We wrap up this season of our podcasts with Malavika Binny and Rekha Raj. In this episode, we explore how clothing, and by extension, the body itself, have been both sites of violence and protest in Kerala, and closely tied to questions of class and caste.
This is the final episode in Season 2 of Ala’s podcast series, focusing on modernity and Kerala. View all episodes here.
We discuss:
- 00:02:07- Introducing sartoriality studies and the history of clothing in Kerala.
- 00:13:56- The centrality of clothing in theorising and critiquing the idea of Kerala Renaissance
- 00:22:34- Rethinking feminist politics and the significance of understanding the diversity of women’s participation in Dalit movements.
- 00:25:08- The politics of ‘appropriate sartoriality’ and the value systems around clothing and community.
- 00:33:08- Unraveling the historical public discourses around gender, body, and caste.
- 00:39:42- How can we understand the Nangeli myth through an intersectional lens?
- 00:48:29- Understanding myths as a historical source.
- 00:55:03- The history of corporeal punishments in Kerala.
- 01:00:45- The refashioning of the historical and contemporary body by Dalit women. The politics of clothing in contemporary Dalit self-expression.
- 01:09:08- Queer politics of clothing in Kerala.
- 01:10:43- The power and politics of ‘Dalit swag’.
- 01:13:24- Experiencing and experimenting with sartorial mobility.
- 01:22:00- How do we think about Kerala modernity in terms of the space it gives or does not give for alternative narratives?
- 01:28:47- A critical perspective of the Ala podcast.
Full English Transcription:
Shilpa: We usually see clothing as a personal choice or a matter of self expression. What we lose here is a historic or systemic perspective—clothing is also a means through which social norms and hierarchies are inscribed upon the body. And so, we see that clothing and how the body is presented socially become central themes in Kerala’s movements for social reform or against social inequalities. In this finale episode, we explore modern and postmodern discourses in Kerala through the lens of clothing. Our warm welcome and thanks to Drs. Rekha Raj and Malavika Binny for setting aside the time to join with Ala for this conversation.
I want to start with asking Malavika this: what do we generally know about clothing historically in Kerala or the region that we today know as Kerala? You have done a project with Archana Ravi—also our illustrator—on the historical figure of Kuyili, the army commander who was a Dalit woman, who, from what I understood, lived in a region today part of Tamil Nadu. In this project both of you speculatively designed what Kuyili may have worn at the time. Is such a project possible in Kerala, is there a Kuyili-like figure in Kerala? In general, what might we be able to say about the history of clothing in Kerala?
Malavika: In fact, if we look at the history of clothing in Kerala, there are a lot of studies on sartoriality, which is what embodiment and clothing studies are called in academia. If you look at the long history of sartoriality, we can clearly see how certain aspects about how human dignity has been framed in history. Questions of caste, questions of class, questions of power, questions of gender—how these are conveyed through clothing, and how, by regulating clothing, and of course, by subverting and challenging those codes, people have asserted themselves. So this is a very interesting sub-stream in history and the social sciences in general. If you look at the history of embodiment, it does not just pertain to clothing—it pertains to tattooing, accessorising your body, there are many such aspects. One such history is that of the kallumaala or the stone necklace. 1
All of these are tied to the formation of the habitus 2, which, in the case of Kerala and the post-Sangam Tamizhakam, is a caste habitus. That is where you start finding references to different kinds of clothing for different sets of people. In the Sangam era, for instance, you might just find one reference somewhere to the poonchela or the chilambu worn by Kannaki, or Manimekalai’s 3clothing might be described as ‘shining like the moon’ while she is at the koottam, which is a representation of Buddhist cosmography. Here, the essential difference was in terms of sramanas and non-sramanas, in terms of clothing—people who were considered to be saintly, and not saintly. This is what we see in the Sangam era. There is not much mention of the colour, texture, or type of the clothing, just the idea that it is bright and divine. Or we might see a bit of a reversal—that saints used coarse material, simple clothing—‘simple’ as such is not mentioned, maybe that is my cultural conditioning [laughs]. Buddhist monks and nuns needed to minimise their consumption of anything, so it was important to be inconspicuous, and therefore we might see the opposite of today’s divisions in the Sangam era and immediate post-Sangam era.
But from there, once we move into a temple-centric Kerala in the medieval period, you see these gradations of what can be worn by whom, and who is supposed to regulate the dress codes. As well, we see clothing being gifted along with land grants. When clothing becomes a gift, the kind of clothing that was gifted was a very loaded matter. There are writings portraying the elite castes gifting worn clothing to those in the oppressed castes as a matter of great munificence. This is unfortunately something that is still practiced in many of our homes, where we give used clothing to the domestic help’s children—buying new clothing is unthinkable. Where is this baggage coming from, that only worn clothing may be given? So we can see the gifting of used clothing as a caste favor in this historical period.
With Kuyili, we can see a mythical/historical figure who can potentially bust all these norms of the time. We started imagining how Kuyili would look in battle, because in all the images we have of Kuyili, she is clad in a sari. But the sari is not something that existed at that point of time! The sari as an invention or innovation had developed in the backdrop of the India national movement, based on the attire of the women from the Bengali bhadralok. Of course, there are earlier references—that it was a Gupta queen that invented the sari, and because it clothed everything in the body, where saaram means all, and that which covers all is a sari. However, these are all interpretations that came later; we would not find references to the modern-day sari in Gupta iconography. Perhaps the name existed, but it was not of the form we see today. So this idea of a woman warrior who sits astride a horse, wearing a turban, wielding a sword—something like the Jhansi Rani we see in our textbooks, though even she is unlikely to have dressed that way—whether it is a Dalit-Bahujan or savarna woman warrior, there is a single mould for representation. There is a kind of reproduction of how the woman warrior would look like. So we wanted to bust that, and we started looking at historical images of women going to war.
We thought it will be good to base Kuyili on, let’s say, Amazonian warriors or Mesopotamian female warriors, because there were female warriors in those cultures. We realised that most likely, she would have on leather, because you are getting attacked during battle, and so you need material that will help you. Similarly, she would not wear loose-fitting clothes; she would have to wear tight-fitting clothes. You cannot wear a dhoti and go to battle, particularly on a horse. So we started reimagining Kuyili. But we have taken a lot of poetic license there and gone way beyond the south Indian context, because Kuyili is one of those images that the artist can play around with. Well, I thought as a historian, I should also limit myself there. But this whole obsession with what is ‘traditional’ wear, and how we equate it with a kasavu [silk] sari, or with the neriyathum mundum [white, two-piece sari with gold borders], this is something that has to be critiqued, because there is no historicity whatsoever attached with either of these.
From the medieval period, we have very clear-cut evidence, from the Manipravalam Champu poems and from travel accounts, that different sets of women and men wore different kinds of attire. In travel accounts, there is just one word to refer to any clothes work by a person from Malabar—a loincloth. The king wears a much more royal loincloth, and the poor peasant who is in the fields wear loincloths reaching up to the knee—these are the references you get. In the Manipravala poems you get references to venma or how clean the clothes are with respect to kings and Brahmans. When peasants are referred to, there is an absence of such terms. However, I have not seen any references to bodies being unclean in the poems, such references come in much later periods. In fact, if you look at folklore from the 16th or 17th centuries, particularly from the Puthurampaattu or Vadakkanpaattu (ballads), you will find references to Pulaya women in particular being depicted in very desirable terms. So even when their clothing is described, it is as being as beautiful as the ears of rice in the fields. It is in the transition from the medieval era to modernity that we see descriptions of unkempt people, or people who are unclean—a period when the Vyavaharamala was produced. Vyavaharamala is the Manu Smriti of Kerala. Until the Munro reforms were enforced, governance in Travancore was based on the Vyavaharamala. It is there that we see edicts on what clothing is allowed and not, how high or low hems can be, what kinds of clothing may be gifted, what other bodily adornments can be worn, and so on. So the history of clothing is not static, it has been through many stages. Ideas of what was good or appropriate sartoriality have also changed over time. For instance, the idea of nudity and morality have changed over time—there is enough material to write a whole thesis about this.
Shilpa: Right, so it is this issue that we see in the navothanam period in the late 19th century and early 20th century, a period of social change when Indian nationalism, British colonialism and regional anti-caste movements in Kerala all came together. We learn about this period mostly through the political language of clothing—we discern landmark events through clothing-related movements like the kallumaala samaram, achipudava samaram, mookkutthi samaram, or be it Ayyankali’s politics. Could you tell us about the clothing norms of that time, Malavika?
Malavika: To an extent, I agree with J Devika’s arguments on the social renaissance being a period when there was a literal re-forming. So, if you look at the work of savarna feminists—I am very sure they are people who have read Joan Kelly, who has remarked that if you are looking at the European Renaissance, for instance, the renaissance was not experienced similarly by all sections of people. She titled her work ‘Did Women Have A Renaissance?’ The argument that Kelly puts forth is that men and women experienced renaissance differentially in Europe, where it led to a cloistering of women, where, when you have the rise of merchant families and them assuming a certain kind of class, status, and dignity, the women had to be cliostered within homes to make sure that the lineages function smoothly. There were merchant women who had considerable power, who would go out and haggle in the street, but now it became very undignified, because this was a community which was trying to get mobility and acquire social status, and the burden of acquisition of status fell on the shoulders of women, who had to move into the interiors. For men from the merchant class, it meant mobility, for women from the class it meant they had to move back into the home, or rather, move into the home, because they were not indoors to begin with.
These are feminists who teach Joan Kelly in class, so for me, it is amusing that they did not use this to understand the Kerala renaissance moment, where it may have impacted women and men from different caste backgrounds differentially. It would not have been the same for women, particularly women from Dalit-Bahujan backgrounds and women from savarna backgrounds. So, the ways in which the renaissance would have impacted a Nair or Namboothiri woman would be very different from the way in which it impacted a Dalit woman. And it has to be understood differentially. So, when you are taking the example of C Kesavan’s wife wearing a bra or a blouse for the first time, that particular instance or anecdote might not be applicable in the case of a Chanar or Pulaya woman, because morality also worked differently. We can argue that there might have been different sets of morality with regard to clothing, and with regard to nudity, at that point of time. And whenever the question of morality emerges, there is a certain kind of sliding away [laughs] by the savarna feminists in terms of talking about the morality of Dalit-Bahujan women. In fact, if you trace back Indian feminist writings to Sharmila Rege, you would have this certain stereotype being propagated that the Dalit woman had more mobility, and that they were not very concerned about morality issues.
But this is not true. In fact, oppressed-caste women’s morality has always been called into question. You take a text like Ananthapura Varnana. There, you could see women fighting with each other and accusing one another of being disloyal to their husbands. So, if disloyalty and infidelity are used as terms of abuse, it means that there is a certain loading of morality with regard to these women as well. So, the whole idea that they were not concerned about morality, or the idea that they were more mobile because they could go to work—but their manual labour is also being exploited, it is not as if they had a choice. So the double, or rather, triple disadvantage of caste, class, and gender has not been mapped by most feminists. For instance, the issue of nudity—whether it was understood the same way by a Chanar Christian woman or a Chanar ‘Hindu’ woman or Pulaya woman, particularly after you had considerable missionary activity happening in Travancore and Malabar—wouldn’t ideas of morality also change? And since missionary activity had much more of an impact among the Dalit-Bahujan caste, wouldn’t ideas of morality have changed by that time?
So, when you are entering into the social renaissance moment, and you see a huge chunk of Dalit women entering into the movement, two things happen: one, a lot of focus falls on the male leadership. I am very happy that Ayyankali is mentioned when there are references to the kallumaala samaram, I am very happy that Velayudha Panicker is mentioned when you have references to the mookkuthi samaram—they did play very significant roles. But at the same time, those women who were ready to sacrifice their lives, because this was a huge transgression that they were involving themselves in which could lead to their houses being burned down, their children being killed, them being raped—but they were ready to undergo all of that. So the focus has to be shifted from only looking at the male leadership, to also looking at the effort, the vision, and the sacrifices that were put in by the women who participated in the Chanar revolt, the kallumaala samaram, the achipudava samaram, and the mookkuthi samaram. This is not looked at—these were women who were alive until five to six years ago, but their histories have not been mapped. Because there is this idea that when women enter a movement, they do not have any agency, that they are pushed into being part of the movement by their families, or that they are taken in by the charisma of the leader. It is not thought of that they might be exhibiting theur agency.
Shilpa: I think this is a great point to segue into Rekha’s work. Your dissertation and much of your work has centered Dalit women’s political interventions. In terms of time period, I think it looks at the later renaissance period and the period after that. What are your thoughts about the intersection between Dalit women’s politics and clothing?
Rekha: I think I will begin from where Malavika ended her comment. Firstly, there is the question of what the women were doing during the renaissance period. There is the feminist critique that women were reformed under the patronage of men, because particularly after colonial interventions, women became a part of men’s ideas of reformism. I have felt that subaltern or Dalit-Bahujan movements were not like this, because these movement saw huge participation by women. There were women who engaged side-by-side with Ayyankali. A majority of Poykayil Appachan’s followers were women. So there is a bit of an issue with this feminist crtitique that women did not play a leading role in the renaissance. As far as Dalit movements for self respect are concerned, they are born from a collective consciousness, it is a collective intervention. I don’t think the methdology of distinguishing between men and women here will be very accurate. These movements are born of a collective experience, and they must be seen as such. I have felt that gender frameworks perhaps fail in contexts like caste. As Malavika mentioned about women’s experiences of renaissance, women from different castes and communities would have experienced the renaissance variously.
If you look at Kerala’s Dalit women, using the example of freedom of clothing, say the Chanar revolt, it was first a movement to be able to cover one’s breasts, and then it became a movement to dress as Nair women did. In the first instance, missionaries were aligned with the movement, but in the second stage, they get confused, and the Travancore family is in even more of a confusion, because this is an attempt to become like you. Until then, their support came from this very casteist benevolence for those who are marginalised, and the missionaries too are bleeding hearts for those who suffer. In history, we see that whenever equality is demanded outside the confines of benevolence, it becomes a point of contention. Nobody objects to Adivasis being given land, but they canot be given five acres of land, because that is a question of equality. We might even be open to giving Adivasi people land, but not to Dalit people, because a Dalit is someone who lives right next to me. Sahodaran Ayyappan has said that there is no sahodaryam (fraternity) without equality. Social justice is not possible without equality.
While Chanar women managed to gain the rights to wear clothing of their choosing in two stages, over several years, there was no one with the Pulaya women who were discarding their stone necklaces at the time. It is only a century after the Chanar revolt that Pulaya women managed to gain similar rights. So none of these rights, be it clothing or other rights, were given uniformly to different Dalit communities, there are differences of centuries. Social justice was something that slowly trickled down, not something that happened overnight. It was something that trickled down each community to those who were at the bottom rungs. In terms of clothing, when Chanar women protested, there were major clashes in the Travancore area. It has been reported that a large heap of sickles were seen at the site of the kallumaala samaram. This shows the extent of physical violence that occurred; ithese rights were not won effortlessly.
The other thing is the common observation that all communities were bare-breasted at the time. This is problematic, because all bare-breastedness was not seen the same way. Some kinds of bare-breastedness were signs of high birth, and other kinds of bare-breastedness made bodies available as the site for physical and sexual violence. This is why we see so many stories of thampuraakkanmaar (lords) coming to seduce or violate Dalit women in folklore. These women were sexual objects as well. So their desire to cover their breasts does not come from the same logic as for savarna women’s desire to do so. Instead, we need to see it as a question of self-respect, claiming humanity, and the act of claiming ‘we are the same as you’. So it is methodologically incorrect to equate the covering of breasts by Dalit and upper-caste women.
When we talk about clothing and embodiment, in a context like India’s, the body is shaped by norms of purity and impurity. Some bodies are pure, some impure. Just as they say in Christianity that man is sinful, in this case, social and individual life is shaped by the possibility that you might be rendered impure at any moment. This exists for savarna women too, if you fail to adhere to caste rituals, you will become impure and face expulsion. Certain others are impure by birth. So, freedom from impurity becomes very important, and the path to freedom lies in becoming equal humans. In this context, who are those who are seen as equal, who are the exemplary bodies? It is upper-caste bodies. So naturally, social revolution in that context meant demanding the same access as upper-caste bodies. That is not even imitation—this is the issue with the sanskritisation thesis—rather, I like to think of it as a political dilemma. It is a dilemma where you need to achieve the status of unmarked human, but also need to place someone as your example. I see the renaissance period as a period of this dilemma.
There is also the aspect of self respect here. We see Dalit women as victims of violence, but we can also see the possibility for different readings in the renaissance era, in certain other instances. For example, Ayyankali visits his follower, Kochukali Amma, in Ernakulam, and tells her to wear a proper, stitched blouse, to get rid of her earrings, and to go to school and learn to read. Here, the acts of learning to read or dressing a certain way are means of social mobility. Poykayil Appachan clearly asks his followers to wear white clothing, to keep their homes clean. He himself has been known to go to homes while people go to work, cleaning the space, lighting the lamp, washing the dishes, leaving water to boil, and leaving. He has taught people to bathe with soap. So we need to be able to see and understand such moments of intra-community value-building and bondings rather than just seeing these as acts of reform.
If we are only able to see this as reform, and not as matters of self-respect and social mobility, it is also a problem with the gaze itself. It is in the 2000s, when Dalit women led the formation of a different kind of historical consciousness, that this new perspective becomes possible. Such a nuanced gaze is only possible from such a historical consciousness. Otherwise, it is like looking from above and only seeing women as masses. This is not a question of the masses, it is a question of these women very consciously intervening in each instance. Poykayil Appachan was always rescued by such groups of Dalit women. So we cannot say that they were not political agents—they have intervened with a clear sense of political consciouness. Seeing them as passive masses is a feature of this very particular gender upper-caste gender framework—I will only use upper-caste, not savarna, because I believe that everyone practices caste—so I see this as a problem of the upper-caste gaze.
Shilpa: As you speak of these matters, what comes to mind is how these issues are all commonly discussed in the public sphere around the matter of the mulakkaram or breast tax. As Rekha said, this narrative ignores the groups of Dalit women who were political agents and instead focuses on the quasi-myhtical figure of Nangeli. There is now a lot of debates around this figure and moment. For example, Manu Pillai says that the breast tax canot be seen solely as a matter of women’s morality, it was rather an issue of caste, that mulakkaram (breast tax) and thalakkaram (head tax) merely marked a distinction to levy tax from Dalit women, and that the question of respectability is more that of caste respectability and less of gender. Here, we don’t see an intersectional perspective—it is one or the other. What is your take on this—how do you see the popular debates and discourses around the mulakkaram?
Malavika: See, around three decades of Dalit scholarship, including that of Rekha’s, has established caste as a talking point. Once this happened, everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. Gopal Guru puts this very wittily: for many years, savarna people tasked Dalit people with narrating their lived experience while they did the theory-building. So now, when Dalit people have begn theory-building, they cannot counter it, because if they counter it, they will seem very regressive. So they indirectly oppose it.
[About The Ivory Throne] Because somewhere I feel that it also eulogises a dynasty—as Audre Lorde says, you can never have a good king or a slavemaster, so when you are writing about a political dynasty in 2015 or whatever, and glrofying the dynasty as providing good governance, this is highly problematic for a historian like me. The revocation of the breast tax is presented as a munificence of the Travancore dynasty. That is, presenting as a huge matter the revocation of the breast tax by the very people who reaped all its benefits for some 600 years is difficult to accept. That is one thing. Secondly, the breast tax is referred to in Kerala’s earliest known copperplate inscription, the Tarisappali inscription, where the thalakkaram and mulakkaram are mentioned. It is a matter of historiographical intervention that this is now interpreted as a tax on men and a tax on women, and by now, it is a convention in history academia. But there is no thought put into just why two separate taxes are mentioned in this manner. If we take this claim to be true, why is a tax on women called the breast tax? Didn’t women have heads? It is called mulakkaram because women are reduced to their breasts. This is why we see the term in a land grant. It also talk about the fact that probably there were two kinds of taxes for the same work being done—these copper plates do not specify different work for men and women. The reference here is about gendered division of labour and gendered wages, but nobody talks about that. We see this reference to mulakkaram in many different places. In [Portuguese chronicler] Barbosa’s times we see breast tax, moustache tax, turban tax, kodikkaram or taxes for wearing new clothes in the list of taxes. So there was a tax to sport a moustache—so can we not see the breast tax in a similar way? But there is no answer for this.
There was a mandate then to pay taxes for bodily adornments, but who had to pay these taxes? It was not everyone, that is what is significant. For an oppressor-caste woman or man to wear a moustache or head covering, they did not need to pay taxes. Those who had to pay taxes were Dalit-Bahujan people. This is a matter of discrimination, and the question of choice has been eradicated. This argument that upper-caste women and even the king went about bare-breasted—but the king will never need to pay tax to cover his upper body, whereas this was not the case for a Pulaya man or woman. It was not seen as a caste transgression inviting violence. So there was a large group of people denied a choice. Even as it stands against caste regulation, we also see a state that used this caste regulation to generate revenue. It is crucial to first name the state as generating revenue from caste norms, and only then can the question of morality be taken up. This has not happened.
That is one thing. Secondly, I strongly disagree with perspectives seeing this as a caste issue or an issue of just Dalit-Bahujan women’s caste. This is also an issue of power, and of morality. We also need to remember that Nair women’s clothing practices are also changing at this time, so are Nambuthiri women’s, but this does not get any attention. As Nambuthiri women left the adukkala (kitchen) to come to the arangu (stage)—this phrase ‘from kitchen to stage’ is itself misleading, because they never did leave the kitchen—there were discussions of what they would wear. But that is not getting enough focus, because the general perception is that caste and caste attire are matters solely affecting Dalit-Bahujan women. But these dress code regulations were applicable to all kinds of women, or rather, most caste groups. So when we talk about mulakkaram, the economic side of it has not been explored at all—this will be useful to study the history of the gender pay gap, for example, but we do not go into such investigations. I have often felt that saying this is only a matter of caste is a means to limit the discourse and prevent such investigations.
As Rekha indicated, during the renaissance period, there was a lot of questioning about what embodiment, hygiene, and gender mean, how the new citizen should be shaped. Even if we look at the era just before that—I had worked, for a time, on devadasis, or rather temple women, because the term devadasi is wrong, and we see a major attempt to ‘whitewash’ temple women as women of ‘pure character’ (sheelashuddhi), or to whitewash the sambandham system. We see those like Sooranad Kunajn Pillai or Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai spending a lot of energy to bring these women’s morality into a nationalistic or modernistic mould. So ‘loose morality’ was not just an accusation against Dalit-Bahujan women, you will see the same accusations made against women who were associated with temples, who were oppressor-caste women. But the benefits of this whitewashing never accrued to Dalit-Bahujan women, these attempts were focussed on very temple-centric women or oppressor-caste women.
It is given such a long-standing historiography that this new, post-2015 narrative—or rather, the increased visibility for a narrative that existed since the 2000s—’debunking’ the idea that the breast tax was determined based on the size and beauty of the breasts comes up. Of course not, nobody has said such a thing. No historian has argued this, so there is no need to debunk this belief. The other argument is that this was not a matter of morality but of caste—of course this was a caste issue, nobody says it is not, but at the same time, it is a question of choice, as well as class, as well as of a gendered pay gap, as well as an issue of Dalit bodies being sites of violence. So it is such an intersectional issue that is being narrowed into the narrative that the breast tax was a matter of Dalit people’s caste dignity. This is a major reduction, as if to say, nobody henceforth should explore the layers here, we have closed the matter once and for all, which is where I have huge issues.
Rekha: I am not someone to comment authoritatively on the matter of mulakkaram—there is a historian sitting here [laughs]. One question is whether we must see history so emotionally, especially where anti-caste histories are concerned. Emotionality, of course, is a crucial methodology, but we often end up taking up all sorts of scattered information and becoming confused. There is no need for that. With the material we have, what we need is an account of how women were treated. It is very clear that different kinds of women had different experiences, and that their relationship with the state—the Travancore state or royal family—was very different. An example we know widely is this: the Malayali Memorial 4 is presented, after a few years, the Exhava memorial is presented, but no memorial was presented by Dalit people, because they were not even recognized as citizens. To conduct a negotiation, one needs at least to have basic citizenship or some aspect of it. But the Dalits were not given citizenship; they were merely masses. So they did not have the minimum resources to negotiate with the state. So there is an answer here to the question of how Dalit people experienced royal rule. Similarly, I do not find the Nangeli myth very appealing. I wonder if this is a limitation of my rather problematic, scientistic rational approach. This is something I have always wanted to ask Malavika, since I have doubts about whether such a thing could have happened. I am unable to connect to the emotion in that myth, I have that issue.
Malavika: [laughs] I have no issues saying this, it is something that became controversial when I spoke of it in history circles. I can explain it here too. Although Nangeli is a mythical figure, for a myth to survive over time—among the many myths that exist, some survive, some don’t, some change over time—Nangeli’s myth has a long-standing narrative. It survives in folklore, then makes its way to published material, that narrative gains different dimensions—the earliest references to the myth, for example, does not have references to her husband. But now, when we tell the story, we say that Nangeli’s husband jumped in her pyre, though we do not know if she would have had a pyre. This is the very nature of myths, but it is also source material for history. Irrespective of whether there was a woman called Nangeli or not, there may have been women like Nangeli.
Rekha: Or perhaps there was a desire for something like this. I am not against the desire—for me, my issue is whether this actually happened or not, and that might be a problem of my rationalism.
Malavika: For me, when I analyse myths, we see that myths only survive when it registers actual resistance. If it just represents a desire, the myth need not survive. For instance, Uma Chakravarty has studied Vedic-era dasis. But if we look at Vedic-era dasis or dasis in the later Puranic era, when the puranas were written—there are plenty of references from this era, such as Draupadi serving as a dasi in Virataparvam—we do not see any accounts of the women resisting. Even in the case of Draupadi, it is Bhima who resists for her by killing Kichaka. But instances of women independently resisting state excess or caste atrocities have very little evidence. However, in history, the imagery of women tearing out or cutting out their breasts is very strong in south India. For example, Kannaki tears out her breast, or Draupadi amman narratives in Karnataka also show her as cutting her breast in anger. In Yellamma’s stories, she is seen as dismembering herself. It is my body you objectify, upon which you exercise violence, so my ultimate mode of protest is that even if I destroy my own body, I will not give it to you. So we get evidence for the cultural imagery of women plucking out their breasts. So, as a form of protest, plucking off one’s breast is a kind of cultural equipment.
Rekha: There is a folk song called the Edanaadan Paattu. Edanaadan is an Ezhava warrior. He is collecting a toll on ferry rides on behalf of the king. Some women get on the ferry and say they have no money. Edanaadan is an unruly young man, so he demands the cash, saying, ‘offer your cut breasts as tax, and then leave’, which greatly angers the women, who say, ‘oh you youthful lad, it is seven days since your father died, seek revenge if you are a man’. His father was killed, which he did not know since he was away from home. So this is the story of how he comes back and kills the Nair landlords. So there is this reference to cutting breasts for tax in the song. I don’t know about the history of such usages, but I have read this in this poem. This might be more recent, though, and not very old.
Malavika: Yes, there is a chance that this was a cultural trope. I certainly think there is the possibility that one woman, or many women, may have utilized this trope in their resistance. The myth has survived. As a historian, if you ask me about Nangeli, I can only say that there is no evidence. But is there a possibility for a group of women having resisted caste- or gender-based taxation? I would say, definitely yes, because otherwise the myth would not have survived. It is much easier for pro-oppression or casteist myths to survive, and if an unconventional myth about an anti-caste heroine must survive, there might be something to it.
Shilpa: This discussion on Nangeli brought to mind a couple of things. One, I have heard of cutting off the nose, breasts, and genitalia as caste-based punishments all over South Asia. I wonder whether there is a correlation between this and the myth of Nangeli—did these body parts function as sites of social selfhood? Was there a symbolic significance? I am not sure if there are accounts of such practices in Kerala—perhaps you can speak to that, Malavika.
Malavika: Yes, there are records. For example, in the Mathilakom records, there are plenty of references to corporeal punishment. There are rules about what member from whom should be maimed, and it is very caste-based. If we look at the Vyavaharamala from the sixteenth century, we see an early reference in Malayalam saying that lead must be poured into the ear of the Sudra. If we look at such punishments, we see that the facial features of oppressed-caste people are disfigured—I have not seen references to cutting off the nose, but there are references to disfiguring the face, cutting the hair, several horrifying accounts of carving out the eyes especially in instances where the gaze of Dait-Bahujan people may have fallen on oppressor-caste women. Women have specific corporeal punishments associated with shame or the parts that must remain covered by clothing. Even in practices like the Suchindram kaimukku [the dipping of the hand in boiling oil], it is clearly specified which punishment is for Dalits. The same punishment for a Paraya person is not meted out for Brahmans; a Brahman never has to dip his hand in boiling oil or be thrown in a crocodile pond to prove his innocence. The Brhaman is instead asked to prove his purity of character by placing his palm above fire. So we see stark differences in corporeal punishments. Fire is totally pure, and that which touches it is the Brahman’s hands. For the same crime, there were different bodily punishments, and there are restrictions to who can be a witness. Dalit and Sudra people and women cannot serve as witnesses. This is not from 500 years ago, it is from 150 years or so ago—far more recent than we think.
Shilpa: So given this long history of corporeal punishment, I am thinking of the relevance of a figure like Nangeli, who cuts her breasts off by her own volition, about how our many political desires get invested in a figure like Nangeli. In the African American context, Sojourner Truth is a similar figure, an evangelist whose speech, titled ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ is very famous. Now, there are multiple versions of the speech. The verison that is widely circulated is not the one that the Sojourner Truth Foundation circulates as being the original one, that version is much more politically toned down. The many elements that we need, that pique our emotions, are missing in it. I have often felt that Sojourner Truth and Nangeli are similar figures that way—figures who stand between myth and history, in whom we invest political desires.
So far, we have spoken of historical contexts. There are many narratives that reduce caste to a matter of history; in popular discourse, we love talking about the history of caste. But discourses about the afterlives of this history, about how it is experienced in the present day, are relatively less prolific. I have heard both of you talk about the contemporary aspects of caste and clothing on different media, be it through social media or speeches. Could you share a few of your interventions in this regard?
Rekha: As we discussed, during the navotthanam era, reforming the body was a very important matter—there were many prominent agendas, the body is one, religion is one, women’s issues was one—all of these were important agendas at different points of time. What Ayyankali did at the time was to refashion the body as an upper-caste body, and as I said, what was raised there was a claim for equality. If we look at the trend among Dalit people in the last three or four decades, we can see a major continuation of the legacy of Ayyankali and Poykayil Appachan. I think I will talk about its positive aspect first, because there is no point in constantly talking about violence.
Folk songs, for example—I am not a fan of folk songs, I am very ambivalent about projects to recover Dalit agency from folk songs. But in these decades, we have seen a political reshaping of the folk song genre. For example, there are many troupes of young men who sing folk songs, and we see two trends here. One is the very established folk song troupes, which project a very traditional image, sporting an ‘ethnic style’ kurta and mundu and using ‘rustic’ props like bunches of palm leaves (putthola). The other is with Dalit groups, like Banerjee’s group—he is no longer with us—they are very well-dressed, in pants and shorts, as modern people. Though what they sing are folk songs, they place these songs very politically. They try to locate their bodies within the register of newness. In this way, they subvert the casteist aspects of the folk genre. Those like Praseedha, we will see them too in modern clothing. At the same time, they use existing modes, but also use it to create something new.
These days, there are many young Dalit women who intervene and engage on social media. They will always wear the latest in fashion, and you will never see them in so-called ‘activist’ clothing, like the cotton sari—I am the one person who is more likely to be seen in such clothing. We see them wearing jeans and tops, in the most branded and latest clothing. What I am trying to say is, we see an attempt among Dalit people to use the opportunities of globalisation and neoliberalisation to cast aside the various habits given by caste and to reinvent oneself as a global citizen. In that sense, these younger women are deviating from the kind of women’s politics we have seen so far. The complaint about C K Janu 5 was that she did not look Adivasi enough, that she wore silk saris; Saleena Prakkanam 6 appears at public events in jeans and a black t-shirt with Ambedkar’s picture on it. Whether it is Aleena [Akashamittayi], Mrudula, or [writer] Dhanya [M D], we always see them clad in the most modern clothing. We see that they are challenging the austerity norms of Leftist-Gandhian establishment politics. In that sense, Dalit women are those who have very visibly subverted women’s politics in India.
Not just this, they render gender-neutral spaces that have been coded masculine. I always use this example: when the Dalit Bandh happened in Kerala, a lot of women led efforts to shut shops or stop cars. Until the Dalit Bandh, bandh was a very masculinist political strategy, involving men going out in public and displaying violence—burning things, aggressively thrusting their fists and calling out slogans. When women take the forefront at the Dalit Bandh, we see that these epxressions disappear, and the very nature of the bandh changes. Not a single instance of violence was reported during the Dalit Bandh. So they thus bring about a certain gender neturality to such spaces. At the same time as such subversions are happening, we see public interventions that violently reinforce caste norms, like the mob lynching of [Adivasi youth] Madhu. We can see a lot of such mob violence in Kerala, especially as moral policing. The mob is faceless, but its methods are very masculinist; it is born of male insecurity and moral panics. Apart from these, there is the invisibilisation of Dalit bodies. In Malayalam cinema, for example, Dalit women’s bodies are simply absent, and if at all, they appear as servants or sex workers. If it is Dalit men’s bodies, they appear, if at all, as ‘subhuman’ bodies, like Kalabhavan Mani’s characters—without eyes or legs, uneducated, living on the streets—
Malavika: Or as goonda-type bodies.
Rekha: Yes. So while the dominant gaze remains very casteist, to resist is to present bodies that exceed this gaze, and Dalit women are leading this kind of resistance. Their presentation of self is really reshaping public consciousness. The same with modeling—a lot of young Dalit women are coming into modeling. By bringing in new kinds of bodies into this space, they are subverting long-standing ideas of what kinds of bodies are desirable. So where caste is concerned, a lot of positive developments are happening apart from just violence, and to theorise and normalise such positive moves is an important responsibility. It is work that Kerala’s society must undertake.
I want to add one more thing. It is usually just for women that there are age-based restrictions for clothing, not for men. When queer people came into Kerala’s public sphere, it is this norm that they first upturned. Queer or transgender women reinvented their bodies as ageless—they may wear a half-sari, a skirt, or jeans, no matter the age. They removed the ties between age and clothing for women. Whom this helps is Kerala’s [cis] women—they may not realise this, but they are the ones who are benefited. Today, we see married women wearing half-sari or skirts, and this is not a small change. The people who put in the labour behind it should be marked in history. This is an article I want to write—about how dissident bodies in Kerala overthrow caste and gender norms in Kerala with great ease. I have felt that this is a performative intervention. This is an observation I have about the contemporary aspects of clothing.
Malavika: I agree with this. In fact, I remember reading Rekha’s writing a decade ago, when District Collector Vasuki, during some natural disaster, asked women who do not wear the same sari twice to give away their saris to those in rescue camps. In her writing, Rekha responded saying, ‘We have only just begun wearing FabIndia clothes and such, so we have no intention of giving away those clothes’ [laughs]. It is Vasuki’s savarna saviour complex that she challenged, again, based on this old casteist notion that old dresses must be given to lowered castes.
What I have felt about this, and I have written about this on Facebook, is that this is ‘Dalit swag’. If we look at what our Dalit foremothers and forefathers wore, for example the paalathoppi [palm-leaf hat] needn’t be shaped the way it is to serve its protective function. But it has been fashioned quite aesthetically. Or if we look at implements they used, like the ottaal [fishing implement], they have an aesthetic beyond their utility. So what we see is part of a long tradition of generations of people inventing fashion amid limited resources. Today, we are exhibiting this swag by utilising the capacities of wage-earning, and the opportunities provided by capitalism and globalisation.
If we look at Dalit children, we see this very innate quality. I am amazed by people like Aleena, the beauty of their fashion choices. It is born from the decision to not follow existing fashion norms, and asking how much existing norms will suit Dalit selves. No matter how much I wear a silk sari, wear a bindi and the sindhooram, I will stil be a Dalit woman who is pretending to be a Nair woman [laughs]. I won’t be able to achieve ‘Nairness’. So we look to other models like African American models or Middle Eastern fashion. So we are a community that has learned to think in truly global ways. It comes from an opposition to the path of sanskritisation and the realisation that we have no space there. For example, Nrithya Pillai has argued this in the context of Bharatnatyam—how did the costumes become so Bramanised? It is not the costumes that the Isai Vellalar community originally used. So Pillai has argued that we need to go back to those styles, or reinvent them. It is in the same way that we reimagine ourselves, and this inherent swag is reflected in our fashion today. We see the most experimentation with fashion in the Dalit community.
For about a century, we have been disdained by calling certain colours ‘Pela’ [Pulaya] colours, or Ayyankali colours. Since fluorescent collurs give us more visibility, this was unthinkable for savarna people. We must not wear such colours, or pink, or bright lipstick. As they are constantly telling us not to wear these, we responded, ‘No, we will wear these, no matter what you do’. Even today, at Dalit weddings and such, pink remains a favorite colour. There is a brash resilience that produces the propensity to experiment with new styles and colours. Especially because my father’s and mother’s sides are of different caste backgrounds, I can see this difference in my lived experience—on one side there are restrictions, on the other there is more of an openness to taking risks and trying new styles. This experimentation is not without consequence; there are social costs and a lot of disdain that we have to face, but nevertheless, we will bring in a new sense of dressing, and we have.
Rekha: Can I add something? This is a personal story. I was one of the people who began wearing sleeveless clothing over two decades ago, at a time when few women wore sleeveless. When I go into Dalit movement spaces wearing sleevless, I have been criticised many a time as being elite or upper-class. This is mainly because of how I dress—at all times, I will wear good clothes. Even if I don’t have the money, I will save up to buy good clothes, FabIndia-type clothes as was mentioned. I been chastised several times for wearing sleeveless clothes, lipstick, wearing skirts after marriage, for not covering my legs, or wearing shorts. At the time, I was alone, it was a time when everyone was trying to be respectable [kulastree]. Today, when I see all these younger people, I feel that this work was not in vain. I still remember going to an event wearing a skirt and sleeveless top, and a prominent Dalit intellectual, whom I will not name, advised that I avoid sleeveless clothing while I am in public, saying ‘Our people would not understand all this, though of course, I personally have no issues’. I responded asking, ‘Isn’t making them understand part of our work? I am happy to undertake it’. What I have come to learn, however, is this is not a problem for the people—this might be an issue for Dalit intellectuals and leaders, but ordinary people do not care. I have been accepted and recognised irrespective of my clothing. I believe that taking such risks in life will reap benefits.
Around 5-6 years ago, I had penned a week-long series of posts on Facebook on how to dress—how can dark women dress well, what clothes can we wear. People criticised me a lot then, asking, ‘Is this what we need to teach women, Rekha, to dress up? Doesn’t our real work lie in movement work?’ I replied saying it is not like that—I do not believe in politics without joy, joy and pleasure are very important. We need to find happiness in activism too. I have always believed that joy in political spaces is crucial, because we still have this Left-Gadhian hangover which values sadness and sacrifice over all else. The question then becomes, can we have comradeship and politics without sacrifice? Younger people these days do not prioritise sacrifice, they also prioritise their own joy. The change that comes about is what makes Dalit politics exemplary. It is truly dissident politics that have to be credited for overcoming Left-Gandhian hangovers, and what I have learned in these spaces is to give importance to joy and pleasure. People now give importance to their self-expression and their own happiness, especially Dalit women.
Chandra Bhan Prasad has said that, for Dalit people, globalisation is a positive thing—for you to buy a pair of Reebok shoes, all you need is money, not a caste certificate. Previously, when Dalit youth would buy out-of-fashion things, today they can buy the latest branded items. Similarly, there is a lot of entrepreneurship–Dalit people are starting a lot of businesses, and unlike before, they are also succeeding consistently. We need to see these new opportunities that the market has provided as well. Caste is not just trauma, it is also community bonding, communal joys and rituals. I think that limiting caste experiences to trauma entails liberal logics. We wil only get applause if we constantly narrate our trauma. Any figure that does not convey trauma becomes an issue. I am frequently criticised because I am seen as a privileged person, not a tragic heroine—I may have lived in a rented house for two decades, but I am still marked as privileged by the public. I am only happy about this—some time ago, someone called me an ‘elite Dalit’, and I was overjoyed about this label, because my ultimate aim is to become elite, and I have absolutely no class guilt about this. We should become more elite, as a drunk friend said to me once, ‘I am in search of a Dalit bourgeoisie’. [laughs] I found that to be very amusing. We can only annihilate caste when a Dalit bourgeois class emerges; I am someone who hopes a class revolution will never come about in India. If a revolution happens, all is done for—I want to see many Dalit capitalists instead.
Shilpa: What you both said brought some things to mind. Dalit women, queer women, or Dalit queer women from intersectional backgrounds have created a certain sartorial space through their interventions, and those who enjoy the trickle-down benefits of this are those savarna people like me who profess a feminist politics. This is not acknowledged anywhere, though we can clearly see this history. A small example of this is the actors perceived as men who played the roles of women in comedy reality shows. They are people who have come from Dalit-Bahujan backgrounds and performance traditions. When I spoke to them, they have talked about how the many dressing styles they brought into the media space have been taken up by cis women, who would come to them with a lot of admiration and ask for fashion advice. I have felt that these connections are erased in savarna feminist discourses. I think what we got here is a wonderful snapshot of this history.
To continue in that vein—of course, we can talk endlessly because this has been such a fantastic conversation—and to come to the close of this episode and the season itself, what we have done so far is to critically look at the idea of Kerala modernity, looking at it from different angles. Our many speakers have looked at literature, cinema, oceanic histories, music, now clothing, and medicine–many such spheres. In these different conversations, one consistent theme has been how Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi interventions in culture, politics, and society have been at once central to the production of the condition of modernity, but also violently erased as such. In the current political climate, do we see a reinterpretation of this history? Today, there is social media, there is a political shift with India-wide anti-Hindutva political coalitions, transnational anti-caste movements, and so on. Is this also reshaping such uncritical perspectives in Kerala?
Malavika: I do think that it is changing, probably because I am a hyper-optimistic person, which is also to escape from the general cynicism that we have today. Because it is this cynicism that often enables fascist regimes, this idea that there is no other option. This is not a narrative based in reality; there are several alternatives. People are registering their protest in many ways. Social media is providing the space to handle issues that mainstream media refuses to cover, be it issues of gender, caste, or intersectional issues. Having a Facebook profile, WhatsApp group or Instagram profile is allowing us to create different narratives based onlived experience and theory in the last decade or so.
This is where I disagree a bit with Rekha—even as I agree a hundred percent with the fact that Dalit people have used the avenues of capitalism to exhibit their agency, if we look at the totality of globalisation, we cna see that globalisation has enabled Dalits’ oppression. As we speak of people who wear clothing, we need to think of those who make this clothing too. We are living in times where those who make clothes are being paid less than ever. I am from Thrivananthapuram, and when I visit, I see this major savarna concern that the kids of Chengalchoola [a public housing colony] dress so well that they are unrecognisable as being from there. There is certainly a group of people who see this shift in dressing as a huge challenge, and the cost is paid by those who are most oppressed. Social media functions in the same way. When a savarna person speaks about caste, they get a lot of appreciation and support as a savarna saviour from both Dalit and oppressor-caste communities. But when a Dalit person speaks of their experience, we don’t get applause. Instead, if you look at our inboxes, we will find certain words and usages that you can’t even find in the Malayalam dictionary [laughs]. So it has also led to a certain kind of tribalisation. How many of us have heard about DICCI or the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry? There is the SC/ST Entrepreneurs Wing which is very active in Kerala, but we don’t get such information via social media. This bracketing is also happening very clearly.
In conclusion, I want to put forth a small critique of Ala. I have been associating with Ala since the pandemic, and it is an organisation I like, because I know some of the people personally. I cannot leave this unsaid; I thought a lot about whether I should say this. You do many episodes on Indian ocean histories and many other topics in history and social science, but when it comes to clothing is where you call two Dalit women as guests. We are scholars who engage with many other themes, especially Rekha. I research Indian ocean histories. Vinil Paul is someone who looks at the histories of slavery within Indian ocean history, but he was not invited for that episode. Only when it comes to caste, there are certain people marked out to talk about it, and they come from oppressed-caste backgrounds. I have felt that this is very problematic, and it is not just Ala that does this, but at least Ala should rethink these matters by now. Caste is an integral part of Indian ocean histories. If you look at the economic transactions in Indian ocean history, there are extensive records to show what goods were produced by people in which caste group. This is not being spoken about, because the way in which we engage and our perspectives are very different. I thought I should also raise that critique, since we also need self-interrogation.
Shilpa: Definitely. It is something Ala needs to introspect quite critically, and this is definitely something we will take into account as we go forward, and the critique is very much appreciated. So we have arrived at a wrap-up of the episode. This has been an incredibly rich conversation and a befitting end to the season, not just as a broader framing of the season, but also a very important critique of the season. Thank you both so much for your time, and we hope to collaborate with you in future, as you said, outside of these checkboxes and limitations that we create.
So yes, this a wrap-up for season two of Ala’s podcast series. We will be out with another season soon, and in the meantime, we look forward to your feedback, your suggestions, your critiques and your ideas for the next season. Thank you all for listening.
About the Guests:
Malavika Binny is Assistant Professor and HoD at the Department of History, Kannur University. Her areas of interest include histories of medicine, science, and gender, Dalit history, and ancient south Indian social history. Her academic writing has been published in Studies in History, Asian Review of Humanities, Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Café Dissensus, and Global Histories, among other publications, and her cultural commentary has appeared in The Deccan Herald, The Telegraph, The Conversation, Feminism in India, and Women’s Web. She is the youngest ever member of the Executive Committee of the Indian History Congress. She was a recipient of the Erasmus Mundus Fellowship and was awarded the Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai Young Historian Award by the Kerala History Congress in 2017.
Rekha Raj is a Dalit feminist scholar-activist from Kerala, south India, with over two decades of experience in shaping intersectional praxis and theory around Dalit women’s political interventions and lived experience. She is currently a recipient of the Kerala Chief Minister’s Nava Kerala Postdoctoral Fellowship, and has a PhD in Gandhian and Peace Studies from Mahatma Gandhi University, where she also taught as Assistant Professor. She has been part of the founding of multiple pioneering organizations in Kerala, such as the Panchami Dalit Women’s Collective, the Kerala Queer Pride March, and Sahayatrika, a community organization for queer and trans people assigned female at birth. A collection of her essays, titled Dalit Stree Idapedalukal, has been published by D C Books.
Additional Reading and Resources:
- [Podcast] ഭീതിയുടെ ഭാവനാലോകങ്ങൾ: Aleena on Poetry and Politics
- Against Aachaaram: When is your cloth clean/pure/both?
- The Visualising Kuyili Project by Malavika Binny and Archana Ravi (Part 1, Part 2) – A note from Malavika: I collaborated with Archana Ravi for this project. Archana Ravi’s creative visualisation and Mrudula Devi’s literary inputs were crucial to the making of Kuyili’s image. Archana, for instance, made me aware about the artist’s challenge in representing facial expressions of different sets of women visually. Similarly, we had to think about Kuyili’s hairstyle in battle and on other occasions and ended up making multiple images of the Dalit warrior woman and her being disguised as an elite woman.
Interview and Transcript: Shilpa Parthan Producer: Renu Susan Editor: S. Harikrishnan
