India is a land of culture (the meaning of culture is respecting every living being, including women) and traditions and it is a place where people fiercely pray to the goddesses too. It is utterly shameful, disgraceful that the very same people put the women through this gross indignity.
Some 60 girl students in Gujarat ‘s Bhuj, were forced to strip in an administrative check, whether they were menstruating or not, in a college. When teachers and spiritual leaders endorse myths around menstruation, policies don’t mean anything. For a government that is prioritising menstrual health and hygiene as a part of the policy, it’s loyalist followers are harming it by perpetuating medieval myths around this biological process. What led to this outrage was the fact that the girls who are undergraduate students at Shree Sahajanand Girls Institute, run by Swami Narayan sect were flouting a set of preposterous rules set by the college to follow during their periods. The discriminatory and utterly humiliating diktat bars the girls from entering college temple (to some extent this can be understood), kitchen, or touching other girls. In the classroom, they are expected to sit on the last bench and at mealtime, they are expected to sit away from others, also expected to clean their own dishes. What made matters worse was the statement by Krishnaswaroop Dasji, a religious leader that menstruating women who cooked for their husbands would be reborn as Dogs, while men taking such food would be reborn as bullocks! This beats all evolutionary theory and entrenches the worst superstition.
Any issues of faith and personal choices should be left for their discretion and we have to respect each other and coexist. The domain should be left to women to handle and they are capable of that. I hope this big taboo in society fades away and all coexist in harmony without any superstition and, scientific temper has to be developed. 60000 and above cases of cervical cancer deaths are reported every year, mostly due to poor menstrual hygiene. A whopping 23 million girls drop out of school annually. Adequate knowledge of menstrual hygiene and the development of local sanitary napkin manufacturing units must be encouraged.
Some 60 girl students in Gujarat ‘s Bhuj, were forced to strip in an administrative check, whether they were menstruating or not, in a college. When teachers and spiritual leaders endorse myths around menstruation, policies don’t mean anything. For a government that is prioritising menstrual health and hygiene as a part of the policy, it’s loyalist followers are harming it by perpetuating medieval myths around this biological process. What led to this outrage was the fact that the girls who are undergraduate students at Shree Sahajanand Girls Institute, run by Swami Narayan sect were flouting a set of preposterous rules set by the college to follow during their periods. The discriminatory and utterly humiliating diktat bars the girls from entering college temple (to some extent this can be understood), kitchen, or touching other girls. In the classroom, they are expected to sit on the last bench and at mealtime, they are expected to sit away from others, also expected to clean their own dishes. What made matters worse was the statement by Krishnaswaroop Dasji, a religious leader that menstruating women who cooked for their husbands would be reborn as Dogs, while men taking such food would be reborn as bullocks! This beats all evolutionary theory and entrenches the worst superstition.
Any issues of faith and personal choices should be left for their discretion and we have to respect each other and coexist. The domain should be left to women to handle and they are capable of that. I hope this big taboo in society fades away and all coexist in harmony without any superstition and, scientific temper has to be developed. 60000 and above cases of cervical cancer deaths are reported every year, mostly due to poor menstrual hygiene. A whopping 23 million girls drop out of school annually. Adequate knowledge of menstrual hygiene and the development of local sanitary napkin manufacturing units must be encouraged.
