The Power of the Patriarchy
The play is all about male domination. Benare is put on trial for being an unmarried single woman in her thirties. It is disguised as a trial about a criminal violation of the sanctity of motherhood, but make no mistake: Benare is guilty because she is a single, unmarried pregnant woman, and that makes her dangerous to men who live for the institution of marriage to codify their dominance over women. That the man who fathered the illegitimate child growing inside her escapes being put on trial and garnering punishment is merely the cherry topping the patriarchal sundae.
The Failure of the Justice System
The play is about a mock trial. Actually, it is about a mock mock trial: the actual mock trial is scheduled to take place later, and what is witnessed on stage is a quickly slapped-together improvisation. So, right from the start, the judicial system is being mercilessly satirized. The mocking of the inherent systemic unfairness of the Indian court system continues on unabated as it inexorably moves toward its centerpiece: a judge who takes the witness stand and a single lawyer representing both the prosecution and the defense.
Seeming and Being
To Benare, the mock trial is a personal attack against her morality and independence. To the others, it is merely a game. To Karnik, a minor character, the idea of the trial as a game simply means nothing more than a chance to perform; he has no real interest in attacking Benare for her behavior. For the prosecuting attorney Sukhatme, the insistence that the trial is not really an assault upon the woman, but rather upon the fictional crimes of the character she is playing, is much more complex. The entire conceit of the mock trial of a fictional defendant being a façade that obscures the truth parallels the aforementioned theme of "respect for motherhood" really being a façade for protecting male dominance.
The Bystander Effect
Samant seems like a generally nice man: humble, a little naive, friendly, and undesirous of lying or being intentionally cruel. Throughout the first part of Benare's trial, he hangs back and observes with almost childlike wonder. As things become more intense, he seems a little flummoxed, especially more so than others. However, when he is asked to take the stand and to, for all intents and purposes, spin a convincing and damning lie about Benare, he might start off nervous but soon warms to his task and delivers searing "testimony." This is an example of a version of the bystander effect, according to which otherwise nice and normal people are reluctant to intervene when something terrible befalls someone else in their view. It melds with a sort of group-think bullying, which is why Samant goes along with the others' cruelty and cannot help himself from adding his own contributions.
India After Independence
Though the text does not really mention anything specific about the time and place, hints of India's post-independence world seep in. Perhaps the most conspicuous way in which the current moment manifests itself is in the debate over Benare's behavior as a "modern" woman. She is everything traditionalists fear: independent, smart, bold, sexual, witty, and iconoclastic. Since child marriage is outlawed (Kashikar rues) and other norms governing women's behavior have somewhat loosened in the 1960s, someone like Benare can generally live as she pleases. However, the text implies that she cannot live this way without facing severe backlash from her contemporaries who are less likely to embrace this new, "permissive," putatively morally bankrupt society.
The Failings of the Middle Class
Tendulkar harshly satirizes the middle class, the members of which feel that they are superior to those below them and see their purpose in life as a didactic one: to minister to inferior people through their theatre performances dealing with issues of "social significance." These social workers, students, actors, lawyers, and professors are hollow and hypocritical; they are unhappy with their own lives and channel that unhappiness into persecuting others. They are carping and conniving, petty and vicious; Tendulkar has no sympathy for their limited worldviews and selfishness.
Hypocrisy
Most of Benare's persecutors are complete hypocrites, ignoring their own shortcomings in their tendentious pursuit of bettering society through oppressing its supposed malefactors. The manifestations of their hypocrisy are all unique to their persons, but they have in common the inability to let Benare live as she pleases, working zealously to condemn her for not adhering to patriarchal dictates of behavior, thought, and sentiment.
