Women all over the world own two pieces of extra flesh, varying in size and shape but exposed to almost the same amount of conditioning, no matter which part of the world they are from. The upper part of a woman’s body that possesses her breasts has been a fertile ground for long discourses on sexuality, sexual repression, subjugation, and so forth. The undergarment that carefully wraps this part of the body, the abandonment of which is regarded as nothing short of ‘blasphemy,’ has been the subject of extensive movements and discussions. Bras and breasts have indeed had a long association, but not as long as one would assume, given the discourses on the same.
One afternoon, Mary Phelps Jacob, a young lady from New York, exhausted by the idea of a corset, designed a bra with two handkerchiefs and pink ribbons. Eventually, realizing the impact she made on her fellow beings at a ball held that evening, she decided to patent her idea in 1914. As always, society was hesitant to accept this would-be-revolutionary innovation. The situation forced young Mary to sell her prized patent to the Warner Bros Corset Company. Here began the journey of the mass production and marketing of the garment that was going to embrace and define femininity for a long time.
The idea of this garment was shipped to India, along with many other things, as a part of colonialism. Looking at our temple arts and sculptures would give us an idea about how breasts weren’t as sexualized in pre-colonial India as they are now. Women with bare breasts were an ordinary sight. However, India wasn’t immune to the idea of covering breasts. One of the prevalent garments was ‘choli,’ which was an unstitched garment worn tightly around the breasts to make them appear smaller. Women of the Chola dynasty were known to wear ‘cholis’ around their breasts. Similarly, women of the Vijayanagara Empire were known to have used a garment named ‘kanchuka.’ Given the extent to which breasts were sexualized, this was much less in comparison to the post-colonial period.
When you turn the yellow pages of history, you come across strange incidents that have sunk into obscurity but have left impacts of a lifetime. One such incident took place in the then Travancore – the story of the fierce ‘Nangeli’ and the struggles of other such women from untouchable castes to ascertain their position in the society. Here, the idea of covering the breasts lies tangled with the system of caste. Women of lower castes were not allowed to cover the upper part of their bodies. It was a punishable offense for the lower caste women, while the same laws didn’t apply to upper-caste women. Women of lower castes had to pay taxes in order to cover their breasts. It was called the Mulakkaram (breast tax), and quite disparagingly, this tax was determined according to their breast size.
The legend of the fiery women’ Nangeli’ seeks a retelling at this juncture. Nangeli, hailing from a poor low caste family, was asked to pay the breast tax for covering her breasts. Outraged at this law, Nangeli cut off her breasts and gave them to the officer who came to collect the tax. She was martyred on the spot. However, this kindled the fire that was to consume Travancore in the coming days. The lower caste women, especially the ‘nadar’ women, waged a series of protests against this law. This protest, popularly termed as ‘Channar Lahala’ (or ‘Channar Revolt’), happened throughout the earlier part of the nineteenth century in Travancore. The protests continued till 1859 when the right to cover the upper part of the body was finally given to the lower caste women. This struggle remains an iconic movement in which caste and gender get intertwined.
British brought with them the Victorian concept of blouses. We have often seen depictions of Indian women, especially Bengali women, wearing sarees without blouses. Though covering one’s breasts was prevalent in some regional cultures, as mentioned above, it wasn’t such a titillating organ. The colonial mindset instilled the notion of bare breasts as excessively sexual and vulgar. This has grown to such an extent where the slight misplacement of a bra strap sends a wave of uneasiness across the room.
The struggle unfolds the complexity of the concepts of gender and sexuality. The Channar revolt was about acquiring a denied choice. The ‘woman question’ here is, in fact, the question of choice. Posterity remains ignorant about this because of the visible attempts to distort history by erasing the discordant stories from the main narratives – for example, the chapter on Channar revolt was removed from the class 9 NCERT textbook, from the chapter titled ‘Clothing: A Social History.’ Girls are almost thrust with the bras by the age of 12 or 13. The scariest result of the ignorance about such deviant histories is the willful submission to misconceptions such as the inevitability of bras and the excessive sexualisation of the same.
Over time, the bra has become a political statement. The acts like ‘burn the bras’ and ‘public breastfeeding’ have questioned the conventional notions of sexuality associated with women’s breasts. Prominent celebrity figures like Rihanna, Jennifer Lawrence, Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, and others have chosen to appear braless in public several times, but going braless is still an unimaginable act in Indian society.
The question here is the question of choice. Not wearing a bra doesn’t make your breasts saggy – age does. That is not something you can help. More importantly, bras aren’t such an old associate of women’s breasts; in fact, the excessive sexual interpretation of breasts has been a colonial gift to our country. Realizing this fact helps in imparting the element of choice in our decisions. Some women feel comfortable and confident wearing bras. They should be allowed to wear it in whatever forms and designs they like. At the same time, the equally important choice of abandoning uncomfortable clothing should also be added to the list of available options. The absolute necessity of a bra is a myth, a delusion that has been reinforced over time. Revisiting some long-forgotten stories could prove a rock-solid truth to be a mirage. The tale of Nangeli and Channar Revolt reminds us that it’s time to move past the bra-delusion to a more open and accepting society.
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