The whip hand of culture and caste
Have you heard about ‘The land of breasted women’ ?
In Kerala (formerly known as Kingdom of Travancore), breast tax i.e. Mula-Karam was imposed on women who belonged to the lower caste (Shudra) and untouchable Dalit Hindu women, if they wanted to cover their breasts in public, until 1924. Apart from this ruthless tax, the manner of calculating was even more insulting, it was calculated according to the size of the breasts: the larger the breasts, the higher the tax! A woman from Ezhava tribe, Nangeli revolted against this practice and chopped off her breasts when the tax collector came to collect the tax. Her act of sacrifice created a public uproar and it was abolished. In her memory, the village was given a new identity,‘The land of breasted women’.
This tradition of the superiority of cultures and castes creates power structures in the society which only benefits the rich and privileged.
The above incident is an archaic practice, just one form of cultural and caste superiority but in 2020 also we have intercultural clashes in our society in various forms and practices.
India is a multicultural land that is encompassed with issues about superiority and dominance of one culture over another. This tension between cultures widens further and creeps into our daily life. We outcast people from minority segments and subject them to horrific practices. We use dominant cultures to create caste divides in our society.
In the hub of cultures, many people from different ethnic backgrounds which are primarily minority feel a loss of identity and a sense of belonging because of ruthless practices followed by the majority. Their daily life is a struggle be it finding a job or getting admission or renting a place. There have been instances where people refuse to rent their property if the tenant is a Muslim!! This is unacceptable.
Intercultural marriages are still not an acceptable concept and especially if either of the person belongs to a lower caste. Although we have progressed in monetary terms, our values system is old-fashioned. It’s extremely poignant that we are first expected to know the caste of our partner and then decide to love (if at all we had control over our hearts life would have been easier)…Hindi cinema did help in some ways to evoke us from our slumber with movies like Masaan which depicts the love story between a high caste Hindu girl and a boy from Dom community, hoping to bridge the caste divide but the mindset of our society is rigid.
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