts at all. With the spread of Christianity in the 19th century, the Christian converts among the Nadar women started covering their upper body, and gradually even the Hindu Nadar women adopted this practice. After a series of protests, known as the Channar revolt, Nadar women were granted the right to cover their breasts in 1859.

Multiple historians have documented that uncovering one's breasts was revered as a symbolic token of homage from the lower castes towards the upper castes in the state of Travancore and a state-law prevented this covering which served to demarcate the caste hierarchy in a prominent manner and often served as the core locus of spontaneous rebellions by lower castes.

References

1. ^ "The CBSE Just Removed an Entire History of Women's Caste Struggle". The Wire. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
2. ^ "The woman who cut off her breasts to protest a tax". BBC News. 28 July 2016. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
3. "Nine weird taxes from around the world – Really absurd". The Economic Times. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
4. K.S. Manilal (15 November 2012). "Sikhism in Kerala: Forgotten Chapter in the Social History of the State". Samagra. 8: 3–4. ISSN 0973-3906. One such infamous law that was in force in Travancore until as late as the first quarter of the 20th century was known as Mulakkaram, i.e., the law of breast tax. According to this law the avarna women, were to pay tax to the government for their breasts from the very time of their girlhood, when they start developing breasts
5. R. N. Yesudas (1980). The History of the London Missionary Society in Travancore, 1806–1908. Kerala Historical Society. p. 19. The lower classes were to pay tax for the hair they grew, and for the breasts of ladies called breast-tax.
6. ^ Jacob Kattackal (1990). Comparative Religion. Oriental Institute of Religious Studies. p. 144. In South India, until the 19th century, the 'low caste' men had to pay the 'head tax', and the 'low caste' women had to pay a 'breast tax' ('tala-karam' and 'mula-karam') to the government treasury. The still more shameful truth is that these women were not allowed to wear upper garments in public.
7. "Breast Tax and the Revolt of Lower Cast Women in 19th Century Travancore". 17 May 2019. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
8. Pathak-Shelat, Manisha; Bhatia, Kiran (2021). Raising a Humanist: Conscious Parenting in an Increasingly Fragmented World. SAGE Publishing India. ISBN 978-93-5388-777-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
9. ^ Allen, Charles (2017). Coromandel : A personal history of South India. London: Little, Brown. p. 285. ISBN 9781408705391. OCLC 1012741451.
10. Archana Garodia Gupta (20 April 2019). The Women Who Ruled India: Leaders. Warriors. Icons. Hachette India. pp. 155–. ISBN 978-93-5195-153-7. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
11. Keerthana Santhosh (2020). "Dress as a tool of Empowerment: The Channar Revolt" (PDF). Our Heritage Journal. 22: 533. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 July 2020. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
12. Renjini P and Dr. C Natarajan (2017). "Rani Gowry Lakshmi Bai: Abolition of slavery in Travancore" (PDF). International Journal of Home Science: 337.
14. "Nangeli and the first documented 'Pati Sahagamanam'". Souhardya De. Sunday Guardian. 31 October 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
15. "God's own challenge". The Indian Express. 24 December 2018. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
16. N. Vanamamalai; Nā Vān̲amāmalai (1981). Interpretation of Tamil Folk Creations. Dravidian Linguistics Association.
17. P. Radhakrishnan (2002). India, the Perfidies of Power: A Social Critique. Vedam ebooks. p. 245. ISBN 978-81-7936-003-3. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
18. Keerthana Santhosh. "CONDITION OF WOMEN IN PRE-MODERN TRAVANCORE" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
19. Judge, Paramjit; Bal, Gurpreet (1996). Strategies of Social Change in India. MD Publications. p. 167. ISBN 9788175330061. Retrieved 11 July 2021.
20. Robert L. Hardgrave (1969). The Nadars of Tamilnad. University of California Press. pp. 59–62. OCLC 12064.
21. Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr. (1968). "The Breast-Cloth Controversy: Caste Consciousness and Social Change in Southern Travancore". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 5 (2): 171–187. doi:10.1177/001946466800500205. S2CID 143287605.
22. "Women at the Intersection of Caste and Sex: History of Breast Tax". in.makers.yahoo.com. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
23. Cohn 1996, p. 140.
24. Hardgrave, Robert L. (1969). The Nadars of Tamilnad. University of California Press. pp. 55-70.

Sources

• Cohn, Bernard S. (1996), Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691000435
• Jones, Kenneth W. (1989), Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-24986-4
• Kertzer, David I. (1988), Ritual, Politics, and Power, Yale University Press
• Ponnumuthan, Selvister (1996), The Spirituality of Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Socio-religious Context of Trivandrum/Kerala, India, Universita Gregoriana
• Ross, Robert (2008), Clothing: A Global History, Polity

• Breast
• Discrimination in India
• Caste system in India
• Taxation in India
• Kingdom of Travancore
• Women of the Kingdom of Travancore
• People of the Kingdom of Travancore