Reimagining History: The Politics of Representation in Nangeli’s Tale

History is usually written by the privileged and what the world needs is a more solid theoretical foundation in “history from below” or “history of people” that enables a systematic analysis of various sociocultural products from the perspectives of the oppressed. Modern interpretations of cultural artefacts may at the outset look progressive. However, they often carry the undertones of the very same sentiments that these representations attempt to challenge. The politics of representation of caste is addressed in this article through the analysis of a popular legend of Kerala that recently obtained filmic and artistic representations. The legend of Nangeli, as represented in a recently released Malayalam film Pathonpatham Noottand (2022), in a graphic novel titled A Travancore Tale (2017) by Orijit Sen and in a series of paintings done by artist T Murali, alias Chithrakaran Murali, is analysed to expound the counter discourses in some of these works. An attempt is made to elucidate how the myth/legend became displaced between the equations of caste and gender and to illustrate the ideological lineage of the artists/creators of the art further subverting the true cause of a rebellion set forth by the lower caste woman named Nangeli.

Caste Representations: Prejudices and Preoccupations

In a period when history and the historicity are being restructured and redefined, it is interesting to revisit the manifesto of a group of Puerto Rican historians in the 1970s, which is cited in Bhattacharya (1983: 3):

We face the problem that the history presented as ours is only part of our history…. What of the history of the ‘historyless’, the anonymous people who in their collective acts, their work, daily lives and fellowship, have forged our society through the centuries?

Whose history is being written and the agency and authenticity of that history always have been problematic. “People’s history” or “history from below” focussed on the experiences and perspectives of the marginalised. The renaissance spirit of reinventing and rereading the cultural texts enabled the humanity to look at issues of the people at the social periphery through a lens of criticality and to percolate the unrecorded struggles, anxieties, and aspirations of the marginalised. As Bhattacharya (1983: 15) argues “History of ‘the people,’ or the history of ‘the oppressed,’ or ‘history from below’-by whatever name one calls it promises to offer a new perspective on our past.” Art being a representation of life always reflected and accommodated the historical, cultural, and social changes of its period of production. Myths and legends are always marked in the cultural memory of a people, and they parade back from the past to the present occasionally through the means of several artistic means or devices.

Visual arts like films and graphic arts like paintings and comics are also sites of such legends, myths, and chronicled or unaccounted history being retold. In the present era, in which logical debates on violation of human rights persevere, caste and caste-based violence in the contemporary society marshal certain vignettes from the history into the modern minds that engage in the discourse. Various art forms also become engrossed in this caste debate and a critical discourse analysis of them unveils the hidden agendas of certain representations. Most of such discourses are camouflaged as a revolt against caste discrimination, but they carry within them the undertones of the very casteist sentiments that they allegedly challenge or protest against. When such subtle references manifest in language, one needs a critical mindset to problematise them and to identify the subtilities involved in such “mis”- representations. However, when the references are trafficked into the minds of the consumers without them realising the biased and prejudiced position that they are endowed with through the careful weaving of the narrative, be it literature, visual arts, graphic arts, or digital arts, it takes considerable effort to decode these naturalised and acculturated elements and critique them. In short, appearance becomes deceptive and to comprehend the inherent layers of meaning of such cultural texts one has to chisel one’s own sensibilities and sensitivity towards critical questions like caste and gender.

A recent example of a visual narrative subverting the question of caste-based violence when it was an apparent documentation of the historical violations and massacre of human rights that happened in the 19^th-century Kerala was the Malayalam film Pathonpatham Noottand (The 19^th Century) directed by Vinayan. While the movie had managed to portray the divided Kerala society and the Savarna cruelty being enforced upon the lower caste, focussing more on the Ezhava community, the film’s portrayal of the legend of Nangeli becomes a concern. The story of Nangeli, a popular legend in Kerala especially the southern part of Kerala, does not feature in any of the historical documents including the Mathilakam Records, which documented all the administrative action plans and rules of the erstwhile state of Travancore. Before going into the visual narrative’s lacunae in the depiction of the legend and the caste struggle that it accentuates, it is important to sketch the legend itself.

The Legend of Nangeli

Nangeli was a lower caste (Ezhava) woman from Cherthala, a place in Travancore, in the southern part of Kerala, who chopped off her breasts in protest against the caste system that demanded “breast tax” from the lower caste women. As the land tax was low in Travancore, the rulers had imposed many inhuman taxes on the lower caste to lush their treasuries and thus there were Thalakkaram (general tax), Valakkaram (tax on the fishing net), Meesakkaram (tax on the moustache), and Mulakkaram or “breast tax” (tax on breasts of women) was one among them. The upper caste men, the tax collectors, in fact used to keep surveillance of the breasts of a girl as she grows up (Pillai 2017) and by measuring the size and dimensions the tax amount was determined. Women of lower caste were not allowed to clothe their breasts during those days and having the torso uncovered did not induce shame (Iqbal 2017). However, towards of the end of the 18^th century, women of upper castes were allowed to use upper clothes, a shawl, and this became more or less the symbol of their caste privilege (Pillai 2017). Dalit women had to pay the “breast tax” when they achieved puberty, and Nangeli and her husband Chirukandan might have been paying it for a long time. However, in 1803, one day, the suppressed anger and spirit of rebellion provoked Nangeli to challenge this inhuman and brutal system of caste-based taxing and the Savarna gaze of measuring the size of the breasts and defining the amount to be paid. Thus, instead of offering the customary tax, rice on a plantain leaf, when the Pravarthiyar (the village tax collector) came, Nangeli used a sickle to cut off her breasts and placed them on the plantain leaf, then bled to death. The horrified rulers fled the place and later her body was cremated. Her husband Chirukandan, in grief, entered her funeral pyre and died too (Mehrotra 2022). The very next day, King Sri Moolam Thirunal, issued a proclamation that withdrew the breast tax and allowed the lower caste women to wear a shawl to cover their breasts, thus providing Nangeli’s sacrifice a clear social output that saved the dignity of people of caste and among them particularly of women. The place where Nangeli died is now known as Mulachiparambu (the land of the breasted woman).

Portrayals and Perspectives

The Nangeli legend has got many artistic renditions before it was captured in the film Pathonpatham Noottand. Sen’s graphic narrative, A Travancore Tale, which was published with a tagline, “Remembering Nangeli on Rohith Vemula’s Shahadat day,” in 2017 graphically represented the legend of Nangeli. However, if one examines the narrative and techniques of narration, the very representation of caste discrimination becomes questionable. Why should the artist in order to reveal the horror of the incident portray the bleeding breasts so closely? Is it not again the eroticisation of the Dalit body? Pathonpatham Noottand is also not very different in this aspect. When the film acknowledges the belligerence of Nangeli in mutilating and killing herself as a response to the sexist and casteist violence inflicted upon women of her caste, the film narrative does not do justice to the legend of Nangeli and the cause for which she bled and died. What the film shows is in fact an eroticisation of the Dalit woman’s body; the nudity, bloodshed, and the ensuing death are portrayed with the intention to evoke pity among the spectators but in fact the sexualised and voyeuristic depiction does the contrary by catering to the Savarna male gaze. Many discourses that apparently talk about the upper caste atrocities become counter discourses by not being sensitive to the actual struggles of the Dalits.

The story of Nangeli was captured, without missing any elements of anguish, and unrest preserving the true cause of her revolt, by Chithrakaran Murali—an artist based in Kerala—through his paintings titled Nangeliyude Thyagam (Nangeli’s Sacrifice) and The Great Nangeli. These paintings are different from any of the aforesaid depictions of the same story because the artist here approaches the matter with great concern and sensitivity, which focus on the caste system that violated human rights. His artistic sensibility and knowledge of historical aspects of the Kerala society enable him to approach the subject matter with enough seriousness. Thus, Nangeli’s Sacrifice I and II are paintings that critique the caste system that existed in the Kerala society, and it also documents—through the written description that the artist provides along with the painting—the unjust laws that were violating all human rights and were victimising the lower caste people by depriving them of the rights to live with dignity. The Nangeli paintings in his series Amana: Charithrathilillatha Chithrangal (Amana: The Hidden Pictures of History), along with many similar incidents of caste-based violence being pictured, are attempts to retell the history of oppression by problematising the hitherto depictions of this legend. The illustrious combinations of colours that Murali uses in his paintings do not eroticise the narrative, but in fact it poignantly and objectively emphasises the sacrifice of the Ezhava woman Nangeli.

The paintings titled Nangeli’s Sacrifice I and II depict Nangeli bleeding to death after mutilating herself and her very act of cutting off her breasts. Even though the narrative includes bloodshed, the use of colours and the foregrounding technique used by the artist do not focus on the female body or the organs but the Savarna gaze that is blindfolded by her very act. The next painting in the Nangeli series, which is titled as The Great Nangeli, is a depiction of the whole point of her struggles and sacrifice by giving her a goddess image and positioning her above the image of Sree Padamanabha (the deity Vishnu). In his interview with the BBC (2016), Murali states: “I did not want to depict it as a bloody event; instead, my aim was to glorify her act as an inspiration to humanity, a representation that would command respect.” However, the goddess image given to her is not using the usual upper caste ideals of a female deity. It is her act that defines her divinity not the paraphernalia usually associated with Hindu gods and goddesses. It is her rebellion against the caste system that projects her as a superhuman who stands above the powers of Sree Padamanabha. Resurgence of Nangeli is envisaged by the artist through this painting that also implies the attempts to veto the Savarna agency by portraying the Sree Padamanabha figure at the feet of Nangeli and in the pool of blood her gallant act has produced. Thus, the painting clearly moves away from the fight of Nangeli and her belligerence being historically claimed as a fight to protect the female dignity by fighting for the rights to clothe the breasts.

Hence, what makes Murali’s art different from that of Vinayan and Sen is the politics of caste it dares to unveil deliberately. Through the portraits of Nangeli and fixing them within another few dozens of similar paintings collected as Amana, he clearly marks his stance against the caste politics of Kerala that celebrated the monarchy and the kindness and selflessness of the rulers at the cost of consciously ignoring the struggles of the lower caste men and women who were tormented by the inhuman justice system and rules and regulations that were shaped by the privileged for the privileged.

Caste, Gender, and Recontextualisation

The legend of Nangeli, as the historian Manu S Pillai (2017) points out, eventually was debated in the context of fighting for the cause of women challenging the patriarchal ideology that hitherto shaped the dominant norms. It was at this juncture that the female question of dignity and the indifferent attitudes of the upper caste towards the dignity of women and also the question of the male gaze came into discussions. These deliberations underlined the significance of Nangeli’s sacrifice as a revolutionary act as it not only challenged the system of levying tax on breasts but was also seen as her revolution against the caste system that further divided men and women. Iqbal (2020) argues that by amputating her breasts, “Nangeli proves that it is not about man and woman being equal or not, but about being unique in their respective roles.” He further maintains that

Apart from fighting the prevalent caste system and discrimination, Nangeli combines two protests in one act. By cutting off her breasts, she removes the ‘sex organs’ to protest the lecherous gaze of upper-caste men (or, in today’s context, any brazen male gaze). By removing her breasts, Nangeli also equates women to men—or a social equality. (Iqbal 2020)

When Sen’s graphic novel A Travancore Tale and Vinayan’s film Pathonpatham Noottand visualise Nangeli as the warrior of the female dignity, as the one who fought for the right to wear clothes, the stark reality of the unjust caste system that she battled against submerges. In Murali’s paintings, it is not the body politics that is primarily being dealt with. Murali tersely but disparagingly questions the caste-based discrimination to which Nangeli was subjected to and valorously fought against. Her body, in Murali’s art, is just a medium to carry out her revolt and not the reason for the revolt. Pillai (2019) argues:

When Nangeli stood up, squeezed to the extremes of poverty by a regressive tax system, it was a statement made in great anguish about the injustice of the social order itself. Her call was not to celebrate modesty and honour; it was a siren call against caste and the rotting feudalism that victimised those in its underbelly who could not challenge it. She was a heroine of all who were poor and weak, not the archetype of middle-class womanly honour she has today become. But they could not admit that Nangeli’s sacrifice was an ultimatum to the order, so they remodelled her as a virtuous goddess, one who sought to cover her breasts rather than one who issued a challenge to power. The spirit of her rebellion was buried in favour of its letter, and Nangeli reduced to the sum of her breasts.

How then did this recontextualisation happen? It could probably be a result of the reading of history that followed: the historical Channar Lahala (Channar Revolt) (Mehrotra 2022) through which people of caste fought for their rights to clothe their torso. Nangeli might have been in the historical imagination as a precursor of this movement, but certainly, breast tax was more about caste than breasts. One cannot negate that this tax actually was a clandestine tool to proclaim the gender differences as men were paying Thalakkaram (head tax) and women had to pay Mulakkaram (breast tax). It is gender discrimination not in terms of clothing but that of defining the bodies. Women were not taxed for their heads but for their breasts. The question that Nangeli’s legend brings to the social forefront to debate and discuss is all about what is it that defines a woman? Severing her breasts was her protest indeed and also it was her endeavour to desexualise herself, thereby claiming her space not as a man or a woman but as a human in the society. This essence is what is captured in the paintings of Murali when he problematises the caste discrimination and caste-based violence along with the sharp depiction of the utter insensitivity and indifference of the Savarna towards whom they termed as the “avarnas”. The three texts that narrated the same legend unbridle the ideological loading along with their historical perspectives. Issues in the artistic perception of a social history is connected to the artist’s own ideological stance.

Casteism and the abiding prejudices are inherited. This legacy of the caste nomenclature and the passive but deep-rooted aversion towards people who belong to the lower caste cannot be annihilated easily from the society without being taught/trained to do so. Sadly, such discourses are absent from our textbooks, and children grow up with this legacy of casteism along with a set of other rotten value system and conservative ideals. Platforms that enable healthy debates must be our classrooms, but they are very rare and many a time those historical struggles are eliminated from the curriculum. Many such discourses or textbook entities are perceived as “objectionable content” by the prevalent system. The removal of a chapter titled “Caste, Conflict and Dress Change” from the social science curriculum of Class IX students by the Central Board of Secondary Education? following the order of Madras High Court in 2019 is a testimony for the “enforced amnesia” (Palit 2019) about caste struggles. When the state decides how to manage and manipulate history and edit out those unfavourable segments that may threaten their agenda, it is important that there emerge more artistic interventions, like that of Murali’s Nangeli paintings, to demystify the legacy of caste system and emboss unbiased representations of those pertinent questions through art.

V. K. Karthika

V. K. Karthika (karthika.leedsuniversity@gmail.com) teaches at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology-Trichy.

Vol. 59, Issue No. 2, 13 Jan, 2024

9 January 2024