Abstract
This article analyses Vijay Tendulkar’s landmark Marathi play Silence! The Court is in Session (Shantata! Court Chaule Ahe, 1967) as a piercing critique of gender discrimination in Indian society. Through the figure of Miss Leela Benare — a young, independent schoolteacher subjected to a mock trial by her own amateur theatrical troupe — Tendulkar exposes the hypocrisy of middle-class morality, the cruelty of patriarchal social norms, and the systemic injustice meted out to women who dare to transgress conventional expectations. The article argues that Benare’s ordeal is emblematic of the fate of all women in India who are suppressed, oppressed, and marginalised.
Keywords: Vijay Tendulkar, Silence! The Court is in Session, gender discrimination, Indian drama, Miss Leela Benare, patriarchy, feminist theatre, mock trial
Introduction
Vijay Tendulkar is one of the outstanding Indian playwrights. He has mastered different genres of literature like essays, short stories, criticism, screenplay writing and drama. He is known for his plays, Shantata! Court Chaule Ahe (1967), Ghashiram Kotwal (1972), and Sakharam Binder (1972). He has received awards including the Padma Bhushan, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Filmfare Award, Saraswati Samman, Kalidas Samman and Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar. He is ranked with great playwrights like Badal Sarcar, Girish Karnad and Mohan Rakesh. In the preface to his collection of ‘Six One Act Plays Raatra (night)’, he has mentioned:
Recently, my name has been repeatedly counted amongst the followers of the new drama sect. I have felt no great urge thus far to determine which sect I belong to, nor do I expect to feel the need to do so in the future. I have written on any theme that has occupied my mind over time, stubbornly insisting that I write on in which ever form I thought best… (Tendulkar 197)
Vijay Tendulkar has powerfully articulated the socio-political situations in his plays. He has expressed it by saying:
As an Individual or rather as a social being, I feel deeply involved in the existing state of my society (because I am affected by it though not immediately in some cases or not as much as some others are) and in my way brood over it… As a writer, I find myself persistently inquisitive, non conformist, ruthless, cold and brutal as compared to the other committed and human… As a social being, I am against all exploitation and I passionately feel that all exploitation must end… (Tendulkar 92)
The Play and Its Context
In Silence! The Court is in Session, Tendulkar has depicted the difficulty of a young woman, who is a victim of the male dominated society. The original name of the drama in Marathi is Shatata! Court Chaule Ahe (1967). It was translated into English by Priya Adarkar.
The play carries all the vitalities of contemporary life. It focuses on the human mind and detects the ugliness in it. All the plays of Tendulkar are the result of his surveillance of the life, society and different incidents of his own life. He has noted in an interview that:
I personally don’t bother about people who haven’t seen life. They close their eyes at the sight of suffering as if it doesn’t exist. The fact is that life is dark and cruel, its just that you don’t care for the truth… I have not written about hypothetical pain or created an imaginary world of sorrow. I am from a middle class family and I have seen the brutal ways of life by keeping my eyes open.
The Character of Miss Leela Benare
Miss Leela Benare is presented as an extraordinary and crucial character in the play. She is a young middle class woman of 34 years who is working as a teacher to earn her livelihood. She was loved and appreciated by her students in the school. She was punctual in coming to the school every morning, carrying out her assignments and her courses.
She was a member of an amateur theatre group. They arrived in a village to perform an awareness-raising play on the social and current issues. Ms. Benare was preparing to present a play titled ‘Mock Trial of Lyndon B. Johnson’ at a suburban village. She introduces all her co-stars to Samant, a local villager who escorts the troupe, in their absence. She sarcastically calls Mr. Kashikar as ‘Mr. Prime Objective’, Mrs. Kashikar as ‘Mrs. Hands that Rocks the cradle’. She further says that the ‘Hands that Rocks the cradle has no cradle to rock.’ Mr. and Mrs. Kashikar were childless and had adopted Balu.
Benare wanted to live a free life, free from the patriarchal dominance and the conservative norms of the society. She displays self-determination, self-assertiveness and cynicism but is also receptive to the conventional norms of integrity. The following conversation between Benare and Samant throws light on her character:
Benare: I am the soul of seriousness. But I don’t see why one should go around all the time with the long face… we should laugh, we should play, we should sing! If we can and if they will let us, we should dance too! Should not have any false modesty or dignity or care for anyone! I mean it. When your life is over, do you think anyone will give a bit of theirs? (Silence… 8)
The Mock Trial
The actual play was scheduled to be staged in the night. The characters wanted to rehearse the drama — a mock trial — and also found it as an opportunity to dig up Leela’s past life. Sukhatme suggested the theater artists to make Ms. Benare as the accused in the mock trial. She has to perform the role of a woman who is indicted of infanticide. Mr. Kashikar played the role of the judge. Leela was accused by the Judge of the ‘Mock Law Court’ as:
Prisoner Miss Benare under section No. 302 of the Indian Penal Code, you are accused of the crime of Infanticide (foeticide). Are you guilty or not guilty of a fore mentioned crime…? (Silence… 25)
Benare replied:
I don’t like your word at all! Infanticide… Infanticide! Why don’t you accuse me instead of snatching public property…? I plead not guilty. I could not kill even a cockroach. I am scared to do it. How could I kill a new born child…? (Silence… 29–30)
Benare’s Past and Her Persecution
Ms. Benare was in love with her maternal uncle at the age of fourteen but it was a failure due to cultural bounding and limitations. She explained the way in which she was abused by her own maternal uncle:
Why, I was hardly fourteen! I didn’t even know what sin was, I didn’t! I insisted on marriage. So I could live my beautiful lovely dreams openly… But all of them — my mother too — were against it, and my brave man turned trail and ran. (Silence 74)
She failed in the love affair with her maternal uncle. He exploited her at such a tender age to satisfy his hunger for bodily pleasure. She uttered while remembering him that: “Life is a poisonous snake that bites itself. Life is a betrayal, life is a fraud. Life is a drug. Life is drudgery… Life is a dreadful thing…” (Silence… 75)
Ms. Benare studied and established herself as a teacher. She fell in love with Prof. Damle as a young woman in spite of her previous failure. Prof. Damle was a married man who also wanted to satisfy his bodily thirst. She was pregnant without marriage and this was a reason that she was discharged from her school. According to Ms. Benare:
Again I fell in love. As a grown woman. I throw all my heart into it. I thought, this will be different. This love is intelligent. It is love for an unusual intellect. It is not love at all — its worship! But it was the same mistake. I offered up my body on the altar of my worship. And my intellectual god took the offering and went his way. He didn’t want my mind, or my devotion — he didn’t care about them! He was not a god. He was a man — for him everything was the body, for the body? That is all. (Silence 73–74)
The Verdict and Its Implications
The Judge, Mr. Kashikar, orders Ms. Benare to abort her child. According to him, to have the child without marriage is against the tradition of Indian culture. Mr. Kashikar said:
The crimes you have committed are the most terrible. The mortality which you have shown forgiveness for them… through your conduct was the mortality you were planning to impart to the youth of tomorrow. It must be said that the school officials have done a work of merit in deciding to remove you from the job… There is no forgiveness… No memento of your sin should remain for the future generation. Therefore the court hereby sentences that you shall live. But the child in your womb shall be destroyed… (Silence… 67–68)
She screamed to this: “No! No! No! I won’t let you do it. I won’t let it happen, I won’t let it happen” (Silence… 76).
Ms. Benare has been loyal to her profession. She declares in the final act that she has always kept her professional life away from her personal life:
I just put my whole life into working with the children… I loved it, I taught them well… I swallowed the poison, but did not let the drop of it touch them. I taught them beauty. I taught them purity. I cried inside and made them laugh. I was cracking up with despair and I taught them hope. (Silence… 75–76)
Conclusion
Tendulkar has left the play open without suggesting any solution to the problem of Ms. Benare. He has highlighted critical problems like the squalor of the Indian judiciary system, male dominance in the society and the ostentatious institutional social organisations. The play is a derision on the middle class probity, where people have all the rights to pass judgments and silence is the only alternative left for the victim.
Benare represents all the women in India who are suppressed, oppressed and are marginalised. In the words of Candy Elizabeth:
Thus far women have been mere echoes of men. Our laws and constitution, our creeds and codes and customs of social life are all of masculine origin. The true woman is yet a dream for future… (Candy XIV–V)
Tendulkar’s play is a caustic satire on social as well as legal justice. The irony of the mock trial — that Benare is accused in the court without the presence of Prof. Damle — depicts the condemnation on the Indian society and the prejudices it carries against women.
Works Consulted
- Candy, Elizabeth. (1994) Quoted in Introduction of Feminism in our Times, Vintage Books: New York, pp. XIV–V.
- Dass, Veena Noble. (1994) ‘Women Characters in the plays of Tendulkar’, New Directions in Indian Drama, ed. Sudhakar Pandey and Freya Barya. Prestige Books: New Delhi, pp. 10.
- Indian Literature Today. (1994) Vol. I, Ed. R. K. Dhawan, New Delhi: Prestige Books, pp. 34–42.
- Tendulkar, Vijay. (1992) Silence! The Court is in Session, Oxford University Press: New Delhi.
- Tendulkar, Vijay. (1974) “Silence! The Court is in Session” translated by Priya Adarkar, Five Plays, Oxford University Press: New Delhi, pp. VII.
- Tendulkar, Vijay. (1994) Preface to Raatra Ani Itar Ekankika. 2nd Ed. Continental Publication: Pune. pp 197.
- Tendulkar, Vijay. ‘A Testament’ in Indian Literature. No. 147, Jan-Feb, pp. 92.