Supreme Court ruling on menstrual hygiene invites a broader reckoning with gender and dignity

The Supreme Court ruling recognising menstrual hygiene as intrinsic to the right to life under Article 21 marks a welcome and necessary step forward in the slow arc of gender equality. Its directions, to be implemented within three months — free distribution of sanitary pads, gender-segregated toilets, and safe disposal facilities in all government and private schools — acknowledge that menstruation is not an inconvenience to be privately managed. It has deep implications for women’s health and education, and for equality.

For millions of girls, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, or those studying in government schools, puberty arrives with stigma around menstruation, interrupted schooling, and avoidable drop-outs. Despite guidelines by international bodies such as the WHO, as well as the Ministry of Education’s 2021 directive, instructing schools to sensitise teachers and support staff to dispel notions of menstrual blood as dirty or unhygienic, schools have been the sites of reinforcement of gender hierarchies, where girls’ bodies are disciplined through embarrassment and exclusion. In July last year, for instance, at a school in Thane, girls were strip searched after menstrual blood stains were found in the school toilet. Part of this problem arises from the imagination of the male body as the default setting for policies. By insisting on including the everyday experiences of girls — their attendance, comfort and sense of belonging — as central to the meaning of equality, the Court has sent out a signal that their dignity is a systemic obligation.

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The significance of the ruling lies also in the questions it opens up beyond menstruation. Far too often, women’s health is addressed in fragments. The SC judgment invites a broader reckoning with how reproductive health is imagined across a woman’s life span. Around the same time as the Court ruling, Maharashtra launched the country’s first public menopause clinics, offering medical, nutritional and psychological support for a stage in a woman’s life that has historically been ignored or medicalised in isolation. These initiatives gesture a move towards a more coherent understanding of women’s health as a continuum, one that is in need of a mature health-policy framework that treats it with the consideration, public spending and institutional culture it needs. The Supreme Court has drawn a vital constitutional line. It is now for governments across states and Union Territories to ensure that that dignity is realised in practice.