‘Menstrual health integral part of right to life and dignity – SC’ said the news headline (Bus Std 31 Jan 2026). The Court has ordered a pan-India implementation of the Union government’s Menstrual Hygiene Policy for School-going Girls for students from Classes 6 to 12, making its directions binding on all schools in urban and rural India. Better toilets, Accessibility, Privacy and Availabilitiy of sanitary napkins form the key pillars of the policy.
I remember discussing the issue of sanitary napkins with my then boss P S Viswanathan (Vish) in they year 1979. He had worked as a product manager at Johnson & Johnson, makers of Stayfree and Carefree sanitary napkins. He was part of the team that launched sanitary napkins in India. He had told me that contrary to generally held opinions, urban Indian consumers were willing to accept modern sanitary napkins. He spoke about how J&J had trained chemists to pack sanitary napkins in innocuous brown paper bags. His observation studies showed that once the napkin was well hidden, even women in the conservative south Indian city of Madurai, were open to even walking into a temple or home with it.
India has unfortunately had a love hate relationship with sanitary napkins. In the Doordarshan era sanitary napkins were allowed to be advertised only after 10 pm (something I have written about in my book Nawabs Nudes Noodles – India through 50 years of advertising). Quite strangely, Nirodh condoms and birth control messaging used to occupy air time during peak hours.
The key target audience for sanitary napkins, teenage, school going, girls were probably fast asleep when Stayfree, Whisper and Carefree ads ran on TV.
In yet another quirk of policy, sanitary napkin makers were mandated not to show red colour (to signify menstrual flow). The ads used to show blue ink being poured into the napkin. It is only in the last decade some of these rules have been relaxed.
Brands are now going out all out to speak a lot more confidently about menstrual hygiene. And are willing to go beyond the traditional blue ink. In an ad that ran a few years ago (by J&J brand Stayfree), #TellYourSonIt’sJustAPeriod, the brand makes a bold attempt to reframe the narrative. Boys will be boys as yet another ad had said, but in this case a girl’s problems are compounded by the insensitivity of boys. What if they are told about the period? What if they are made to appreciate the differences in human bodies? What if they become more empathetic to the troubles a girl goes through during her periods? Why not remove the taboo around the word ‘period’?
Interestingy, Thinx’s “MENstruation” campaign, launched in 2019 in the US with the hashtag #IfWeAllHadPeriods, challenges societal stigmas by imagining a world where everyone, regardless of gender, menstruates. The campaign tries to normalize conversations about periods and promote their period-proof underwear.
In marketing literature taboo products are those that are seen as ‘unmentionable’ or ‘socially sensitive’ goods and services that generally considered embarrassing and in appropriate to discuss and consume in public. These products often relate to bodily functions, sex, religion and death. Brands try to find their way around the restrictions by using surrogate advertising (liquor), leveraging humour (condoms), educational content and ‘breaking the taboo’ campaigns (sanitary napkins).
It is heartening that young entrepreneurs are looking at this problem seriously. We all know of the movie ‘Padman’ based on the real life story of the economical sanitary napkin pioneer Arunachalam Muruganantham. Two IIT engineers started a company, Saral Design, that makes effective sanitary napkins, but they also makes machines that can democratize napkin making. Incidentally the IITB alumnus who founded this company was inspired to act on the problem after she was on an exploration train journey and discovered the travails of the poor girls in rural India. Last week I was taken through the marketing of the Indian menstrual cup brand, Sirona, by my SPJIMR students. Their presentation highlighted the hard work the brand was doing to overcome consumer resistance towards a new way of manging periods, pretty similar to the struggles of sanitary napkins in the 1970s when young girls were told to use rag cloth by their mothers.
Helping girls manage their periods has a larger economic ramification. If we have to continue our economic growth trajectory as a country we will have to bring more women into our workforce. That can happen only if girls are encouraged to complete their educational journey. And educational journey can happen only if female hygiene is given importance in schools and colleges. This is not a problem only for the girls to solve. There is a need to enlist boys and men in fast tracking the change. Even in companies where I have been engaged with there is often a complaint about the cleanliness of women washrooms. Getting the powers that be to understand the differences and the importance of female hygiene is a step in the right direction. The courts have spoken. Now it is left to the administration to ensure the last mile execution.
Appeared originally in Business Standard in Feb 2026