Mandar Prakhar is an Associate Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
Celebrated in Ritual, Shunned in Reality: Why the Supreme Court’s Menstruation Verdict Is Only a Beginning
Structural change in menstrual health requires more than the letter of the law; it necessitates executive action backed by gradual and institutionalized social transformation. It must move beyond creating access and infrastructure and also include comprehensive training that views menstruation as education, not embarrassment. Social change cannot be ushered in, nor can it be imposed through court orders. It must be cultivated through conversations and sustained engagements through awareness campaigns, curriculum reforms, and grassroots-level interventions that challenge stigma.
In parts of India, menstruation is celebrated with festivals, rituals, and offerings. Temples celebrate a goddess’s menstrual cycle, communities indulge in grand ceremonies, and households perform rituals when a girl attains menarche. Yet the same physiological process is shrouded in secrecy in the absence of education, whispered in silence, and treated with shame in personal and public spaces. This stark dichotomy between symbolic worship and lived exclusion strikes at the core of India’s conflicted stance on menstruation. Rooted in this social reality, the recent Supreme Court verdict in Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Government of India must be read as a significant acknowledgment but far from a comprehensive answer.
This intervention deserves significance as it anchors menstrual health within the framework of dignity and bodily autonomy. The SC, by recognizing stigma around menstruation and its real-time consequences on health, education, and enjoyment of public life, has done what it does best: articulate and affirm rights. However, the question that inevitably follows is whether this recognition alone can undo centuries of silence, discrimination, and taboo. The answer is simply no. While judicial recognition can declare a right, it by itself cannot normalize menstruation in everyday spaces, ensure ubiquitous access to sanitary products, or reform the society that continues to treat menstruating bodies as impure. This massive responsibility befalls the executive and, equally, society.
While India does not suffer from a complete absence of menstrual health policies, it is plagued with poor implementation and oversight. The only comprehensive scheme at the national level was the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched in 2011; however, the 2024 WHO/UNCF joint report highlights a troubling reality. By 2023, around 47 million students in India had no access to sanitation services in their schools. This points towards the gap between the 2011 policy objective and its implementation. Thus, menstrual hygiene depends less on constitutional recognition and more on administrative efficiency and political capacity.
Multiple schemes have been introduced at the state level over the years to promote menstrual hygiene, improve access to sanitary products, and reduce school dropouts among adolescent girls. However, these measures remain fragmented and uneven and are implemented inconsistently across states. While states like Kerala have championed menstrual health with access to sanitary pads and sustainable practices, in Delhi, supply remained irregular or entirely absent. In many states, the primary demand is proper washrooms and access to running water and disposal facilities, without which the availability of sanitary products is meaningless. What further compounds this issue is weak monitoring and sporadic data collection, which ultimately culminates in diffused accountability. The result is a landscape that succeeds on paper but collapses in practice.
There is a limit to executive action if not in tandem with social transformation. These policies can only offer little respite if the society holds onto a regressive stance on menstruation. The cost of this human inconsistency remains adequately documented with news flashes of increased school dropout rates among adolescent girls and girls resorting to unsafe practices due to lack of access and affordability. What compounds this marginality further is the silence, stigma, and misinformation that surrounds menstrual health practices, often resulting in long-term complications.
This, combined with the discriminatory attitude persisting around menstruation, becomes a significant barrier to mobility, education, and, above all, self-worth. A study on the urban slums in Madhya Pradesh revealed that while 82% of adolescent girls used sanitary pads, 37% of them missed school during menstruation due to exclusionary social practices. This exclusion is not just prevalent in public spaces like a classroom but also within the confines of their homes, keeping them away from cooking, praying, or even social interaction. These practices are often rooted in tradition despite their discriminatory undertones. Thus, law can only prohibit discrimination, but it by itself cannot reform discriminatory belief systems that continue to indoctrinate families and communities.
Hence, the verdict must be seen as a starting point rather than a destination. Structural change in menstrual health requires more than the letter of the law; it necessitates executive action backed by gradual and institutionalized social transformation. It must move beyond creating access and infrastructure and also include comprehensive training that views menstruation as education, not embarrassment. Social change cannot be ushered in, nor can it be imposed through court orders. It must be cultivated through conversations and sustained engagements through awareness campaigns, curriculum reforms, and grassroots-level interventions that challenge stigma.
The verdict can generate headlines and momentary optimism, but until every girl can attend school without fear or shame and menstruation is treated as a fact of life, it risks being symbolic rather than transformational.
The apex court has led the way. It is now up to the executive and society to follow its lead. The true measure of progress will be attained when menstrual dignity translates into everyday normalcy.
Mandar Prakhar is an Associate Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.