In recent times, Adivasi customs related to menstrual hygiene have come under scrutiny in the erstwhile undivided Adilabad district, but researchers have confined their studies to the ‘what’ of traditions without diving into the rationale behind them.
The latter is essential to understand them before dismissing age-old customs that have developed over centuries of observations, say Adivasi elders.
Isolated, not outcast
Like in any other rural society, menstruating women are made to live in some kind of isolation. The Raj Gonds have a separate room or space ‘vosiri’ inside their homes and the Kolams have a hut ‘kuppi’ for confine the women during menstruation.
Looked through an urban lens, the menstruating woman seems to be treated as an outcast since she is considered ‘impure’ during the phase. “Yes, she is considered impure, but she is not treated as an outcast,” points out Kodapa Jaithu, the Kolam village head or Patel of Pataguda in Indervelli mandal.
“Though a woman is not allowed to touch anything or participate in any religious or social activity during menstruation, she is given privileged treatment. While the rest of the family shares her part of daily work, she has at her command the help of the entire village,” says Kodapa Laxmibai, explaining the act of a menstruating woman in a kuppi receiving food and water from a woman from a different family in the village when The Hindu visited Pataguda.
Cloth comfort
Another aspect which promoters of sanitary napkinsoften ignore is whether tribal women are comfortable using cloth pads. Kolam women in Adivasi hamlets of Adilabad say they are comfortable indeed, according to a study conducted by Guglavath Jyosna, a student at the Indian Institute of Public Health.
Vette Parvathibai, a Raj Gond woman from Pittabongaram village, also in Indervelli, swears by the comfort of the cloth. Her daughter, Suryabangaram, a technician in a private medical laboratory at Utnoor town, however, uses sanitary pads but says she cannot point out the difference between the two as she has used only pads supplied by the government during her school days.
Kanaka Padmajyothi, a post-graduate in Telugu from Marlawai village in Jainoor mandal of Kumram Bheem Asifabad district, has even reverted to cloth pieces as she found them more comfortable than pads. Moreover, she finds spending money on pads unnecessary. “There is also the question of producing garbage by way of used pads,” her husband Kanaka Ambaji Rao points out. “The piece of cloth can be reused by washing it and usually, care is taken to keep it infection-free,” Padmajyothi adds.
No infections
Interestingly, doctors at primary health centres in agency areas affirm that they have so far not come across women with health issues or infections caused by use of cloth. “Pads could actually be irritating to some,” a doctor, who did not wish to be quoted, reveals.
