In 2018, Ninong Ering, a former Member of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh introduced the Menstruation Benefits Bill 2017 in Lok Sabha. Among other things, the bill asked that every woman employee be provided thirty minutes of rest twice a day, for four days during menstruation and that women be given the right to self perception of their menstruation period.
But the pièce de résistance of the Bill was the demand for menstrual leave. In making a case for this, Ering cited research that he said dated back World War II. India doesn’t have a law that mandates period leave. In their response, the Ministry of Women and Child Development said there was no immediate plan to legislate for menstrual leave.
Ering’s intervention on this subject was of utmost importance because of the silence India’s political and religious class generally maintains on any discussion on periods — unless of course to spew vile misogynistic nonsense.
There are exceptions in leaders such as BJP MLA from Versova, Dr. Bharati Lavekar, who has extensively worked on period poverty, and helped set up a sanitary pad bank. Largely, political participation in any conversation around menstruation in India mostly remains issue based and infrequent. For example, after the central government in 2018 decided to scrap a 12% tax on feminine hygiene products, several political leaders spoke up about the need for pads to be tax free.
A lot is written every day about periods and the many entrenched socio-cultural aspects that determine accessibility, affordability, safety, hygiene and choice. But unless there’s active, voluntary, and spontaneous political involvement, period conversations will remain on the margins of public discourse.
I spoke to four political leaders to start a conversation on safe periods, and to see what their thoughts are on committing to normalising the conversation around bleeding.
Derek O’Brien (TMC): ‘Will Raise Period Safety In Parliament This Year’
O’Brien, who leads Trinamool Congress in Rajya Sabha, says gender should not be a disqualifier to speak up for safe periods.
O’brien admits that a big part of his personal education on issues that matter to women comes from his wife and daughter. “For a start, menstruation must be perceived as ‘normal’ and we must work towards removing the stigma attached to it. Spreading this awareness is important. Let me commit to some meaningful action: a small step. Promise to raise the issue of ‘safe periods’ in Parliament this year,” O’Brien said.
Charu Pragya (BJP): ‘Involve Men In Period Talk’
Pragya, who is BJP’s National Incharge (Legal), says that in a patriarchal society the focus is never on women so it’s never about what she needs.
“So starting from where she spends her money — usually on her household or her children — and moving on to how she takes care of her own personal health and hygiene,” Pragya said women tend to put themselves last in their list of priorities.
“I think this is where we lack when we do our educational talk to women. And we have to start talking to the men as well, whether we go to schools, or we go to villages, the men have to be sensitive because they have to understand the importance of this in a woman’s life,” Pragya said.
“We work on ground, we distribute sanitary napkins, but I like to think that’s the secondary part of our job. The primary part of the job is to sensitize people, and sensitize men. But it’ll need a generational shift now. We start in schools now,” she said.
Addressing her own privilege of growing up with access to sanitary hygiene, Pragya said a huge blind spot among most of the Indian girls, “is that nobody talks to you about what period is, till you’re already on it.”
“For an 11 year old or a 12 year old girl who doesn’t know what is happening to her, it’s a very scary experience. So I think that is one thing that needs to change in our country,” she said. The conversation about periods needs to start before menarche.
“And another thing is that at least I was lucky enough to go to a school with a girls toilet. Imagine what happens to those kids who don’t have a girl’s toilet. So yes, (we need) access to basic sanitary facilities.”
Sushmita Dev (INC): ‘Menstrual Hygiene Is A Right To Life Issue’
Dev, who is President, All India Mahila Congress, and National Spokesperson of Indian National Congress, said that as a society we don’t consider menstrual hygiene as a right to life issue.
“I have read horrific stories about a young girl in Assam who had maggots in her stomach. We don’t see periods as a right to life issue, but it actually is. When we were trying to get sanitary pads exempted from tax, there were counter arguments — ‘why should we help big companies?’ Just as every child should have the right to vaccination, then people should also have a right to menstrual hygiene. Our perspective is wrong,” she said.
Dev pointed out the instance of pads not being counted as an essential product when the lockdown started as an example of the need for attitudinal change. “I’m not criticizing, but when the list of essential commodities came out during lockdown, they didn’t specify sanitary pads, so all the factories shut down. Then they rectified it but it doesn’t come as an instantaneous reaction to think that this is a right to life issue.”
She raised the crucial point that bleeding is not a choice. “No, I don’t have a choice in that I am biologically made in a way that I’m going to menstruate once a month. How can you then impose restrictions on me in society or otherwise? And it’s kind of discrimination.”
“It’s not enough to just give subsidized sanitary pads. The issues are much larger. Yes, access is an issue, no doubt about it. But access is also an issue because it is seen as a stigma. Women don’t speak out. There has to be last mile delivery. If you can take rice and sugar to every corner of the country, you can take pads. And it matters when there are more women in government.”
Khushbu Sundar (INC):
“For me, with two menstruating daughters who are 20 and 17, I’ve given them all the training as to what it should be, the hygiene level that has to be maintained, and what they have to do to take care of themselves. But yes, you know, unfortunately, we still go down deeper into the villages where women are not even aware of hygiene when you talk about hygiene,” Sundar, who is not just an actor, but also Indian National Congress’s spokesperson.
“During my shoot, we go into these very remote and interior villages where women use cloth or rag or sand, which is not at all hygienic and it causes a lot of other health issues. I think we need to understand that it’s fine to menstruate. You know, there’s a stigma attached to it in most of the villages in the interiors of India,” she said.
“We still have their menstruating women who are not allowed inside the kitchen. But unless you’re not going to take away the stigma from talking about menstruation, we cannot address the issues. It’s completely normal to bleed. And if we didn’t bleed men wouldn’t be there in this world, too,” Sundar said.