The unfortunate non-debate on menstrual leave in Arunachal Assembly

Regressive comments, such as those made in the Assembly, will make it more challenging to have people understand that menstruation is a basic biological process

For five years, Ninong Ering, a Congress MLA from Pasighat West in Arunachal Pradesh, has championed legislating menstrual leave into law. In November 2017, as a Lok Sabha MP, Ering introduced the Menstruation Benefit Bill 2017, a private member's bill, in the Lok Sabha. It sought to provide leave for menstruating school and college-going girls, women in jobs, better facilities for rest at the workplace during menstruation, and better hygiene provisions for women and adolescent girls.

As an MLA, Ering tabled the same private member's bill on the first day of the 2022 Budget Session in the Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly, stating that menstruating can be exhausting and disturbing for women, especially on the first day. He argued for implementing the provisions in Arunachal Pradesh, giving examples of Italy and Japan and Indian states such as Bihar and Kerala, which provide the paid leave facility.

His speech followed a slew of regressive and patriarchal statements, with taboos and myths being used as examples to justify why menstruation is a "dirty thing". For instance, Lokam Tassar, Koloriang MLA from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said that the Assembly was "too holy" a place to discuss a "letera cheez" such as menstruation and the State Women's Commission should be discussing such topics.

Tana Hali Tara, another BJP legislator, cited a Nyishi custom that barred menstruating women from having meals with men. He said, "Leave may be acceptable in Bihar or Kerala but not in our place." Alo Libang, the minister for women and child development, said the proposed bill was logical, but it should first be discussed with women's organisations and the state women's panel.

The bill was withdrawn, partly owing to this pushback. The question is this: Why does talking about the most natural and common phenomenon of women's lives remain such a difficult subject in 21st Century India when its leaders commit themselves to talk about the advancement of women in the country's social and political life?

Instead of making derogatory remarks or being dismissive about the issue, members of the Arunachal Assembly should have approached the subject with sensitivity and made an effort to discuss the matter at hand, even if to later disagree with granting leaves to menstruating women and girls. Our leaders should lead by example and need to be more open to having such discussions to normalise the taboos around women and their concerns.

Behavioural changes at the grassroots would be challenging to achieve if leaders hold onto patriarchal glass ceilings and biases against women. The regressive comments such as those made in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly will only make it more challenging to have people at large understand that menstruation is a basic biological process.

What also needs to change is allocating women's issues to a ministry with limited powers. Just because the government has constituted a state commission for women, it cannot be the case that women's issues are solely a specific outfit's responsibility.

Women's healthcare is the responsibility of all our leaders. After all, the Arunachal Pradesh State Commission for Women (APSCW) cannot formulate laws. It can only oversee and monitor the implementation of laws, but it is the legislature's job to make laws. So if the Assembly avoids discussions due to the personal biases of its members, several other critical issues concerning women could continue to be sidelined.

Besides, the Supreme Court has upheld the right to health and healthcare as a fundamental right of every citizen, essential to making workers' lives meaningful and purposeful with dignity. The term 'life' in Article 21 of the Constitution, it has said, is not mere existence but carries a much broader meaning, which includes the right to a better standard of life, livelihood, hygienic conditions in the workplace and leisure.

Given that sanitation and menstrual health are essential components of a woman's life, one can reasonably infer that they also come within Article 21, mandating the provision of necessary conditions for women to work with dignity. The case for granting menstrual leave is, thus, a fundamental rights issue and should receive due diligence.

While the controversy around the Menstrual leave bill in Arunachal Pradesh might not be the first time that basic demands for the betterment of women's lives have fallen on deaf ears of some of our political leaders, it is still in the best interest of these very leaders to remember that discriminating against women, claiming that they are impure or unclean when menstruating will not put their state on the path to real progress but result in its regression.

(Akanksha Khullar is Country Coordinator, India Women's Regional Network)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.