There is a campaign being run over social media as well as in print and electronic media to make sanitary napkin tax free as it is an essential thing not a luxury (1). To substantiate the demand several reasons have also been put as:
1. Taxing sanitary napkin then why not sindoor? / Government thinks woman need sindoor more than sanitary napkin.
2. Condoms are tax free then why sanitary napkin? / Its another example of patriarchy.
3. Girls dropout is more at the puberty because of menstrual problem.
4. Taxing woman for being woman./taxing sanitary napkin is like taxing the periods.
So far as sindoor is concerned, for many it may be a related to their emotions and for many so called modern woman, it may be a symbol of patriarchy and so they have stopped wearing it. Whatever be the case but sindoor costs typically Rs 10-20 for the whole year. Additionally one more reason for making it tax free has been put forward as explained by economist Saqib Hasan in Daily O quotes as saying. “Sindoor and bangles are manufactured by cottage industries. These industries do not take inputs from anyone but sanitary napkins are manufactured by corporate.” Somi Das in a article on inuth rightly says, “The moment you pit sindoor against sanitary pad, you create a fake chasm between these two sets of women.”(2)
Secondly whether making condoms tax free has to do anything with gender bias or patriarchy. Sexual intercourse is a bodily need of both men and women; and it is one of the easiest way to have a check on the birth rate. If men don’t use it, the woman has to be pregnant or use contraceptive pills/copper T etc. to curtail the pregnancy. Now coming to the gender discrimination part, the woman contraceptives pills, diaphragm and cervical caps has always been free and are still free in the GST regime (2). Apart from that these also provide the hygiene to the woman from the sexually transmitted diseases.
Thirdly if girl dropout has been reasoned basically due to the menstruation then what could be the reason for dropout of the boys. As per the statistics of the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD),in 2013-14, 39% boys who dropped out before completing elementary education in 2013-14, only 33% girls did so (3). Therefore there could be several other reasons dominating the girls dropping out from school like expectation of contributing to the household chores, safety of girls traveling alone, proper infrastructure in schools like separate toilets instead of the menstruation.
A petition has also been launched by Congress MP Ms. Sushmita Dev on Change.org urging Finance Minister Sh. Arun Jaitley to remove taxation on sanitary products and has received more than two lakhs signature and brought the attention of our Minister for woman and child development Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi who also supported the move.
Let us see whether making sanitary napkin tax free has anything to do with woman hyegine and health at all.
When I goggled for cost of a sanitary napkin, I found that a typical cost is Rs 10 inclusive of taxes. A woman need a typical of 6 pads in one month, so the cost is Rs 60/month. If it is made tax free, it will cost Rs. ~54/month considering a tax @ 12% (as imposed in GST).
In an study done by AC Nielsen in 2011,India has roughly 335 million adult women who menstruate. Out of these, 70% can not afford sanitary napkin. The big question is if 70% percent woman can not afford to buy sanitary napkin, will it make any change to those if the cost of the napkin is reduced from Rs 60 to Rs 54. The answer is BIG NO. Even Rs. 54 for sanitary napkin will not be affordable to these women. So describing the menstruation as, “ For when she actually bleeds in this country, let’s scramble into denial about this excruciatingly beautiful phenomenon that is the cornerstone of humanity itself. Let’s pretend it does not exist. Let’s pretend that 88 percent of the girls in India do not use unsanitary cloth, dry leaves, newspapers, sand, and plastic during menstruation.” in an article in yourstory (4) gathers the emotional sympathy towards Indian woman by presenting that she is being treated badly.
In the same campaign it is mentioned that in rural area only 2% of 75% target population use it. Making it tax free doesn’t appear to be so much encouraging to the poor rural woman that they will start using it just because it has been made tax free and now the cost has come down from Rs. 60 to Rs 54/month.
Some issues have been raised concerning to the dignity of woman mentioning in the petition that
1. Taxing is unfair because Women are being taxed 12 months a year, for about 39 years on a process they have no control over.
2. Taxing sanitary napkin is like taxing woman for being woman.
3. Girls and woman face a lot of stigma and embarrassment around menstruation.
The above arguments appears to be more emotional than logical. Men and women are biologically different and menstruation is a completely natural biological process. Instead of considering it as an embarrassment, it should be taken as pride being woman and with whatever God has gifted to them. Among man and woman, God has gifted the capability to rebirth a human to woman only and menstruation is part of the process. If a woman oneself can not appreciate this, how can she expect someone else to appreciate this. Considering that taxing sanitary napkin is like taxing woman is very demeaning to a dignified woman.
So in no way, making the sanitary napkin tax free makes it more usable. Instead following may be done to improve the health and hygiene of woman in rural areas:
1. There is a need for work to change the mindset of the society so that Menstruation must be respected. There is more need of awareness of what is menstruation and how biologically important it is to maintain the hygiene during the menstruation for a woman’s health. Print and electronic media advertisement may be used for this.
2. Woman in rural areas may be taught ( e.g. through Aaganbadi) about how to handle menstruation in a more hygienic way.
3. NGOs may run campaign for taking a responsibility of bearing the cost of a sanitary napkin to girls in rural areas along with educating them regarding maintaining the hygiene during the menstruation. People will easily contribute to the great cause. It will typically cost Rs. 60/month or much less if purchased in bulk by the NGO. It should be distributed free of cost to the women who can not afford it. This will change their lives and will definitely make them to think about their hygiene and create concern among them to handle the periods properly in a hygienic way.
Therefore all this hue and cry for making sanitary napkin tax free reasoning that it will allow the rural woman access to these and will improve their hygiene appears to be poorly informed campaign in print and electronic media mainly utilizing the feminism as a tool which has many takers in this patriarchal society.
Making it totally free may help to some extent but more important is the awareness. The bottom-line is instead of taking menstruation as an embarrassment, it should be respected as natural biological process. Change of the mindset of both men and woman is need of time. There is a lot more important things are to be done for the health and education of the rural woman as compare to making sanitary napkin tax free which is anyway not go affect a sizable rural population.
References
1. Tanika Godbole, “ The Government Thinks Women Need Sindoor More Than Sanitary Napkins | #ThePadEffect”, https://feminisminindia.com/2017/05/23/gst-sanitary-napkins-sindoor/
2. Somi das, “The flawed sindoor vs sanitary pad GST debate and why it's not helping menstruating women”, http://www.inuth.com/india/politics/the-flawed-sindoor-vs-sanitary-pad-gst-debate-and-why-its-not-helping-menstruating-women/
3. kanchan Srivastave, “More boys than girls dropping out of schools in India”, http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-more-boys-than-girls-dropping-out-of-schools-in-india-2112206
4. Binzal Shah,, “Sindoor or sanitary napkin–what does GST Council view as more indispensable to women?” https://yourstory.com/2017/05/sindoor-sanitary-napkin-gst/?pg=1
