When Chief Minister Siddaramaiah posted on X, “Through the Menstrual Leave Policy 2025, women employees across Karnataka will now receive one paid leave day every month...”, applause rippled through social media. The Karnataka Law Commission’s 62nd report on the Menstrual Leave and Hygiene Bill, 2025 promises paid leave and access to menstrual products in workplaces and institutions. It reads well on a press release, but good lines need not make for good policy.
Karnataka’s press coverage identifies the likely beneficiaries as “lakhs” (officially reported at about five million) but the law’s reach and enforcement logic are calibrated for formal employment; what about those who roll beedis in Bidar? Workers who sweep the streets of Bengaluru? Transplant paddy in Kodagu? As Martha Nussbaum writes in Women and Human Development, the measure of justice isn’t whether everyone is treated alike but whether everyone has the right to live with dignity.
The state Law Commission’s consultations tell who is counted as a ‘worker’. Representatives of Karnataka’s State Commission for Women and urban feminist organisations were invited, leaving behind domestic workers, poura karmikas, and construction labourers.
When Japan introduced its menstrual leave policy in 1947, it observed that less than 1% of working women were availing it. Additionally, the Reserve Bank of India’s 2023 Working Paper by Purna Banerjee, Debojyoti Mazumder, and Sreya Biswas reveals that even after the 2017 Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act extended maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks, there was a drop in female labour participation as small employers hesitated to hire them. The same cost dynamics are likely to be repeated with the menstrual leave policy.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap 2024 report, India is placed 129 out of 146 countries. Given the steep wage gap, gendered absences without proper redistributive support can deepen economic discrimination instead of redressing it. By considering menstruation leave for individuals instead of systematic reform, Karnataka has substituted rights with relief.
According to a recent gendered informality report by the International Labour Organization, 78% of female workers in India lack any form of social security and less than 15% have access to paid leave. What value is a menstrual leave policy for a woman who cannot afford to be absent?
The paradox is sharp: a law calling for ‘hygiene’ ignores millions of women who still change sanitary napkins in dingy toilets or in open fields. The NFHS-5 (2021) revealed that only 59.7% women in Bihar, the only state with a menstrual leave since 1992, use hygienic methods of protection. The policy has neither focused on improving menstrual health nor on women’s workforce participation.
If Karnataka wishes to convert symbolism into structural justice, it should include the following: state-funded wage compensation for daily wage and informal workers, similar to Rajasthan’s Gig Workers’ Welfare Board, which links digital registration to welfare payouts to prevent the poorest from bearing the income cost of care; community menstrual health infrastructure that would ensure that public workplaces — bus depots, anganwadis, and farms — have toilets, proper disposal systems, and pain management facilities; there must be clear bans on using menstrual leave records for hiring and promotion.
Without these, Karnataka’s policy risks becoming what the sociologist, Nivedita Menon, calls “state feminism”, gestures that make patriarchy look modern without changing its foundations. Otherwise, Karnataka’s menstrual leave policy will resemble Indian feminism — a conversation among the empowered about the empowerment of others.
Ankita Jain studies at Maharashtra National Law University, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar