Many more steps needed to ensure menstrual rights
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
— Robert Frost
When the Supreme Court declared menstrual health a fundamental right and directed free sanitary provisions in schools, it did something more than correcting a long injustice. It issued us a moral summons. For too long, menstruation has been treated as a private embarrassment, a matter of cleanliness or charity rather than a constitutional question of dignity, bodily autonomy and equal opportunity under Article 21 of the Constitution. That legal recognition is historic. Now the real test shall truly begin—turning a judgement into changed lives.
Across India, menstruation touches the lives of hundreds of millions. As I had set out in my Private Member’s Bill to amend the National Menstrual Hygiene Policy, a submission grounded in public-health evidence and lived experience, India is home to over 393 million menstruators, and the policy framework must respond to that scale with rights. The Bill insisted on what the court’s ruling implies: menstrual health is structural, systemic and intersectional.
What does that mean in practice? Firstly, the supply is inadequate. Free sanitary pads in schools are essential and welcome, but access must be expanded to reusable, low-waste options and to supply chains that make them affordable and dignified. My Bill called explicitly for support to enterprises producing sustainable menstrual products and for incentives to scale up these markets so that choices are available to all communities, urban and rural alike.
Secondly, menstrual health cannot be siloed in sanitation. It belongs in health systems, in education, in labour policy and in disaster planning. The Bill promotes cross-ministerial collaboration between labour, health and education. So that the implementation is planned, monitored and accountable across departments.
It also aims to mandate that reproductive and menstrual healthcare be comprehensive, including diagnosis and treatment of disorders often ignored. This includes awareness about polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, and other conditions that leave millions untreated and in pain. Third, we must make education humane and early. Too many girls learn about menstruation at menarche, startled and shamed; boys are largely left out of this education. My Bill proposed menstrual education from ages seven to eight, and communication strategies that normalise menstruation while challenging stigma, because information shapes dignity and behaviour long before policies arrive in adulthood.
Fourth, inclusivity must be explicit. Menstruators are not a single demographic group: sanitation workers, persons with disabilities, transgenders and non-binary people, menopausal workers, each has distinct needs. The Bill asked that monitoring and evaluation include lived-experience data disaggregated by disability, gender identity, caste and age, and that disability and trans-led organisations be funded as partners. This prevents programmes that help some while excluding others.
Finally, we must stop pretending that messaging is merely promotional. The Bill recommended removing formal and informal censorship of menstrual health content, and strengthening culturally-sensitive media campaigns that dismantle shame rather than sell products. In crises such as heat waves, water shortages and floods, menstrual needs must be part of emergency planning.
I say this not as an ideologue, but as a legislator who has watched how piecemeal interventions fracture into tokenism. In my writing on campus care, I warned against sentimental solutions that off-load labour onto women and family structures; we must learn the same lesson here. Do not mother this problem away with charity alone. Menstrual health requires public systems, trained professionals and legal entitlements that citizens can claim, not charity they must beg for.
The court’s judgement is a mandate. However, Parliament must translate it into enforceable entitlements: guaranteed products including reusable options, funded health services for menstrual disorders, inclusive sanitary infrastructure, mandatory curriculum changes and cross-departmental accountability.
My Bill offers concrete language to strengthen the draft National Menstrual Hygiene Policy, anchoring it in dignity, equity and constitutional rights, and I stand ready to work across benches to make the judgement meaningful for every menstruator in India.
Legal recognition without systemic delivery could perhaps translate solely into consolation. Let us make this ruling the first chapter of a longer story: one where menstruation is met with dignity, where pain is treated, where education is honest, and where the State honours its duty to protect the bodily autonomy of its citizens. That is the promise we must keep.
Thamizhachi Thangapandian | MP from South Chennai and member of the Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth & Sports
(Views are personal)