Abha Shukla Kaushik
The White Tiger : The Shadowy Side of Booming India
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, Harper Collins, Price: Rs 395, Pages: 321
Aravid Adiga bagged the Man Booker Prize 2008 for his debut novel ‘The White Tiger’, and has no doubt been highly praised in the mainstream media as a result. The novel is a social commentary and a study of injustice and power in the form of a class struggle in India that depicts the anti-hero Balram representing the downtrodden sections of the Indian society juxtaposed against the rich. ‘The White Tiger’ protagonist exposes the rot in the three pillars of modern India - democracy, enterprise and justice – reducing them to the tired clichés of a faltering nation. It is set in the backdrop of the economic boom in India that has ushered in a great chasm between the haves and have-nots. In the novel, he writes about the binary nature of Indian culture: the Light and the Darkness and how the caste system has been reduced to “Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies”.
Adiga's novel is rich in detail – from the (often corrupt) working of the police force to the political system, from the servant classes of the Delhi to the businessmen of Bangalore. It is fiercely critical of a country where the only way to succeed is through the corruption that fuels the entire system. Families trade their sons for dowries, and expect every penny earned in the city to be sent back to the village. Businessmen flourish by providing constant bribes to politicians. Doctors are too busy treating rich patients to actually treat poor people, despite drawing salaries from the state to do so. Policemen "solve" crimes based on who pays the highest price. Politicians buy votes, making a mockery of the democracy India is so famous for.
The story unfolds the way Balram breaks out to his new found freedom from a caged life of misery through crime and cunning. This is a reflection of contemporary India, calling attention to social justice in the wake of economic prosperity. It is a novel about the emerging new India which is pivoted on the great divide between the haves and have-nots with moral implications.
In portraying the character of Balram, Adiga has excelled in projecting a typical psychopath / sociopath, our society can churn out. The novel exposes the ferociousness of the man who after bloodletting through murder will turn out to be a man-eater himself. What guarantees if he will not commit murders for reasons of rivalry in his entrepreneurial world of cut throat competition. Revenge murder is no solution to bring about social justice. Subscribing to his principle of taking law into his own hands, will lead only to anarchy and escalation of violence.
Excessive economic inequalities and unwarranted delay in applying the remedies for them are often the causes of such dissention. Besides, quest for power and total disregard for human rights helps escalate violence and strife among men. Let not the law of the jungle prevail as Adiga has proven through his protagonist. Mere anarchy and chaos will prevail if an evil is hatched to counter another evil. However, The White Tiger should make every right thinking citizen to read the signs of the times and be socially conscious of the rights and duties of each one, irrespective of caste, creed or economic status, to prevent create the types of Ashok and Balram in our society.