Shree Sahajanand Girls Institute (SSGI) in Gujarat stooped to a new low as 68 female students living in its hostel were made to strip in the washroom and show their underwear to female teachers to prove that they were not menstruating. This is a college in Bhuj run by Swaminarayan sect, a wealthy and conservative Hindu religious group. Hence it is supposed to follow some of the strictest (read, the most retrogressive) protocols concerning menstruation. As per the protocols, women are barred from entering the temple and the kitchen and are not allowed to touch other students during their periods. They have to sit isolated during meal times and clean their own dishes. They are also expected to sit on the last bench in the classroom.
One of the students told BBC Gujarati’s Prashant Gupta that the hostel maintains a register where they are expected to enter their names when they get their periods, which helps the authorities to identify them. However, for the past two months none of the students had put in their name in the register, most definitely because of the restrictions they have to put up with if they do.
This led to the hostel official complaining to the principal that menstruating students were not complying with the rules, entering the kitchen, going near the temple, and mingling with other hostellers.
On Thursday, a group of students held a protest on the campus, demanding action against the college officials who had “humiliated” them. The college trustee Pravin Pindoria said the incident was “unfortunate”, adding that an investigation had been ordered and action would be taken against anyone found guilty of wrongdoing.
In a further display of cheap tactics, some of the students told BBC Gujarati that they are now under pressure from the school authorities to play down the incident, and not speak of their ordeal.
This shameful incident is a reflection of how society views menstruation as unclean and impure. Such an impression of menstruation is a direct consequence of patriarchy which looks at the female bodily processes as hideous and embarrassing.
According to the anthropologists Buckley and Gottlieb, cross-cultural study shows that while taboos about menstruation are nearly universal, and while many of these involve notions of uncleanliness, numerous menstrual traditions “bespeak quite different, even opposite, purposes and meanings.” In some traditional societies, menstrual rituals offer women a space set apart from the male gaze and from unwanted sexual or domestic pressures and demands. However, both the narratives of menstruation being pure and impure ultimately perpetuate the taboo related to the same.
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