The legend of India's "breast tax" and the woman who defied it

Boing Boing explores a dark chapter of 19th-century Indian history. In the Kingdom of Travancore—now Kerala—lower-caste people owed a poll tax from around age fourteen. Men faced the head tax or moustache tax; women paid the breast tax, a levy targeted specifically at women's bodies. The discriminatory system inspired resistance, including the legendary defiance of a woman named Nangeli.

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