Mulakkaram, literally translated as breast tax, was a poll tax imposed on women belonging to Nadar, Ezhava and other lower caste communities by the erstwhile Kingdom of Tranvancore (in present-day Kerala state of India), and was not applicable to upper caste women of Travancore. The term "breast tax" was used to denote the gender of the person and not breasts per se.
According to subaltern beliefs the breast tax was imposed on lower class women if they covered their breasts. This belief has been questioned, as lower class women "were not allowed to wear upper garments in public" at all until 1859.
The "breast tax" (or in Malayalam) was a head tax imposed on the Nadars, Ezhavars and lower caste communities by the Kingdom of Tranvancore (in present-day Kerala state of India). In 19th century Kingdom of Travancore, all persons from lower castes were expected to pay poll tax when they start to work around the age of fourteen. Poll tax paid by men were called talakkaram or meeshakkaram ; and the tax paid by women were called mulakkaram .
The "breast tax" caught wider attention in 2016, when BBC reporter Divya Arya reported on a series of paintings by artist Murali T on the legend of Nangeli. The village legend of Nangeli is about a woman who lived in the early 19th century in Cherthala in the state of Travancore, and supposedly cut off her breasts in an effort to protest against the caste-based "breast tax." According to the legend, she cut off her breasts and presented them to the tax collector in a plantain leaf, then died of blood loss.
According to local beliefs, the "breast tax" was imposed on lower class women if they covered their breasts in public, to disencourage them from doing so.
These beliefs have been questioned, as lower class women "were not allowed to wear upper garments in public" at all until 1859, after the Channar revolt. Historian Manu Pillai treats the concept of "breast tax" to be a misnomer which "had nothing to do with breasts" and notes that covering the breasts was not the norm in Kerala's matrilineal society during Nangeli's life-span. Victorian standards of morality penetrated into the society decades later under British colonial influence, which led to subsequent class-struggles for the right to wear upper-body clothing. He believes Nangeli to have protested against an oppressive tax regime that was imposed upon all lower castes, which got appropriated with the passage of time, in pursuit of a different patriarchal fight for the preservation of female dignity. In Jain's account, the "breast tax" is presented as a fine imposed by "Travancore's State's council of "upper" caste Nair's" to maintain caste boundaries.