Gender, Power, and Patriarchy in Modern Indian Drama: The Representation of Women in Vijay Tendulkar's Silence! The Court Is in Session and Ghashiram Kotwal

This paper compares the representation of women and patriarchal power in Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court Is in Session and Ghashiram Kotwal. Through Leela Benare and Gauri, it examines two related but different forms of gendered control. Benare’s private life is turned into a public trial by people who claim to defend morality, while Gauri becomes vulnerable within an exchange shaped by her father’s political ambition and Nana Phadnavis’s authority. The paper uses feminist literary criticism, particularly the analysis of sexual politics and institutional forms of patriarchy, alongside comparative close reading. It considers dialogue, dramatic structure, the distribution of speech, the role of the chorus, and the relationship between private conduct and public authority. The discussion argues that the plays expose patriarchy not only as individual male dominance but also as a system supported by social judgement, family interests, caste hierarchy, and political patronage. Existing scholarship has discussed gender and morality in Silence! and caste, marginality, and power in Ghashiram Kotwal. This paper builds on that work by comparing how public moral policing and political exchange place women’s dignity and agency at risk. The comparison does not treat Benare and Gauri as identical figures; instead, it examines how their different dramatic positions shape their opportunities to speak and resist.