India's 'Padman'

A workshop helper who invented a low-cost sanitary pad machine and sparked a menstrual health revolution across rural India.

Arunachalam Muruganantham was an ordinary workshop worker in Coimbatore when he noticed that his wife could not afford proper sanitary pads and was using unhygienic rags instead. Troubled that safe menstrual protection was a luxury beyond the reach of most Indian women, he set out to do something almost no one else would even talk about openly.

Working with almost no money and facing ridicule and social isolation, he spent years experimenting, so determined to understand the problem that he tested prototypes on himself. Eventually he cracked the secret of commercial pads, that the key lay in cellulose fibre derived from wood pulp, and designed a simple, low-cost machine that could produce affordable sanitary napkins.

Rather than sell his invention to large corporations for profit, Muruganantham chose a different path. Through his venture, Jayaashree Industries, he made his machines available to rural women's groups and self-help collectives, so that women could manufacture and sell affordable pads within their own communities. In doing so he created both better health and new livelihoods, turning users into entrepreneurs.

His machines have spread across India and to other countries, bringing hygiene and dignity to countless women while generating employment for many. His extraordinary story inspired the 2018 film 'Pad Man,' and in 2016 he was honoured with the Padma Shri. His greatest achievement may be that he made a once-unspoken subject something communities could finally discuss, and act upon.