Situating Dalit Women in Grassroot Politics : Channar Revolt and the Struggle for a Dignified Life

 Abstract : Dalit women in India have had a long history of suppression and of leading lives of routine indignity and humiliation. The ‘Breast Tax’ (Mulakkaram or mula-karam in Malayalam), imposed on the lower caste, Dalit women by the Kingdom of Travancore (in present-day Kerala) if they wanted to cover their breasts in public, was one of the many ways of oppressing them.

This indignity on the part of the dominant castes inculcated into one of the most significant Dalit as well as female revolts in history – The Channar Lahala or the Channar revolt (also called the Maru Marakkal Samaram) -  a relentless struggle of the Nadar climber women of Travancore for their right to wear upper-body garments. This historic revolt, made news a few years ago, in the CBSE’s infamous decision (2016) to remove the section titled ‘Caste, Conflict and Dress Change’ from its social science curriculum, by labeling it as “objectionable content”. This amounted to an attempt to erase the history of this crucial movement. In this paper, I seek to examine the role played by Dalit women against casteism as well as male dominance, through the lens of the Channar Revolt, as well as their erasure from the pages of history.  

“My misfortune, when my sister-in-law came home, she brought me a couple of blouses. I also liked the blouses, and wore one at once. It looked good…I showed it to my mother. She gave me a stern look and said, 'Where are you going to gallivant in this? Fold it and keep it in the box.' Twisting and turning, I looked at myself; how lovely it looked…I stood there immersed in a daydream. I didn't notice my mother coming, 'Take it off, you slut!' she said, 'you want to walk around in shirts like Muslim women?...’

During the day, I did not wear the blouse, but the night was mine. When I knew that my mother had slept, I used to take out the blouse and wear it.”

Scholars[i] [ii]who have addressed the question of dress reform in Kerala quote the same anecdote in which C Kesavan, an Ezhava Social Reformer, in his autobiographical account[iii] recounts the story of his mother-in-law wearing a ravuakka (blouse) for the first time, an incident that dates back to the late 19^th century. Since then, the Nadars, have moved from the lower rungs of the ritual hierarchy to a position of status and power. As scholar R.L.Hardgrave points out, “In their rise, they experienced a series of escalating confrontations with other communities which served to weld the caste into a community with a high degree of self-consciousness and solidarity. The first movement of this awakening self-consciousness was the ‘breast-cloth controversy’.”[iv]

This controversy eventually culminated into the Channar Lahala, or the Mulakkaram, which took place between 1813 and 1859, and saw the Nadar women defying the decree imposed upon them by the upper castes which barred them from clothing their upper bodies.

The caste system in Kerala had been quite complex at the time. The absence of Chaturvarnya (the four-fold caste system), and the presence of many subcastes and different ranks within the same caste group were factors that contributed to this complexity. Though the Brahmin influence did exist in Kerala since the 1st Century, there was a large influx of Brahmins in the region during 8th Century. These Brahmins were called the Namboodiris. Scholar Vichitra Gupta maintains that apart from Namboodiris, everybody else was given the status of a Sudra. Namboodiri Brahmins, placed at the top of caste hierarchy, practiced untouchability in different manners towards different castes. As such, a Nair was allowed to approach but not touch a Namboodiri Brahmin, while an Ezhava had to remain thirty-six paces off. It was only in the 16th century that there was an influx of Nadars in the region after the Raja of Travancore invaded Tirunelveli. They were essentially palmyra climbers, who were placed at outside the caste heirarchy and were known as the Avarna (the impure, outcaste).[v] Hardgrave asserts that the Nadars suffered the social disabilities of a low, untouchable community.

Upon the plight of the Nadars, especially that of the Nadar women, Prof. Gupta goes on to write, “the condition of these dalit women had been so disgraceful and humiliating that in the southernmost part of Travancore, the Avarna Nadar women had to fight for even covering their bodies.”[vi]

Women, even though they occupy half the population of the world, have been a historically oppressed and marginalized section in almost all societies. In his work Politics, Aristotle stated that women were inferior to men and must be ruled by men. A woman, according to most authorities, must always remain under the tutelage of a man, the superior being. Justifying this to be true in the Indian context, Manu says, “in childhood a female must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, when her lord is dead to her sons - a woman must never be independent.”[vii]

Things were no different in erstwhile Kerala. While the upper caste women used to keep their upper body covered, the Nadar climber and the Ezhava women were not allowed to cover their bosom anytime, anywhere. Nair women had to remain half naked before the Brahmins. The Royal Proclamation of 1829 ordered the Nadar women to “abstain in future from covering the upper part of their body.”  and if any women ever dared to cover her breasts, the Maharaja regime collected the ‘Breast Tax’called ‘Mulakaram’ whose amount was determined, quite sickeningly, by the size of their breasts. In addition, during the public appearances of the King, women of all castes except Brahmins, were supposed to stand half naked to shower flowers upon them.[viii]

Scholar J.Devika thereby contends that this bare- breastedness implied, not only an articulation of hierarchy of status, but also a woman's obligation to provide sexual pleasure to an upper caste man. She also notes, how covering of the breasts had become a seducing technique and how by covering of breasts, body becomes a desirable object. Scholar Udaya Kumar also analyses how the 'blouse' becomes an object of personalized enjoyment and ceases to be a caste marker after a point. Adding on to this narrative, scholar B. Rajeevan also identifies this practice as the sexual subjectification or the desired objectivity of women.

On the other hand, Kesavan, in his autobiographical account states that it was compulsory for Nair women to remove rauvukka in the presence of  Brahmin women as well. Here, Nair women had to show respect to the Brahmin women by removing their breast cloth, who now figure as their oppressor.

As noted by Rowena Robinson, throughout the nineteenth century, Nadars were engaged in a struggle for social mobility and conversion was, for some of the Nadars, part of the attempt to attain upward social mobility.[ix] In as early as 1812, Colonel Munro, then Resident of Travancore, had issued an order that permission be granted to “the women converted to Christianity to cover their bosoms as obtained among Christians in other countries.” They were not, however, permitted to wear the upper cloth in the manner of the higher castes. No Nadar women “were ever to be allowed to wear clothes on their bosoms as the Nair women”, quotes a letter from the Government of Madras to Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for India.[x]

However, in addition to the prescribed jacket, or often in lieu of it, the Nadar women increasingly adopted the use of the upper cloth, which was worn by the women of the higher classes, defying the proclamation. This led to increasing violence in the 1820s against Nadar women, along with the burning of schools and churches.

Charles Mead, ‘the father of the South Travancore Mission’, in his report of the situation to the London Missionary Society wrote that, “Men were seized on the Sabbath for public works, schools were occasionally interrupted, the books thrown into the streets or torn to pieces, arid the women were beaten in the public bazaar for wearing the upper cloth over their bosoms, and the clothes were stripped from their bodies.”

Nevertheless, the Nadar women of Travancore continued wearing the breast cloth and were not to be deterred. In the regions of Travancore bordering on Tinnevelly, it had become, the missionaries wrote, “the rule and not the exception” to wear the breast cloth.

However, in 1858, violence revived in several regions of Travancore. “On January 4, 1859, some two hundred Sudras, armed with clubs and knives, attacked the Nadars of a village near Nagercoil, beating them and stripping the upper-cloths from the women. During the months of rioting between October 1858 and February 1859, nine chapels and three schools were burned.”[xi] But this time, the violence was not one sided. General Cullen reported that excesses had been committed on both sides, citing the attack by a large body of Nadars on a village, where they plundered shops and committed violence. The Dewan of Travancore, Madhava Row, also reported that “the Nadars were raising men and money and it was clear that they had solicited the cooperation of the Nadars residing in the district of Tinnevelly in the vicinity of our frontier.”

Consequently, on 26 July 1859, under pressure from the Madras Governor, Charles Trevelyan, the king of Travancore issued a proclamation affirming the right for all Nadar women to cover their breasts.[xii] The obnoxious rule of Breast Tax was now over and the women had gained the right to dress up with dignity after a long period of insistent struggle and sacrifice. However, they were still not allowed to cover their breasts in the style of the higher-class Nair women.

Ezhava women secured the right to cover their breasts in 1865. Interestingly, the success of these avarna women inspired higher caste women – the Namboodiri ladies who had to remove their upper body cloth in the temple, in front of the idol, and the Nair women, who could not cover their breasts in front of Brahmins -  to adopt a dignified dress code. Ezhava women secured the right to cover their breasts in 1865 while the Nair women stopped exposing their breasts in front of Brahmins even later.

Thus, we see how the women of Travancore had to fight a long battle, even if it required resorting to violence, to resist against the dual authorities of Patriarchy as well as Brahmanism stripping them of a dignified life. It is important to note that these women were not only fighting for their agency and personhood but also against an abhorrent, gendered marking of caste. Thus, they were fighting not only as women, but as Dalit women.

The simple act of wearing a ravukka (as mentioned in C.Kesavan’s autobiographical account) was in itself an act of rebellion against the established authority (Amma) who saw the rauvukka as a sign of the 'dancing-girl' (attakkari). The revolt was thus kept alive by the relentless spirit of these women, who protested in the forms of conversions, outright defiance and, when needed, resorting to violence.

Furthermore, some regional folklores have kept alive the memory of Nangeli, an Ezhava woman of the early 19th century Travancore who chopped off her breasts and offered it to the (breast) tax collector on a plantain leaf in defiance of the indignity forced upon them, and bled to death, a sacrifice that greatly intensified the revolt.[xiii]

Unfortunately, history writing and history teaching in today’s times, has attempted to erase this history of women’s struggle and sacrifice, which came to light recently when CBSE struck off the chapter that referred to the Breast Tax from its syllabus. This was done at a time when there is a growing need for the writings of Dalit women to be taught in academics, and translated into global languages, to better understand their agony and struggle. Prof. Janaki Nair also emphasises that, “In discussing the controversy here, I acknowledge the ethical necessity of engagement between textbook writers and their critics, and the increasing importance of respectful listening. We are in a time when the ‘uselessness’ of history is being emphasized, especially, as E. J. Hobsbawm once remarked, ‘We have been schooled into believing that there is a technical solution to every problem, from building a bridge to building democracy. So History is no longer necessary.’ Yet we are everywhere surrounded by a demand for a past, from groups and regions and castes and genders who were denied one.”[xiv]

As such, Nangeli’s fading memory has been recalled and kept alive by painter T. Murali in a series of paintings. T. Murali, who has illustrated the horrific story of Nangeli in his paintings, remarks, “We may not be able to teach students about Nangeli’s sacrifice in the textbooks, but my book Amana uses paintings to bring her story to life.”[xv]

References :

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[i] Devika, J. (2007). Engendering Individuals: The Language of Re-Forming in 20thCentury Keralam. New Delhi, Orient Longman.

[ii] Kumar, U. (1997) Self, body and inner sense: Some reflections on Sree Narayana Guru and Kumaran Asan. Studies in History.

[iii] Kesavan, C. (1953).  Jeevithasamaram. [Life Struggle]. Vol. 1 Thiruvananthapuram: Kaumudi.

[iv] Hargrave, R L., (1968). The Breast-Cloth Controversy: Caste Consciousness and Social Change in Southern Travancore. Univeristy of Texas, USA.

[v] Gupta, V. (2017). Breast Tax : Social Oppression of Dalit Women. Contemporary Social Sciences.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] G. Buhler, The Laws of Manu, Oxford Clerdon Press, London, 1886.

[viii] Gupta, V. (2017). Breast Tax : Social Oppression of Dalit Women. Contemporary Social Sciences.

[ix] V, S. P. (2018). Dress Reform In Kerala : Question Of Caste, Community And Women. Shodh Sarita.

[x] Hargrave, R L., (1968). The Breast-Cloth Controversy: Caste Consciousness and Social Change in Southern Travancore. Univeristy of Texas, USA.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] Santhosh, K. (2020). Dress as a tool of Empowerment: The Channar Revolt. Our Heritage Journal.

[xiv] Nair, J. (2016). Textbook Controversies and the Demand for a Past: Public Lives of Indian History. History Workshop Journal

[xv] Palit, M. (2016). The CBSE Just Removed an Entire History of Women’s Caste Struggle. The Wire.

Image Source: The Wire, India Today

Author:

Shambhavi Jha

2nd Year, History Hon. KMC

Shambhavi Jha is a 2nd year student of History Hons. of Kirori Mal College. This work of hers has won the best paper award in a paper presentation competition held by Hansraj College, University of Delhi on 27th February, 2021.