SOUTH ASIA NEIGHBOURS ADVANCING REGIONAL INTEGRATION, COOPERATION AND ENGAGEMENT IN SOUTH ASIA Breaking taboos and transforming lives: India’s Pad Man to Sri Lanka’s Pad Women by Smriti Daniel #OneSouthAsia CASE STUDY 5, 2021 In South Asia, taboos and myths around India do not share a bedroom with their menstruation ignore geographical, social, husband while menstruating. And Nepal’s linguistic and political borders. Women and poorest communities still practice chhaupadi girls in these countries occupy very distinct — a tradition banishing women and girls to live landscapes, eat different food, speak in unheated mud huts during their periods. different languages, follow different faiths, and yet share many experiences when it The shame and secrecy surrounding comes to their periods. menstruation has a cumulative impact on women’s education, job prospects, For starters, whether you are a girl growing home life, and overall health. An estimated up in the shadows of the Himalayas or by one-third of girls in South Asia miss school3 the bustling ports of Colombo, whether you during their periods because they do not are a teenager or a mother of two, you have access to sanitary pads, toilets, or have likely been told that your periods are hand washing facilities. Menstruation pads some how impure. In Sri Lanka, the subject is available in stores are expensive luxuries for rarely discussed and 66 percent of girls1 were many women, and the plastic components unaware of menstruation until their first period. in most commercially made products make Nearly half of married women in northern 2 them difficult to dispose of properly. Breaking taboos and transforming lives: India’s Pad Man inspires Sri Lanka’s Pad Women 1 SOUTH ASIA #OneSouthAsia An entrepreneur from India tackled the Muruga decided to buy Shanthi menstrual problem by designing low-cost machinery pads but was shocked by the price. He to produce sanitary pads and jobs for calculated that each lightweight pad was women. The invention of Arunachalam made with just 10 grams of cotton, then worth Muruganantham – known as Muruga – has about 10 paise, but sold for 4 Indian rupees inspired a partnership between India and Sri (INR) – 40 times the cost of raw materials. Lanka that is expected to expand to Nepal Muruga felt certain he could figure out a way and Afghanistan. The initiative empowers to make cheaper, effective sanitary pads. women in poor, remote areas to take charge of their own menstrual health and earn an Muruga first turned to Shanthi to test his income. As of 2019, small manufacturing experimental pads but was frustrated by sites have been established in some 5,300 having to wait a month in-between trials. locations across 27 countries, with the He needed more volunteers. However, few number set to grow. women were interested in helping and even his sisters turned him down. Muruga eventually It is an extraordinary movement that began decided he would test the pads on himself. He with one man, his wife, and a pile of rags. filled a rubber football with animal blood from a local butcher and added an anti-coagulant to keep it from clotting. He attached the football to his waist and connected it to a India’s ‘menstrual man’ tube that led to his underwear. The device entrepreneur slowly leaked blood into his makeshift sanitary pads, allowing him to measure absorption The son of two weavers, Muruga was born rates as he moved throughout the day. The in Coimbatore, in the South Indian state experience was revelatory. of Tamil Nadu. After his father died in an accident, Muruga dropped out of school “That makes me bow down to any to support his family with a series of jobs as woman in front of me to give full respect... a farm labourer, welder, and machine tool Those five days I’ll never forget – the operator – jobs requiring mechanical know- messy days, the lousy days, that wetness. how and versatility. My God, it’s unbelievable.” –Muruga Muruga met and married his wife, Shanthi, Muruga’s pads didn’t always work, leaving in 1998. Theirs was a conventional marriage his pants stained with blood. He washed until Muruga realised Shanthi was hiding his clothes at a community well, and some something from him: she was collecting rags assumed the blood stains were from a sexually to use instead of sanitary napkins. Muruga was transmitted disease. Suspicious neighbors confused and then worried. The rags seemed ostracized him while others thought Muruga less than hygienic — “I wouldn’t even use it to had lost his mind. Then Shanthi left him. “I clean my scooter,” Muruga recalled — and started the research for my wife, and after 18 Shanthi was uncomfortable talking because months she left me,” he said. Even his elderly of the social stigma around menstruation. mother moved out of his house after she 2 Breaking taboos and transforming lives: India’s Pad Man inspires Sri Lanka’s Pad Women #OneSouthAsia SOUTH ASIA saw Muruga closely examining used sanitary Technology in Madras and they entered it in a pads in the backyard. Eventually, the entire national competition for innovation. Out of 943 village turned against him. Convinced that entries, Muruga’s machine came first. Pratibha Muruga was possessed by an evil spirit, they Patil, then the President of India, handed him prepared to chain him to a tree so a local his award. Overnight, Muruga was famous. soothsayer could heal him. Muruga escaped by promising that he would leave the village. Over 18 months, Muruga built 250 machines to make pads and took them to poor, Though profoundly shaken, Muruga wasn’t underdeveloped states in Northern India. ready to call it quits after investing so much Women there face difficult conditions, often time testing and refining his invention. He walking miles each day to fetch water. had learned that pure cotton was ineffective and the key absorption component in “My inner conscience said if I can crack sanitary pads is cellulose, made from the it in Bihar, a very tough nut to crack, bark of pinewood and other trees. However, I can make it anywhere.” – Murga expensive, large factory machines were typically needed to produce cellulose. Encouraging poor women to make pads was at times difficult because of menstrual It took Muruga four years to create alternative taboos but Muruga found supporters among tools and equipment that were simple, NGOs and community-based organizations affordable, and suitable for rural areas. He for women. Over time, the machines spread designed a sanitary pad that could be made to 27 of India’s 29 states. In each location, in four simple steps. First, cellulose sheets were women run the business and choose inserted into a machine similar to a kitchen their own brand name. As his fame grew, grinder to break down the fibers until they were Muruga became something of a legend. He light and fluffy. Next, another machine pressed spoke at the prestigious Indian Institutes of the fluff into rectangular cakes, forming the Management and was the subject of a 2013 core of a pad. The cakes were wrapped in non- documentary, “Menstrual Man.” He gave a woven cloth and disinfected with ultraviolet TED talk that has been viewed more than 1.6 light. And lastly, a plastic rectangle was added million times. And in 2018, his story was made to the back to protect the sticky side of the into a Bollywood film, “Pad Man.” pad. The simple manufacturing process could be taught to anyone in an hour. The machines As interest soared in his designs, Muruga he designed cost about INR 75,000 for a basic remained committed to the vision that started version that created jobs for 10 women and him on his journey. He refused to sell his patents produced 200 pads a day. to corporations, determined to keep the technology accessible to poor communities. Muruga had realized his vision: an effective, Accordingly, he provided the blueprints of affordable, and environmentally friendly the machines for free to community-based sanitary napkin that rural women could make businesses where women made the pads and and sell for a source of income. He showed his sold them for a small profit. His organization invention to faculty at the Indian Institute of would continue to provide the raw material for Breaking taboos and transforming lives: India’s Pad Man inspires Sri Lanka’s Pad Women 3 SOUTH ASIA #OneSouthAsia a cost. (The latter process has been somewhat persuade Muruga to share his technology complicated by the pandemic, as additional with Sri Lankan women. Hassadeen, requirements and constraints around exports treasurer for the SAARC Chamber Women have come into play.) Muruga’s approach Entrepreneurs Council, read about Muruga has its critics and many have since attempted in a book and wanted to replicate the pad- to improve on it. making business for poor women in Sri Lanka. It took months to convince him that the At home, things also changed as his council had the right intentions and should community learned more about his be his first expansion outside India. innovation. Muruga’s neighbors welcomed him back. And Shanthi reached out to him, Before agreeing to a partnership, Muruga asked proud of his work to help poor, rural women. Hassadeen to visit a manufacturing site to see Today, she speaks about menstrual hygiene how the technology worked. She remembers to women across the country and is no longer walking into a Delhi shelter for abused women, embarrassed to talk about periods. and seeing a young, disabled girl using her feet to operate the machine – clear evidence that the technology could empower women as well as provide affordable menstrual pads. Ending period poverty in The SAARC team gathered data showing Sri Lanka some 63 percent of Sri Lankan households with a menstruating female bought sanitary In a dark hall in Kitulwatte, a neighborhood pads but nearly 40 percent of the households in the Sri Lankan city of Colombo, M. Kamala purchased the product only once or twice a was among a group of women who giggled year. Many of the households said they could awkwardly as the movie, “Pad Man,” not afford to buy menstrual pads regularly flickered to life on the TV in front of them. because of the high cost. Kamala watched as Akshay Kumar, the actor The SAARC team decided to sponsor a playing Muruga in “Pad Man,” struggled with project for manufacturing sites, or production a design for an affordable pad. “It was funny,” centers, in Sri Lanka. “We could see that there she remembers, “but I could see he was doing was a common interest for women across the it to make his wife happy.” The group of women region,” said Rifa Mustapha, then Council watched the film as part of their training to use Chairperson for the SAARC team, adding Muruga’s technology to launch a menstrual the process would nurture entrepreneurial pad business in Sri Lanka. Kamala said the skills and empower the women involved. evening helped her understand why the Indian inventor made it available to women “Each production center could who lived in a different country but had much come up with their own plan. They in common with his wife. could run it for just three or four hours, or increase their labour force For Jazaya Hassadeen, the evening program and produce more, depending on was the result of a yearlong campaign to what they chose.” – Rifa Mustapha 4 Breaking taboos and transforming lives: India’s Pad Man inspires Sri Lanka’s Pad Women #OneSouthAsia SOUTH ASIA The SAARC group arranged imports of raw Kamala also sells about 100 packets a month, materials, which incurred heavy taxes, and mostly to teachers at her son’s school, the equipment and several months later they were local church, and neighbors. “And because ready to run a pilot. Because Muruga made it is cheap, women are able to use pads for the design of his machine freely available, the their whole period,” she said. Another plus is council was able to build its own equipment that used Sinidu pads do not need special with local metalworkers. The group timed the waste management and can be thrown out launch for the same day that the Bollywood with household food waste. That is not the movie, “Pad Man,” premiered. case with most commercially-made pads containing non-biodegradable plastics. In January 2019, the Kithulwatte plant opened its doors. Fifteen women, including Garbage disposal is a serious challenge Kamala, learned the manufacturing process throughout South Asia. In 2017, Sri Lanka’s from trainers with Muruga’s organization in Meethotamulla garbage dump collapsed India. The women decided to sell their pads during the night, triggering a landslide that under the brand name, Sinidu, which means buried nearby houses and killed 32. Before soft in Sinhala. Sales have steadily increased the collapse, the 21-acre garbage dump for Sinidu packets, each containing 10 pads. was more than 150 feet tall, according to “Today, there is a lot of demand,” said Rifka, some estimates. Hassadeen said the accident one of the early trainees, who earns a steady showed why waste management must be income from selling about 100 packets a improved. “When we visited the site, the month, each for 75 Sri Lankan rupees (LKR). A women were talking to us and one of the things packet costs LKR 60 to make and Rifka keeps they said is that even after two or three years, the profit. The LKR 75 sales price is much lower the sanitary napkins in the dump had stayed than a similar package of commercially- intact,” she said. The community-made pads, made pads that command between LKR however, are completely biodegradable 130 and LKR 470, including taxes. except for one strip of plastic that can be pulled off and separately disposed. Customers said they were pleased that the Sinidu pads are easy to wear and rarely result in rashes or discomfort. Rifka is eager to tell potential customers how the pads are Transforming women’s lives made and their benefits. “Without fear, I can recommend these pads to women because I Kamala said being an employee of Sinidu make them myself,” she said. Some customers has changed her life in significant ways. The are motivated by other factors – such as young mother can count on her income to having water available only three hours a day pay for her son’s medical needs and her from a community well. Washing bloodstained financial independence has made her more clothing in public is embarrassing so women confident. “Before I used to stay at home rush through the process and hide the items only,” she says, “but now I feel like I can do instead of drying them out in the sun, she said. anything.” Kamala’s confidence was put to the test when the SAARC team identified Breaking taboos and transforming lives: India’s Pad Man inspires Sri Lanka’s Pad Women 5 SOUTH ASIA #OneSouthAsia her as a potential trainer of other women. we have women as trainers,” says Deepa Even more challenging was the location for Edirisinghe, a municipal councillor in Colombo. Kamala’s course — Colombo’s Welikada As a city official, Edirisinghe has visited the Prison, where more than 300 women are neighborhood where Kamala and the other confined. The SAARC team proposed that the Sindhu employees live and sees great potential prison sponsor a manufacturing site where for women entrepreneurs. “The women are women inmates could make menstrual pads interested in self-employment,” she said. “All and learn business skills. we think about is teaching them how to make garments and sell food, but this is an option Prison officials approved the project and the we haven’t explored.” Younger women, in pads produced are distributed to inmates, particular, are more open to unconventional who formerly received only three sanitary jobs like those offered by Sinidu, she said. napkins per person because of the prison’s tight budget. “Women were trying to get relatives In the early days of the pandemic, when Sri to bring them napkins or stealing each other’s Lanka’s case count was low, the factory napkins. For the authorities, our machines were remained operational providing a much really a godsend,” Hassadeen said. needed source of income to the women. Unfortunately, as cases soared in the latter Jani Perera, a member of the SAARC group, half of 2020, health authorities asked them donated funds to have local metalworkers to halt work. With the vaccine roll-out now build pad-making machines. Kamala went to underway, Hassadeen says they will open the prison and trained 10 women. In total, the their doors again as soon as it is safe to do so. women had 45 days of training and mentorship, resulting in production of about 80 pads a The SAARC Chamber Women Entrepreneurs day. “These are women that have been put Council wants to expand the pad-making aside by society, and I was glad I could help technology to other communities in Sri them,” Kamala said. “It is about giving women, Lanka and to Nepal, Bangladesh, and wherever they are, some dignity.” When the Afghanistan where women face similar women leave prison, they have marketable challenges. Mustapha said conversations skills to earn a living. The women are also likely are in the preliminary stages. The SAARC to be ambassadors for Sinidu within their own team envisions building more machines in communities. The prison supplies commissioner, Sri Lanka then shipping the equipment to Chandana Ekanayake, said he was impressed interested communities that could then with the results. contact Muruga’s organization directly to obtain the raw material made of cellulose. “This production, we are planning to send (The recipe to make the cellulose remains a all over Sri Lanka’s prisons... This is a closely guarded secret.) Their first stop will be sustainable project." – Chandana Ekanayake Nepal, where the local SAARC chapter has shown a great deal of interest. Women trainers such as Kamala can have a big impact on other women who are The SAARC team members believe that the searching for livelihoods. “It’s good that model that has worked so well in India and Sri 6 Breaking taboos and transforming lives: India’s Pad Man inspires Sri Lanka’s Pad Women #OneSouthAsia SOUTH ASIA Lanka will gain traction across South Asia. “The manufacturing jobs, says Hassadeen. The strength of this approach is that it is community- work gives women from poor communities a based,” and driven by women, Mustapha greater measure of freedom from taboos that said. “We have seen such a change in their have held them back for decades. Kamala’s lives.” The pad manufacturing sites create journey from a woman at home without jobs, teach women business skills, and give independence or work, to a confident women confidence. And the environmentally ambassador for Sinidu, is an example of how friendly product improves the quality of life – entrepreneurial ventures change lives. “This girl and opportunities – for poor women. was sitting at home looking after her disabled child, but today she is an international trainer, The Sinidu employees, who began with getting ready to board a plane to Nepal!” so little, have been empowered by their Hassadeen said with a smile. Endnotes 1. https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/ 3. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india- resources/WA_MHM_SNAPSHOT_SRILANKA.pdf women-health/third-of-girls-in-south-asia-miss- school-during-periods-study-idUSKCN1IN00F 2. https://qz.com/india/252419/the-full-extent-of- what-urban-india-believes-about-menstruation- Photo Credits: Smriti Daniel is-extraordinary/] Neighbours Series A key objective of the World Bank’s South Asia Regional Integration, Cooperation and Engagement (RICE) approach is broadening evidence-based communication and outreach activities that will help strengthen the case for RICE and generate domestic demand. The ‘Good Neighbours’ series showcases successful cross-border stories demonstrating regional cooperation to build support for regionalism in South Asia. Series Editor Mandakini Kaul is Senior Regional Cooperation Officer, South Asia Regional Integration and Engagement at the World Bank. Editor Nikita Singla is Consultant, South Asia Regional Cooperation at the World Bank and is Associate Director at New Delhi-based Bureau of Research on Industry and Economic Fundamentals. About the Author Smriti Daniel is an award-winning journalist based in Sri Lanka. Her work has been featured in Al Jazeera, Reuters, The Atlantic’s CityLab and Architectural Digest, among others. The World Bank SOUTH ASIA 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 Advancing Regional Integration, Email: onesouthasia@worldbank.org Cooperation and Engagement in South Asia Website: www.worldbank.org/onesouthasia