As Akshay Kumar’s much anticipated movie “Padman” releases today, Bollywood is promoting the film by an appealing campaign using pads. Bollywood celebrities and others are sharing their pictures with sanitary napkins as a part of the #PadManChallenge.
The Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor starrer movie is based on breaking the taboo that surrounds menstruation. It is based on the life of Tamil Nadu activist Arunachalam Muruganantham, who has worked hard to make obtainable low-cost sanitary napkins for women in rural areas.
The whole team of the film is involved in promoting the film. Although the ‘Happy to Bleed’ didn’t experience this kind of passionate involvement from the Bollywood circle. The movement demanded an end to the shame of periods with the GST on sanitary napkins. The paradox is that the condoms and ‘bindis’ or ‘sindoor’ are tax-free, but not the sanitary pads.
The team of the film are visiting different educational institutes, public places, shopping malls and so on. Akshay and his team are discussing about breaking menstrual taboos. They are also trying to generate a response from society. I believe the whole campaign would have been far more helpful and successful, if it had gone to the remote areas of the country and spoken about menstruation, along with issuing free sanitary napkins.
Menstruation is a natural phenomena, it’s not a matter of shame or whisper. Only 12% of Indian women use sanitary napkins. The awareness of menstruation is missing in most of the rural areas; people still have the conventional beliefs concerning it. Hygiene, proper care, menstruation related diseases, all are need to be discussed in the distant areas. Though, in some of the rural places and remote villages, we can see a certain amount of consciousness about it.
Bharati Lavekar launched India’s first digital bank for the sanitary pads last year in Mumbai, the Bhopal railway station became India’s first to have pad vending machine and numerous social media campaigns for example #LahuKaLagaan, #HappyToBleed, #BloodNormal, etc. have tried to make a difference. We have seen a very few actors endorsing a sanitary napkin on television or print ads, yet at the same time, they willingly endorse beauty products.
A lot of attempts are being made now, keeping in the mind different factors like the lack of availability, costing, awareness, dumping of the pads, etc. Some do not have any idea regarding a pad while some have never heard the term. Several people have come up with re-usable cloth pads. However, sanitary pads are still unreachable to millions of bleeding Indian women. I believe that creating awareness is a necessity, along with government support.