The Violence of Humiliation
Updated: Sep 1
If a tradition humiliates a woman, restricts her freedom, controls her, attacks her identity, and dignity, declares her body impure or exposes her to danger, society has a moral duty to question it, and, thereby, reject it.
By Suresh Nautiyal Greenanda in Pauri, Uttarakhand
The tragic death of a 19-year old woman in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand must not disappear into public memory as another landslide in an ecologically ravaged mountain landscape.
According to accounts from her village, Tatara-Sutol, she went on 15 August 2026, to the bank of the Nandakini river, about five kilometres from her village, to take a supposedly ‘holy’ bath -- because she was menstruating.
It is believed that the area belongs to Bhumyal Devata and is therefore sacred, so a menstruating woman must not take a bath within the village boundary.
One of her slippers was found in the river soon after. Her body was recovered several days later.
Whatever the final findings of the authorities, one question cannot be postponed: Why should a woman have to leave the safety of her own village and walk a long distance into an isolated and potentially dangerous area simply because she is menstruating?
At that moment, a so-called retrograde religious custom ceases to be merely a custom. It becomes a question of dignity, safety, equality and basic human rights.
When Biology Is Declared Impure
Menstruation is a natural biological process. It is neither a sin nor a curse. Yet, generations of women in parts of the Himalayan region, and elsewhere, have been taught that menstruation makes them impure.
Therefore, as it happened in the past, they may be prohibited from entering temples, kitchens or prayer rooms; touching certain objects or sources of water; participating in rituals, sleeping in their own beds—or even compelled to live outside their homes.
This is an oppressive and irrational social and religious taboo imposed upon the female body. It is a direct attack on her self-identity, freedom, privacy and dignity.
In Nepal, one of the most extreme manifestations of menstrual seclusion is known as Chhaupadi. Women have been forced to live in huts, sheds or animal shelters during menstruation, exposing them to cold, smoke, snakes, wild animals, sexual violence and other dangers.
Nepal criminalised Chhaupadi in 2017. Yet, its continued persistence in some communities demonstrates a painful truth: laws can prohibit a practice, but they cannot erase the beliefs that sustain it.
There have been reports that women have died in menstrual huts from snakebites, fire, smoke and other hazards. The lesson is devastatingly simple: When society routinely and deliberately compels a woman to stay isolated in a place which could be potentially dangerous, because she is menstruating, her death cannot automatically be dismissed as an accident.
Society Must Look Within
Uttarakhand has no reason to imagine itself totally immune from this problem. Studies and reports from some parts of the state have documented menstrual restrictions among girls and women, including restrictions on entering temples and participating in religious and cultural practices. Similar forms of menstrual seclusion and taboo have also been reported elsewhere in the Himalayan region.
We must, however, be careful not to portray all Himalayan communities as uniquely backward. Menstrual taboos have existed across regions, religions, communities and social classes. Nor should an entire faith be condemned because particular practices have accumulated around it. But one principle must remain non-negotiable: No tradition deserves immunity from ethical scrutiny merely because it is old, ritualistic, and entrenched.
No doctrine or dogma can make an injustice sacred.
We worship goddesses. We speak endlessly of Nari Shakti. We celebrate women as mothers, creators and embodiments of divine power. Yet the same woman, when she menstruates, can suddenly be declared impure in certain communities.
What kind of spirituality is threatened by a woman's biology?
What kind of God requires a woman to hide, in forced isolation?
What kind of sacredness can be polluted by the blood through which human life itself becomes possible?
These questions are not an attack on faith. They are an attempt to rescue faith from superstitions, irrationality and dogma, anti-woman belief-systems, and entrenched patriarchy.
The Violence of Humiliation
The violence of menstrual taboo is not always visible. It is the humiliation of being told every month that one's body is dirty. It is the repetitive loneliness of being separated from one's family. It is the prohibition against entering one's own kitchen or place of worship. It is the shame of having one's menstruation publicly identified by the very act of being sent away.
And when a woman is required to travel several kilometres to a secluded riverbank, forest or shed, humiliation can become a direct threat to life itself. This is not merely inconvenience. It is institutionalised humiliation.
A deliberate attack on her autonomy, dignity and self-respect.
Patriarchy does not survive only through men exercising absolute authority over women. It also survives through the organised system of inherited fear, silence and unquestioned obedience—sometimes reproduced by women themselves because they, too, have been conditioned by the same system. That is why menstrual discrimination is not merely a “women's issue”. It is a test of the moral architecture of society itself.
The Deeper Enemy is Patriarchy
The taboo surrounding menstruation is one expression of a much larger, oppressive structure. Patriarchy is the social order that treats women's bodies, their minds and subjectivity, their identity, choices, sexuality, labour and freedom as matters to be regulated, controlled and judged.
Menstruation becomes a particularly revealing window into that orthodox system because it exposes the bitter contradictions.
A woman is revered when she gives life, but shamed for the biological process that makes reproduction possible. She is celebrated as Devi, yet treated as untouchable, during this period. She is invoked as Shakti, yet denied the freedom to move safely and feely in her own landscape, her own homeland.
These contradictions are like festering wounds. This system of repression has to be dismantled, destroyed, rejected, not allowed to exist in any civilised society.
And this is where the contemporary political conversation about dismantling patriarchy becomes relevant.
Rahul Gandhi's call to “Smash the Patriarchy”, if taken seriously, become part of a larger national conversation about gender equality—not merely equality in Parliament or in employment, but equality in homes and public spaces, inside and outside communities, within religious institutions and social customs, in the entire spectrum of our social fabric.
The empowerment of women is a fundamental right in a modern democracy. Women’s dignity and rights are a priori. It is therefore not a gift to them – their freedom, self-identity and empowerment are integral to a democratic society.
It is their inherited right as equal citizens.
The real test of such an initiative will not only be a slogan, and, indeed, it is a radical slogan, a life-affirming, transformative slogan, and a powerful slogan which has struck a chord with thousands of women in India, especially Gen Z.
The message should reach across India, to the metros and cities, the village and small towns, the household and the everyday practices through which discrimination is normalised.
The message should change this regressive reality – for all times to come.
Rahul Gandhi has marked a political and social departure in the ‘Chaatron ki Goonj’ in Pune. His message has reverberated among the huge audience of women, mostly young women and students.
Patriarchy has to be dismantled in the home and family, in the kitchen, the classroom, the university campus, inside public transport, metros and local trains, on the streets, inside work places, and in public spaces, in religious spaces and social and public institutions, and most significantly, inside the collective mind.
And menstrual taboo is one of the dogmas where this demolition must begin.
Tradition Must be Questioned
India does not need a war against religion. It needs a deeper conversation within religion. Faith belongs to conscience. It’s a private affair. Tradition belongs to history. But neither should become a licence to violate another person's dignity or individual freedom.
If a tradition humiliates a woman, restricts her freedom, controls her, attacks her identity, and dignity, declares her body impure or exposes her to danger, society has a moral duty to question it, and, thereby, reject it.
The answer, therefore, is not to ridicule believers. It is to empower communities to distinguish between faith and superstition, between spirituality and social control, between rituals and injustice.
Let religious leaders have the courage to reinterpret customs that cause relentless suffering to women. Let women themselves become equal authors of the traditions they inherit. Let men understand that defending women's dignity is not an act of charity towards women; it is an obligation of human beings towards one another.
Let the Young Woman’s Death Become a Turning Point
Let the elders, women, students, youth, religious leaders, teachers, opinion leaders, social media influencers, and elected representatives of Tatara-Sutol and the wider Uttarakhand Himalaya confront this practice openly.
And let young people ask the question their elders may have been afraid to ask: “If our faith teaches compassion, why should a woman suffer?”
Suresh Nautiyal is an environmentalist and journalist based in Pauri and Delhi. He is currently Senior Editor, independentink.in