Before launching Alharh, we encountered shocking resistance — “This issue is very ‘personal’ and must not be made public.” This mindset reflects the widespread attitude that menstruators must silently endure discriminatory practices. In an awareness session at a local convent school, students remained silent when first asked about menstruation. By the end of the hour-long session, a student courageously stood up and asked, “You have been constantly telling us that periods are normal and natural. Then, why am I not allowed to touch anything in the place of worship at home when I am bleeding?” Such practices do tend to strip a menstruating individual’s right to dignity and of course, bodily autonomy.
Another student exclaimed: “I have not heard the word ‘periods’ spoken so loudly and so many times ever till now. It gives me the confidence to talk more freely about it.” These utterances spoke of the deep-seated conditioning and also that interventions can still change it.
These experiences are not isolated. More alarming conditions exist in peri-urban areas. In theMusahar community in Bhagalpur who reside in the outskirts, women reported the use of dirty rags for menstrual absorption. Such testimonialsdemonstrate clear but unrecognized violation of the fundamental rights.
We have existing national policies and programmes such as the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP, 2008), the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme (MHS, 2011) under Swachh Bharat Mission and Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK, 2014) where subsidised sanitary pads should be made available to adolescent girls and adequate Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities ought to be provided. Non-school-going adolescents mostly remain outside the purview of these initiatives while menstruators suffering from health conditions like dysmenorrhoea or endometriosis face doubled stigma and dismissal since these issues are not considered within the policy framework yet.
As we pride ourselves in constituting a socialist and secular nation which secures social, economic and political justice, liberty and equality and assures the dignity of all individuals, it is only fair to consider menstruators in general, those with disabilities too as well as those in disaster-prone regions and conflict zones who experience acute distress during displacement. Even the needs of menstruating individuals outside the gender binary are still not a part of our state-led interventions.
Research has established important connections between sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and menstrual health and hygiene (MHH). It presents opportunities for more integrated policy approaches. Our field experiences suggest that this integration could be impactful.Research also shows that addressing MHH can enable progress across multiple SDGs but this potential remains largely untapped. This mirrors what we have observed in the field.
Through campus visits and discussions with students of a reputed government women’s college in Bhagalpur, we figured thatchallenges were not only psychological but also infrastructural. The usability of the toilets, that lacked the basic needs to manage menstruation: WASH facilities, was questionable. We collected nearly 100 testimonials from the college students documenting their urgent and pertinent need for the infrastructural support, to manage menstruation with dignity.One of the students explained, “We’d rather not drink water all day than use those toilets, periods or not.” We tried to highlight some of these local Menstrual Health and Hygiene(MHH) challenges, including socio-cultural stigma and taboo, in our documentary, Ashhudh.