Vijay Tendulkar’s Silence! The Court is in Session is a disturbing play, first performed in 1967. It investigates gender discrimination, societal hypocrisy, and the violent undercurrents of middle-class morality. The play was originally written in Marathi (Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe) and then translated into English.
It has become a turning point in Indian theatre, because it dares to criticize how Indian society treats women, particularly those who refuse to conform to the patriarchal expectations. It examines the hidden ugliness of society, the rigidness of gender roles, and the hypocrisies of public morality.
The play is a courtroom drama, “a play within a play,” involves a mock trial where a woman named Leela Benare becomes the centre of the trial. It gradually exposes the real-life prejudices, humiliations and violence against Leela Benare, and all women in general.
The play is not a type of theatrical game though it’s set around a courtroom mock trial. It has become a ruthless social critique exposing the systematic exploitation of women and the moral decay hiding under pretentious social activism.
Silence! The Court is in Session Plot Summary
The play begins with the members of a smal theatre group, the Sonar Moti (Bombay) Tenement Progressive Association (SMTPA), arriving in a village to stage a mock trial against American President Lyndon B. Johnson for his involvement in the atomic weapons. Their hall is dusty and old, full of damaged props and portraits, which are symbols of outdated traditions and subdued voices.
Act One introduces the main characters: Miss Leela Benare, a forthright schoolteacher; Samant, a local lending a helping hand to the team; Mr. and Mrs. Kashikar, egotistical leaders of the troupe; Sukhatme, a failed lawyer; Ponkshe, a student of science; Karnik, an actor; and Balu Rokde, a subdued helper.
Benare is distinguished through her humor and independence who frequently mocks at the rest of the troupe. She has a playful interaction with Samant that shows her emotional weakness.
However, tensions lie beneath the surface. When Benare leaves for a moment, the other members plan, unknown to her, that she will be accused in the mock trial. Sukhatme notes in a serious tone that “when a woman is in the dock, the case has a different complexion.”
During the Second Act, the trial is initiated as a staged activity, but rather quickly it turns into something more sinister. Benare is charged with infanticide. The accusation which was initially part of the performance starts to reveals disturbing truths about her personal life.
The group starts to expose her supposed immoral conduct, though she refutes the accusations. They mock at her over not being married yet pregnant, and gossip about her past relationships. Motherhood and the social order are moralised by Sukhatme and Kashikar referring to scriptures and nationalistic slogans to support their judgement.
The mock becomes a real moral inquisition which reveals the group’s hidden prejudices. Benare tries to keep calm but becomes more and more defensive and disturbed emotionally.
In the Third Act, the animosity intensifies. Benare is put in the witness box but against her will by the members. They question her age, character and relationships, thus turning the scene into a public shaming. She is not defended by anyone.
The troupe reveals that Benare had solicited marriage with various men after being dumped by her lover, Prof. Damle, who is a senior member of the troupe and conveniently today. Benare is shown to be a woman of loose morals and the group gives an expletive judgment; she is a menace to the society, and her unborn child must be destroyed.
In a tear-jerking monologue, Benare at last talks to the audience, revealing the emotional scars of her childhood abuse, her betrayal by Damle and her love for her teaching job. She pleads to be left so that she can live dignified and bring up her child. Others, however disregard her hurt as part of game. The play closes with Benare lying on the floor, while others getting ready for the real evening performance. They are completely indifferent to the emotional disaster they have caused in Benare.
Silence! The Court is in Session Summary
The play is structured in three acts and takes place in a community hall where members of a theatre group, the Sonar Moti Tenement (Bombay) Progressive Association, gather to rehearse a play. They aim at inducing a social consciousness through mock trials. But, the evening soon turns personal and what initially started out as harmless rehearsal soon becomes a brutal public disgracing.
Act I: Setting the Stage
The play starts with an early arrival of Benare and Samant to the community hall. Benare is a free-spirited outspoken school teacher, who is happy chatting with Samant, a simple villager. Their interaction is superficial, but it carries hints of deeper tension. Benare talks about escaping away to a distant place and she sounds defenseless behind her jovialities. She tells Samant about drama club and other club members who are coming soon. She mocks them, makes fun of them and even criticizes them.
The hall gets lively as other members of the group arrive: Sukhatme, Karnik, Ponkshe, Mr. and Mrs. Kashikar, Rokde. The members get ready for rehearsal by arranging props such as witness stands and judges’ benches. They make small talk, bicker, and share jokes. One missing member Prof. Damle is mentioned and Benare visibly stiffens when his name comes up.
Samant is asked to replace an actor who failed to come. So as to help him understand courtroom proceedings, the group decides to stage a mock trial using Benare as the accused. During her absence for a short while, they plot to place her in the dock, unknown to her. Suddenly, the atmosphere changes from light-hearted to ominous. She is charged with infanticide – this even surprises the audience.
Act II: The Game Goes Real
Act 2 opens with Benare still dumbfounded over the allegation. At the beginning she attempts to laugh it away and consider that it is all a joke. However, the tone of the mock trial turns very quickly to dark. The person who plays prosecutor, Sukhatme starts a pompous speech on the sacredness of motherhood. Mr. Kashikar joins in and quotes Sanskrit texts to elevate the role of the mother above heaven itself.
However, this idealization of motherhood is at once contradicted by the way Benare is treated. The members of the group in turn, comment about her personal life, invented or real, with the objective of humiliating her. They hints at unmarried pregnancy, her previous love affairs, and her loose morals. Some, like Samant, make up dramatic stories in the name of “role play”. Others like Karnik and Ponkshe offer gossip as evidence. Mrs. Kashikar silently agrees with the verdict, but frequently mimicking the brutality of her husband or the group.
The trial ceases to being a fiction. It turns into an arena in which all the characters can vent out on Benare, exposing not just her personal life but also their own inner frustrations and deep-rooted prejudices. These so called “social workers” prove to be carriers of hypocrisy. Damle, the married man who is in fact responsible for Benare’s pregnancy is never on the stage, and is never judged either.
The protests being made by Benare are silenced. She attempts to state that her personal life has no place in a mock trial, but she is over-ruled. When pressure builds, she attempts to leave only to find the door locked. The locked door turns out a significant symbol: there is no escape for women like her.
Act III: Humiliation and Collapse
In Act III, the play reaches its emotional climax. Broken in sprit, Benare now does not even want to participate in trial anymore. She does not talk and they push her into the witness box. She is charged with contempt of court when she does not talk. The trial continues with increasing hostility. Each male participant plays their part in destroying her, offering cruel insights into her character, turning personal choices into criminal evidence.
It is now revealed that Benare had actually proposed marriage to a number of men in desperation in search of someone who could give her child a name and future. She was rejected by all. The judge, Mr. Kashikar insists that the child in her womb should be destroyed. The irony is bitter: it is the people who praised motherhood now declare it is a crime.
Benare eventually speaks out and provides a heart-felt monologue in the middle of the trial. She narrates to the audience how her uncle abused her when she was 14 years old, her failed love with professor Damle and her aspirations of bringing her child up with dignity. She mentions her enthusiasm of teaching, her love to children, and her desire to live freely. Her monologue is probably the strongest element of the play that reveals the inhumanity of society and the heartbreak it causes to women who dare to live outside its norms.
No one listens to her words though. The mock trial goes on and she is proved guilty. The others dismiss the entire evening as “just a game.” They laugh, grin and get ready for the evening’s performance in front of the people. Left alone on stage, Benare is lying motionless. The curtain falls on her broken spirit, symbolising that there is no justice even in the game-play for women like her.
Conclusion
Silence! The Court is in Session is one of the most powerful attacks on the treatment of women in middle-class Indian society. Using the mock trial as a device, Tendulkar reveals the speed at which people are ready to humiliate, judge and wipe out a woman when she fails to fit. The law, the grand speeches on morality, and the idea of social reform are all tools of repression when handled by unkind hands.
Using the silence of Benare and her last monologue, Tendulkar speaks out on behalf of thousands of women who are slaves of Indian tradition, scandals and inhumanity. The play ends with no resolution but a haunting question: how many more Benare-like women will have to fall before the society truly changes?
Silence! The Court is in Session: Critical Appreciation
Play within a Play
At the core of the play lies “play within a play” structure. The members of the Sonar Moti Tenement Progressive Association (SMTPA), ostensibly social reformers, gather to rehearse a mock trial. The play starts as a rehearsal of amateur dramatics, and turns into a quite real emotional and psychological attack on one of the members of the troupe, Miss Leela Benare.
This “play within a play” dramatic technique is frequently likened to Friedrich Durrenmatt’s “The Visit and The Traps,” from which Tendulkar was obviously inspired, serves multiple purposes:
- It blurs the border between performance and reality.
- It can be seen as a reflection of the practices of the society where people adopt roles, judgmental about others and hide beneath collective morality.
- It demonstrates that even the false accusations can reveal the actual prejudices.
In such a layering of structure, Tendulkar is critiques theatre as a complacent medium and the society’s liking for moral theatre.
The Character of Leela Benare
The emotional center in the play is Miss Leela Benare, a strong-willed independent schoolteacher. At first, she is playful, teasing, and self-confident and capable of standing up against men. However, when the rehearsal turns sinister, she finds herself as an accused in a staged trial for a crime of infanticide.
What happens next is a symbolic public shaming. Every male character (and even Mrs. Kashikar) joins in tearing apart her personal life. Her supposed crime, being pregnant without being married, becomes the base for depicting her as immoral and unfit for society.
Benare is an educated and economically independent woman who is very passionate about teaching. However, these very good qualities when accompanied by her pregnancy and unmarried status are dangerous. She is punished by the society not for a real crime but for daring to live at her own terms.
In her tragic final monologue, she says:
“I want to live. I want a child. I don’t care whether it’s fathered by Damle or anyone else.”
It is a rare moment in Indian drama where a woman declares her desire, her autonomy, and her right to motherhood without the consent of the patriarchy. Her voicing is both a personal rebellion and a universal indictment of society.
Mock Trial as a Metaphor
The miniature court is a metaphor for the larger societal and judicial mechanisms that oppress women. Through Sukhatme (the lawyer), Kashikar (the judge), and others, Tendulkar unmasks the pretence of justice. Instead of it becoming a space for debate and reason, the stage is transformed into a theatre of cruelty.
Although the trial is a mock trial, it draws blood. All the principles of fairness are broken by the group: Benare is accused in her absence, the charges are abstract and false, and she is not given a real defence. Her inability to talk is interpreted as guilt, her outburst of emotions is regarded as evidence of wrongdoing.
This misuse of judicial language and form demonstrates how institutions – legal, educational, or even familial – serve patriarchal power when wielded by biased minds.
Themes in the Play
Hypocrisy of the Social Reform
Ironically, the SMTPA group is very dedicated in social awareness. However, these so called progressives suddenly become moral inquisitors. Characters such as Kashikar and Sukhatme are symbols of the empty ideals of the middle-class activism, being more interested in dominating others than uplifting or enlightening others.
Patriarchy and Sexual Policing
Infanticide is not the key crime that Benare has committed and punished for. Tendulkar draws attention to the double standards: men like Damle (who impregnated her) are protected, while Benare is condemned. If it is a crime, then both are equally condemnable. Yet, the women are easily punished while men are intentionally protected without guilt. The play indicates that sexuality in women is treated as a crime especially when not channelled through wedlock.
Silence and Speech
The title itself (Silence! The Court Is in Session) reveals an obsession with silence as discipline. Benare’s final outburst breaks the courtroom etiquette and compels the audience to feel guilty towards her truth. Contrarily, her silence in the court is not her nature but it is imposed by the court, contrasting the talking malice of the group. In this, Tendulkar denounces the systematic suppression of the women’s voice.
Group Psychology and Moral Vigilantism
The behaviour of the group resembles a mob justice. When one insults Benare, others quickly join in, emboldened by collective immunity. This phenomenon echoes the Durkheim’s theory on how societies impose social rules on their members through shame and scapegoating.
Symbolism and Irony
Tendulkar Uses Symbolism Masterfully:
- The locked door that Benare attempts to open symbolises the closed opportunities before her.
- The toy parrot at the end becomes a symbol of both her voicelessness and weakness.
- Her inner child and pain are also expressed through Nursery Rhymes and Poems incorporated into the play, such as the sparrow’s song.
The irony is cynical and repeated: it is the most moralisers who prove to be the most corrupt: like Kashikar, Sukhatme, even Mrs. Kashikar. Tendulkar exposes not just personal faults but cultural collaboration.
Theatric Influence and Style
The drama of Tendulkar is much indebted to both Indian folk forms and the modernism of the West:
- His stage props are kept to minimum, stage action is continuous, and stage dialogue is realistic, reminding Ibsen and Brecht.
- The influence of Artaud’s “Theatre of Cruelty” can be traced in the manner how psychological torture replaces physical violence. This cruelty is subtle but so destructive.
- His intertextual like Tarabai Shinde’s Stri Purush Tulana and the 19th century reformers such as Karve and Agarkar, land the play in historical feminist thought.
An Uncomfortable Mirror
Silence! The Court is in Session is one of the most significant plays in Indian history, not just because of its dramatic superiority, but also because it had the audacity of challenging the social taboos in a time when female sexuality was out-of-bound on the stage.
It is not simply a play of a single woman’s trial. It is a trial of a society that is afraid of independent women, punishes non-conformity and masking its brutality behind laws and institutions. The drama by Tendulkar is not only a cry for justice; it is also a call to look in ourselves.
The play ends with a strong image: Benare lies motionless collapsed, while the others prepare for the evening’s performance, as if nothing happened. This callousness is the final judgment. Though the court may have adjourned, the final judgement may be left to the audience.
Silence! The Court is in Session Characters
Leela Benare
Leela Benare the main character who is a schoolteacher. She is out-spoken, jovial and self-reliant, but finds herself in a mock trial on the ground of moral turpitude. Her sad circumstances spell out hypocrisy in society.
Samant
An imperceptible, simple, and pleasant village man who gives assistance to the troupe. A good character in the beginning when it comes to Benare, he later participates in the trial exhibiting how even the normal people become involved in inhumane acts.
Sukhatme
A failed lawyer who acts as the prosecution in the mock trial. He is boorish and arrogant who relies on legal language to make prejudice and moralistic charges against Benare.
Mr. Kashikar
The self-proclaimed chairman and the mock judge. He is controlling and traditional, representing the moral authority of patriarchal society.
Mrs. Kashikar
An uneducated woman who is known only through her husband’s identity. She is obedient to her husband and she takes part in judging Benare.
Ponkshe
A failed science student and a clerk. He is insecure and he once declined Benare’s marriage proposal which is later used to shame her.
Karnik
An actor in the troupe, sharp and sarcastic. He participates in the teasing of Benare and spreads gossips, and contributes to her humiliation.
Balu Rokde
A young helper raised who was brought up by the Kashikars. He is timid and obedient, yet he share harming gossip regarding Benare.
Prof. Damle
A respected member of the troupe but is absent. He is the father of the unborn baby of Benare but he avoids to take responsibility. His absence points to the fact that powerful men escape judgement.
The Cloth Parrot
A green toy brought by Samant. Symbolic of Benare – colourful, caged, and silenced. It is left beside her in the final scene.
The Un-born Child
One who is never seen yet is the center of the trial. It represents both Benare’s hope and society’s rejection of a woman’s independence.