In the early 19th century, the kingdom of Travancore passed a series of tax laws to preserve the caste order. The lower caste communities that suffered daily indignities in social life were now being targeted economically as well. Deemed to be avarnas – those who did not have a caste status – they were made to pay taxes on various livelihood-enabling aspects.
In his book Native Life in Travancore (1883), the English missionary Samuel Mateer writes about how the lower castes were forced to pay “various forms of house tax, taxes on oil mills, bows, iron and forges, exchangers, boats, nets and ladders” for the upkeep of upper caste temple traditions. The most ignominious of these was the ‘breast tax,’ which required lower caste women to pay tax if they wanted to cover their breasts.
The story goes that Nangeli, a low caste woman, disobeyed the breast tax laws; when the tax collector arrived at her doorstep, she is said to have cut off her breasts in protest and bled to death. Despite Nangeli’s revolutionary remonstration, she has been erased from history except for fragmented attempts by anti-caste historians and feminists.
The practice of collecting the breast-tax would commence when young girls began developing breasts and expressed a desire to cover them. The amount of tax to be paid is said to have been calculated based on the size of a woman’s breasts; it entailed the humiliating experience of breast-size measurement, an attack on dignity and personhood. However, taxes were not applicable if women chose to bare their breasts.
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