One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Kerala’s societal hierarchy through the looking glass
Lately, I have been spending a lot more time on my phone than usual, owing to quarantine, boredom and my general lack of will to pursue anything worthwhile. This led me to watch a short film on YouTube titled Mulakkaram, which translates literally to “breast tax” in Malayalam; I was intrigued. But the film, directed by Yogesh Pagare, turned out to be a Hindi rendition of a legend based in Cherthala (my paternal native place).
According to this, a woman named Nangeli, belonging to a lower caste (called Ezhavas) protested against a tax collected from these women, supposedly in proportion to the size of their breasts, in return for the right to cover their upper bodies. She did so by chopping off her breasts and serving them on a plantain leaf to the village officer who had come to assess her breasts and fetch the tax.
If the 5.6 million views the film garnered were not proof enough, the numerous articles related to the said legend on Google revealed that many people, including reporters at BBC news, found this a topic of great interest. Some even considered Nangeli’s act revolutionary and hailed it as one of the first revolts against casteism. All these people, no doubt, have their heart in the right place and their sentiments could be justified, if only the legend that provoked them was genuine. A woman protested against a tax collected from the lower castes — that much is true. Sadly, the rest is but imagination. So let us set some facts straight and attempt to paint a much more realistic picture of my homeland from the yesteryear.
Debunking the myths
One Jenga block at a time:
There is no denying that there existed a deep-rooted, oppressive caste system in Kerala. This can be inferred from the fact that people belonging to lower castes were the only ones engaged in labour, and consequently the sole tax-payers. The tax paid by men (slightly more than that paid by women) was called thalakkaram (head tax) and the tax paid by women, mulakkaram (breast tax). The name mulakkaram was just to specify that the tax was paid by women and had nothing to do with their breasts. The fact that people belonging to lower castes had to pay a tax in itself is highly problematic, but hey, at least women weren’t paying a tax based on the size of their breasts. To prove my claim, I’ll narrate an occurrence:
At the crack of dawn, two women — one much older than the other — walk toward the riverbank. “Aunt, we’re going to attend a wedding, surely you can wear a blouse for this occasion?” the younger woman asks hopefully. Protests ensue, a few of them futile, and soon the older woman concedes. The two of them proceed to row a boat to get across the river. The moment they get off the boat and set foot on the opposite bank, the older woman shrugs off her blouse and hands it over to her niece. “I can’t embarrass myself by wearing this in front of so many people, child.”
This is an anecdote often narrated by my grandmother and paints quite a faithful picture of 1920 Kerala; the protagonists are my maternal great-grandmother and her aunt (who belonged to an upper caste, called Nambidi). Back then everyone in Kerala, regardless of gender and caste, had a common attire that was most practical for the climate — the ‘mundu’, a piece of cloth secured around the waist. A change in this trend was observed only after men started travelling to different parts of the country and the world in search of better educational and occupational opportunities. These men, as a result of their experiences and observations, returned with an altered sense of modesty and modernity. They, in turn, tried to influence the views of the women in their households — the attempt gaining some success, if any, with the younger folk.
My maternal grandfather, an amateur poet, used to recite this poem from memory:
“Poketta penungal jackettil kerippol
Chakkarikkum vila koodi koodi”
This loosely translates to ‘immoral women slipping into blouses will be the doom of society, as evidenced by a hike in the price of rice’. So you see, women seeking to cover their upper bodies was a concept that the society inside Kerala took some time to digest. It was a regressive trait at first glance; women should have the right to do as they please with their bodies. But the above comment can be seen as criticism to the change rather than a gospel on how women should behave. The point to ponder over though is that Kerala, around a century back, had women walking around bare-breasted without a single head turning back. In fact, it was normalized to such an extent that people had trouble adjusting to a change in this trend.
Kerala was unknowingly home to, I daresay, the most radically modern and feminist society in India.
The system of Matriliny
Not the same as matriarchy:
Kerala, unlike every other state in India, was home to a largely matrilineal (in most parts even matriarchal) society. This meant that families were based on mothers’ homes and organized through the female line — the controllers and decision-makers were the oldest female members of the family. The norms regarding marriage were unique, too. Women of Nair households were visited by males from other families and although these relationships could be for life, there was no stigma about changing partners or divorce. All a man had to do was gift a woman with a mundu and they were (should she choose to accept the said gift) married. On the other end of the spectrum, a woman looking to get rid of a partner could just throw out his sleeping mat and pillow. The man, on finding his personal effects left outside the door, was to gather, literally, that he was no longer welcome.
In accordance with the matrilineal practices, all the children (male and female) held a right to inhabit the ancestral home. The children of the daughters too inherited the right from their mothers; the children of the sons, however, held no right to the property. But since each of these daughters had no less than a dozen children each, the matrilineal families grew increasingly large over the years, making the houses inadequate to accommodate all their shareholders. This motivated families to divide the property equally among all the inheritors (all the sons got one part each and all the daughters got one part for themselves and one for each of their children), with the house going to the oldest daughter. It is easy to see how this arrangement was disadvantageous to the sons, especially the ones born to impoverished families or born after the division of property. The plight of the youngest son of a proud Nair household as he is tormented by social injustice and consequently poverty is depicted in M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s novel, Asuravithu.
Enter the British:
The arrival of the British in Kerala in the early 1800s was a blessing in disguise for these lamenting men. The British brought with them an altered legal system, one with much more stringent laws. These newly established courts viewed matrilineal arrangements as “impartible joint families”, capable of being divided only with the unanimous, legally recorded consent of all adult members.
This proved to be all the incentive needed for like-minded Nairs to organize themselves to change matrilineal law to allow patrilineal-style marriage and division of a family’s collective wealth into individual shares (equally among the sons and daughters). Between 1896 and 1976, at least 20 pieces of legislation were passed to modify and ultimately abolish matrilineal practices relating to ownership, the inheritance of property and legal guardianship of children.
Despite its flaws and ramifications, the effects of the matrilineal system are quite evident in Kerala. Everything that buoys Kerala’s present society is a remnant of the legacies these practices left in their wake.
Educate a woman, educate a nation
Setting stage for the highest literacy rate in the country:
Matrilineal practices that existed in Kerala lent women education and employment opportunities which were unique to the region. Much before the establishment of a widespread government-financed school system in Travancore in the 1860s, Nair girls went to the local schools that were common throughout Kerala. The high-caste Nairs sending their girls to school impressed upon lower castes that educating their girls was something to aspire for. My great-grandmother had received elementary education and could even write three-letter words in English. As an obvious consequence, a huge majority of women that belong to my grandmother’s generation were educated and many were even employed.
The fact that a lot of women were salaried workers did not mean that they were all recognized for their contribution to the family income or that they received any aid in the household chores. Women were still expected to bear the burden of domestic chores along with their occupation.
The existence of a matrilineal society did not ensure that women were empowered or aware of their rights; but it did ensure that women who wished to assert their rights had the means to do so.
Peer pressure
Why throw it all away?
Although I earlier said that the matrilineal practices were disadvantageous to some men, the status of men in Kerala was in no way similar to the status of women (or the lack thereof) in a patriarchal society. Men were not victims of subjugation or exploitation. Even though as fathers, men came a distant second (many a time third, because the maternal uncle held more importance than the father) to the mother; nevertheless, their role in society was recognized and respected. Property division rules might seem ill-advised but cannot be judged without understanding that families were built on trust and division came into question only when a dispute arose. Such disputes can also be considered a change brought about by influence from outside.
So the only reasonable justification for our conscious transition towards an increasingly sexist patriarchal society becomes the inexplicable human desire for conformity. A child upon finding itself essentially different from its peers, tries to change itself and its likes to fit in better. Analogously, Kerala observing the existing practices of all other states in India, gradually reformed its unique social system. Had it paused for a while and considered in a logical manner if the change was necessary, we would have perhaps been a highly sophisticated and modern society today.
Just like societies, humans are often bogged down by a need to belong, to identify ourselves with one group or another. In doing so we tend to curb our interests, inclinations and whatever it is that sets us apart from the crowd.
But if you find yourself going against the tide, doing and liking things that no one around you seems to, often it is because you are doing something right, something unique. Well, that or you are a psychopath.
This article was written in collaboration with D Rohit.
Additional reading and sources:
- The Ivory Throne by Manu S. Pillai
- Perumals of Kerala by M.G.S. Narayanan
