"[web 5][3][9] 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.
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.
[web 7] 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.
That was not a "right" in local eyes at all till the late 19th and early 20th centuries,' he adds (Sabin Iqbal (13 Aug, 2020)).Compare Kent 2004, p. 207-211: "Rulers in Travancore had, in fact, previously bestowed on select members of the elite class of Shanars (the Nadars proper) the privilege of wearing the breast cloth [...] [i]n Travancore, a council of 'Sudra' (probably Nayar) leaders called the Pidagaikarars was responsible for enforcing [caste rules], as well as for adjudicating disputes that arose over the transgression of caste rules.
This council would discuss whether individuals of their own and other castes 'had adopted the costume, food, speech (provincialism or brogue) and general habits of the other class', and would mete out sanctions to transgressors."