Sanitary Napkin Revolution in Rural India

Menstruation may be a natural occurrence, which happens to half of the world’s population every 28 days, but in rural India, it still makes everyday life difficult for many women. A study done in 2013 by the WSSCC showed that 23% of girls are forced to leave school when they start menstruating, and the rest miss an average of 5 days a month. This is due to a lack of access to menstrual hygiene products. A 2011 survey by AC Nielsen, commissioned by the Indian government, showed that only 12% of women across India use sanitary pads. The rest are forced to use the materials they have on hand: old rags, dry leaves, ash, sand or newspapers. Menstruation remains a taboo subject in India. As the stand-up comedian Aditi Mittal put it during one of her acts, "I have realized that saying the word 'sanitary napkins' in public, is like standing in a Hogwarts common room and saying 'Voldemort'". This taboo means women continue to suffer in silence from lack of menstrual hygiene, at the cost of their health and empowerment.

However in the past five years, a revolution has been born from an unexpected place. Arunachalam Muruganantham, a school dropout from a village in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, has patented a machine to facture low cost sanitary pads, and aims at making India a “100% sanitary napkin country”.

His dream began when he noticed his wife, Shanti, collecting dirty rags from around the house. When he asked her what it was for, she reluctantly told him that she couldn’t afford commercial pads “If I buy sanitary napkins, it means I cannot afford to buy milk for the family." Arunachalam decided then and there to make her a cheap sanitary pad, and set about developing prototypes. His dedication became almost an obsession. He was even willing to walk around wearing a football bladder filled with animal blood in order to test his home made pads. As his search continued, those around him began to think he was crazy. He lost money, his wife and mother left him, and his village rejected him.

Despite all of this, Muruganantham never gave up, and his hard work paid off after four and a half difficult years. He developed a simple, cost effective machine, capable of making sanitary napkins at a third of the price of commercial pads. It won him anational innovation award, coming first out of 943 entries.

Muruganantham set about bringing the machine to rural areas. It took him 18 months to build 250 machines, which he then took to the least developed states of Northern India, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. He mentions the struggles he faced in such areas. Firstly, even speaking to the women wasn’t easy. "To speak to rural women, we need permission from the husband or father," he says. "We can only talk to them through a blanket." A lot of superstition surrounds the use of sanitary pads, such as myths about them making women go blind, or never get married. But slowly, village by village, the machines caught on, spreading in time to 1,300 villages in 23 states.

Muruganantham went one step further than improving women’s menstrual health. His machines also create jobs for rural women, since it’s the women themselves that produce the pads to sell in the village. This encourages women to buy them, since they don’t have to get them from male shopkeepers, and can ask the women questions about how to use the napkins. The majority of Muruganantham's clients are NGOs and women's self-help groups. A manual machine costs around Rs 75,000. This provides pads for 3000 women, and employment for 10.

Muruganantham has received many offers to sell his innovation to a corporation. He systematically refuses. “I didn’t take the money route because I saw my parents struggle for survival. I knew that this machine could provide a sustainable livelihood for many rural women. The purpose was not to exploit the patent. I am using the same IPR to empower women in India. I am making them owners of this project, not workers" he says.

Despite his success, Muruganantham isn’t looking for glory or fortune. His wife returned to him, and they have a modest apartment. He owns a jeep and a blackberry, but has no desire to accumulate possessions. In his words, "I have accumulated no money but I accumulate a lot of happiness."