Breast tax, also known as "mulakkaram," was a head tax imposed on women who belonged to the Nadar, Ezhava, and other lower caste communities by the Kingdom of Travancore in the 19th century. The tax was constructed to maintain social customs on clothing as a way to identify a persons caste status merely by the way they were dressed. Women of higher castes were permitted to wear items such as the "Mulakkacha" (breast cloth), while women of lower castes were not allowed to cover their breasts in public. Once the little girls reached the threshold of age 14, they were forced to pay the state a certain amount of tax, which if they didnt, they would be subjected to physical examinations to determine how much breast tax they should pay. The term "breast tax" was used to denote the gender of the person and not breasts per se. The tax was not about the breast alone, but about the entire body, and it was imposed on Dalit women by the King of Travancore if they covered the upper part of their body. The breast tax was not meant to prevent lower caste women from covering their breasts, as even royal women, including queens, did not cover their breasts in those days. The story of Nangeli, a lower caste woman who cut off her breasts to protest against the discriminatory "breast tax," is famous in Kerala. However, the gesture of chopping off the breasts was the refusal of the brahminical swarga on earth, bestowed to Brahmins by Parasurama, and for which the lower castes had to pay a tax. These women were not struggling for feminine modesty but asserting their right to their bodies, freeing it from this order, even though that meant paying a tax.