India’s Menstruation Man – Empowering women through fulfilling a basic need

Arunachalam   Muruganantham needs no fancy introductions. He pioneered a quiet but powerful revolution to empower India’s women with a unique invention – the affordable sanitary pad. Yet, he remains firmly grounded and humble. He has been honoured all over India but believes that money does not necessarily bring happiness. For him, his vision of seeing women liberated and enabled is a far greater motivator than green backs.

Muruganantham was curious about what his newly married wife hid from him every month – she would secretly stow away a bag that she didn’t want him to see. He realized what it was soon enough – in a country where millions of women do not have access to safe sanitary towels, his wife was one such woman. There were many others – some for whom school stopped when they started menstruating.

For Muruganantham, it was a journey of discovery and research as he went about to find the perfect sanitary towel that was affordable and accessible to millions of India’s poor women. He set about experimenting with different kinds of material. He tried them on his wife and then on female medical students who were too shy to participate in his trials – when all failed, he tried it on himself, wearing it along with an artificial blood supply that helped him test seepage and other vital aspects of the towel. 
His neighbours thought he was a pervert and his wife left him, unable to go through it all. But he never gave up his dream and persisted. A few years later, he had found the right combination. It all fell into place when he created the simple yet life-changing machine that would turn out sanitary towels for the poorest of the poor spread throughout India.

His machine can manufacture 120 sanitary towels per hour and has empowered women across India, enhancing their ability to play an active role outside the home. It has kept girls in school and women working. His machines also keep women in business with self-employment opportunities.

Muruganantham is a unique human being. He refuses to be enthroned on the corporate ladder of success and has refused offers to sell his technology to big companies. Instead, his focus is the rural backbone of India, where women have found a lifeline with his product.

Five years after she left him, his wife came back, touched by his life-changing legacy. Today, she is his anchor and they live comfortable lives yet not in the way the world would expect an entrepreneur with a dynamic invention to live. He is not interested in fat profits and large bank balances. Neither does fame hold any glory for him. He is content to live his life and share his invention with as many Indian states as he can so that more women can be empowered.

He believes rightly that poverty is no excuse and that ignorance is far more dangerous and must be overcome.  In a country in which 23 percent of girls leave school when they start menstruating for want of sanitary towels, Muruganantham’s machines have allowed them to make their own sanitary towels and reach the women in the community as well. And this in a country in which menstruation is viewed with superstition and dread.

Already, the concept he created has expanded to other countries – his target is creating 10 million jobs for women in over 100 countries. Yet, in India, so much remains to be done, a fact Muruganatham is aware of.  While menstruating, women are not allowed to touch water and in regions such as Bihar, where women must walk miles to fetch water, it poses a problem for the households. Yet, he has succeeded in taking his machine to the state, where they have had to talk to rural women only in the presence of male relatives.

But as they have gradually overcome fears and taboos associated with the subject, women have come around to realize the potential of this man’s single machine – how it has turned a simple, everyday product the rest of the world takes for granted, into an instrument of change and liberation.

For all his fame, Murugantham remains convinced in his mission to stay simple – he stays away from big business, which he compares to a mosquito. He is happy to focus on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and women’s self-help groups that have formed the backbone of his market. Not for him are fancy ad campaigns and brand endorsements. His product has a simple yet powerful message – manufactured for women by women. There are many lessons for us to learn from Muruganatham and not all are to do with business. His convictions and the stand he has taken in face of big business, is admirable and defines the very essence of an entrepreneur who not only drives business but also can be a life changer for the community. 

He, after all, is what you can a history-maker.

(Nayomini Weerasooriya, a senior journalist, writer and a PR professional, can be contacted at [email protected])