Look Through time Travancore Kingdom Oppressive Tax History against Dalit by Travancore Kingdom superior castes like Namboodiris (Brahmins).
During the reign of the unpopular Maharajah of Travancore Sri Bala Rama Varma (1798-1810), Travancore faced a number of internal and external problems, revolts and unnecessary battles and conspiracies. At the death of the Maharajah Bala Rama Varma in 1810, Gowri Lakshmi Bayi, the senior Rani of Attingal, was barely twenty years of age. There were no eligible male members in the family which meant she was the heir to the throne and to take over Travancore and rule it.
Ayilyam Thirunal Gauri Lakshmi Bayi became the Maharani of Travancore from 1810 till 1813 and Regent from 1813 till her death in 1815 for her son Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma who was a minor at that time.
One of the earliest acts of Rani Gowri Lakshmi Bayi was to dismiss the existing Dewan or Prime Minister, Ummini Thampi. He was punished after found guilty of conspiracy against the Maharani. She appointed the British Resident Colonel John Munro as her Dewan.
Munro realized soon that many of the district and village officials responsible for collecting tax revenues are corrupt. So to rein them in and to bring the much-needed administrative reforms, he has limited their power only to the tax collection. In case of misconduct or corruption these officials were subjected to judicial trials. Travancore thus became the first kingdom where the judicial system of 20th century is introduced.
Travancore had an oppressive caste system and an equally oppressive tax regiments for the downtrodden. Each strata in the society was oppressed by its upper strata and in turn oppressed its lower strata with equal vehemence. The social rule and the tax levied on lower castes were weird.
They were subjected to a number of taxes. One of them is ‘Purusantharam’. When a low caste member inherited any ancestral property he had to pay as much as 25% of the value of the property so inherited as ‘Purusantharam’ tax. Another tax was the ‘poll tax’. Any person aged 16 to 60 had to pay this tax for himself and for each member of the family and for the members of his family who had migrated to other places also.
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For the ladder they used to climb trees a tax called ‘enikanam’ was collected. For the belt used to climb palmyrah and other palms a tax called ‘Thalaikanam’ was collected. For the hut they lived in ‘fanam’ was collected. They even had to pay a tax for changing the roof of their house, for marriage, for certain jewellery and turbans.
The lower castes people are also subject to Oozhiyam where they can be involved in any business that involves strenuous work without paying any wage for the same. The people of lower castes are taxed for marriages, childbirth, and even for any death occurring in their family.
Back in the early 1800s, both men and women of the lower caste communities weren’t allowed to cover their chests in front of members of the upper caste. This was considered a sign of modesty and it was important they complied. Clothing was considered a sign of wealth and prosperity and the poor and the lower-castes were simply not entitled to it.
In the early 19th century, Travancore had a barbaric and oppressive law that was highly degrading for its women. The Mulakkaram, or the ‘breast tax,’ was a tax to be paid by the Dalit women of Travancore per the size of their breasts.
As the law did not allow Dalit women to cover their breasts, the tax was meant to add insult to their injury of being easily identifiable in the most demeaning way.
The regime subjugated the lower castes and ensured they stayed in debt with barbaric laws and taxes on things as trivial as the right to wear jewellery and for men, the right to grow a moustache.
During those dark times, one woman named Nangeli, and her defiance, brought about a simple, yet revolutionary change that helped abolish the breast tax.
Nangeli was an Ezhava woman from Cherthala, north of Alappuzha, who belonged to a family that could not afford to pay the prescribed taxes.
In a preliminary act of rebellion, Nangeli refused to uncover her breasts whenever it was demanded of her. When the tax collectors of the province came to her home to collect their dues, Nangeli bravely defied them with a final blow. She cut off her breasts and nonchalantly presented it to the collectors in a banana leaf. The tax collectors immediately fled in fear as Nangeli bled to death at her doorstep, and the news spread across the kingdom like wild fire.
In another act of protest, her husband jumped to his death on her funeral pyre, which was also the first recorded instance of a man committing sati instead of a woman.
Following her death, the crown annulled the breast tax in Travancore, as a direct repercussion to her mutilating her own body in defiance. And the land where she lived came to be known as Mulachiparambu (meaning, land of the breasted woman), in her honour.
Several stories of caste oppression and rebellion have faded away from history books. But Nangeli’s name will always be etched in the pages of history for bravely sacrificing her life and bringing about radical social change in a world of oppression.
Later Maharaja of Travancore, Utram Tirunal Marthanda Varma abolished all restrictions in regard to the covering of their upper parts by lower cast women in Travancore in 1859.
This is history of upper class Brahmin
Source: Early history of Travancore
Journals of EIC
Memoirs of Ward & Coner