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

ABSTRACT:

Dalit women in India have had a long history of suppression and of leading lives of routine indignity and humiliation. The ‘Breast Tax’ (Mulakkaram or mula-karam in Malayalam), imposed on the lower caste, Dalit women by the Kingdom of Travancore (in present-day Kerala) if they wanted to cover their breasts in public, was one of the many ways of oppressing them. This indignity on the part of the dominant castes culminated into one of the most significant Dalit as well as female revolts in history – The Channar Lahala or the Channar revolt (also called the Maru Marakkal Samaram) - a relentless struggle of the Nadar climber women of Travancore for their right to wear upper-body garments. This historic revolt made news a few years ago, in the CBSE’s infamous decision (2016) to remove the section titled ‘Caste, Conflict and Dress Change’ from its social science curriculum, by labeling it as “objectionable content”. This amounted to an attempt to erase the history of this crucial movement. In this paper, I seek to examine the role played by Dalit women against casteism as well as male dominance, through the lens of the Channar Revolt, as well as their erasure from the pages of history.

Author: Shambhavi Jha

Full Paper: Situating Dalit Women in Grassroot Politics: Channar Revolt and the struggle for a Dignified Life