Discuss Silence! The Court is in Session as a social satire.

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.

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.