At the end of October, it emerged that women sanitation workers at Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) in Rohtak, Haryana, had been forced to show photographic evidence of their menstruation products and/or menstruating bodies by three men they reported to: supervisors Vitender Kumar and Vinod Hooda, and assistant registrar Shyam Sundar.
The former two are contractual workers who have since been suspended following a complaint by three of the workers, and the university has launched an internal probe.
The three perpetrators have been booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), specifically those pertaining to “sexual harassment, assault or use of criminal force with intent to disrobe and outrage a woman’s modesty, criminal intimidation, and acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman”, as per reports quoting Roshan Lal, Station House Officer of the PGIMS police station, where an FIR was filed.
Some of the workers at MDU complied with the demand; others did not. It is understandable why, under duress, a person may acquiesce. That in no way makes the demand itself acceptable. It was a clear violation of the workers’ dignity, bodily autonomy, fundamental labour rights, and was both legally and morally sexual harassment. Immediate punishment and redressal are both required.
Progressive groups, including the Dalit Adivasi Shakti Adhikar Manch, have strongly condemned the incident. In cases like this, caste plays as important a role as gender, and cannot be swept under the rug.
The chances are high that some or all the sanitation workers who were harassed were Dalit, and that the entrenched oppression of caste further exacerbated their predicament.
That the workers filed complaints despite systemic prejudices against them is brave, and we can make an educated assumption that this incident is but the tip of an iceberg.
Dehumanising behaviour within institutional contexts do not exist within a vacuum. This incident raises intersectional feminist concerns and deserves more public protest that acknowledges its many connected facets.
This should also reignite the cause of paid menstrual leave as a workplace right, and reminds commentators, especially those in opposition, that the debate does not centre on the privileged, air-conditioned corporate world alone.
Those in blue-collar labour, who do not have work-from-home options and whose jobs themselves are physically enervating, stand to benefit equally, if not arguably more.
Paid menstrual leave, and a work environment that is supportive of the experience of menstruation, may even go a measurable way in keeping menstruators in the workforce. This is preceded by a lack of viable sanitation facilities in rural Indian schools being linked to the high dropout rate for girls of the age of puberty. The odds are truly stacked against women’s education and employment in so many ways.
The MDU case fits into a bigger picture, and the context requires attention beyond the incident itself. The anti-capitalist stance to take when debating the nuances of crafting supportive environments must begin from the premise that a high percentage of humans menstruate and eventually cease to menstruate through a profoundly taxing transition that must also be accounted for. Incentives may help, but ultimately, the environments must adapt.
(By Sharanya Manivannan of The New Indian Express)
