Kerala's first feminist whom history has forgotten

C Radhakrishnan | Alappuzha As March 8, the International Day for Women, has become a ritual for non-Governmental orgainsations to organise seminars on empowerment and freedom of women, even in Kerala, nobody in the State now remembers the woman who sacrificed her life for the cause of women's freedom almost a century ago.

The name of this woman, perhaps the first feminist of Kerala, however does not find any mention in seminars or workshops being organised every year on this particular day when foreign personalities like Simone de Beauvoir and Shere Hite are discussed at length.

The life (and death) of Nangeli, who rewrote the social rules in the erstwhile Travancore kingdom, is a saga of the fight against sexual prejudices, oppression of lower castes and feudal repression.

The Nangeli saga is recounted orally, says 61-year-old Leela of Cherthala, a fourth generation relative of the feminist. Leela keeps alive the Nangeli stories, which were handed over to her by her ancestors.

Nangeli lived a century ago in Cherthala, a part of Travancore, when covering of female breasts among lower castes was taboo, according to the feudal and caste-ridden social customs in force. If any lower caste woman wanted to cover her breasts she was required to pay tax, called Mulakkaram (breast tax). Violation of the rule was met with severe penalties apart from the tax.

There were special officers appointed to ensure that no women walked the streets with their breasts covered and also to collect tax if any woman dared to act against the rule. There had even been incidents where such officials had brutally attacked women who covered their breasts. The result of all this was that women refused to go out of the house becoming in the process socially alienated beings.

It was this established rule that Nangeli, a beautiful and stocky Ezhava woman of thirtyfive, opposed a century ago with her own life. Unlike other lower caste women of the time, Nangeli refused to see her beauty as a curse. "She was symbol of feminine beauty," Leela quotes Nangeli's story. "Those who had seen her said she was an apsara," Leela adds.

Leela presents the story of Nangeli as it has traveled through three generations: Nangeli, with her insatiable urge for freedom and spirit of rebellion could not be confined to the dark corners of her house like other women. So, one fine day when her husband Kandappan was not at home, she came out of her house in full view of all covering her breast with a cloth, a practise reserved as a privilege for upper caste women.

The news that beautiful Nangeli had appeared in the open with her breasts covered spread like wildfire. Hearing about the development, the village officer in charge of collecting Mulakkaram rushed to Nangeli's house and demanded that she pay tax.

The tax-payment procedure itself was a ritual. The woman had to present the money to the officer on a plantain leaf put before a lighted traditional lamp. Nangeli agreed to the village officer's demand. She asked for some minutes and went inside the house.

When she came back, the officer was horror-struck to see the plantain leaf on which she had brought the Mulakkaram. Nageli had offered as tax her own breasts. She had severed them from her body and put them on the plantain leaf. Within moments, Nangeli collapsed unconscious and bled to death.

Leela continues, "Nangeli's body had already been put on the funeral pyre when husband Kandappan returned home. Unable to bear the grief, he threw himself on the pyre immolating himself along with his beloved." The plot of land in which Nangeli's house stood came to be known as Mulachiparambu (plot of breast).

Hearing the news of the gruesome incident and fearing the people's rebellion, Sreemoolam Thirunnal Maharaja, king of Travancore, banned Mulakkaram and declared covering of breasts by low-caste women legal.

Not many know of the sacrifice of this woman that saw the dawn of a new era in women's liberation. no2torture.blogspot.com