The White Tiger: A Challenge to the Ethnic Codes of India

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The White Tiger: A Challenge to the Ethnic Codes of India

Name:  Pritiba B. Gohil

Roll No. :  21

Course No. 13: The New Literature

Topic :- The White Tiger: A Challenge to the Ethnic Codes of India

M.A. English Semester - 4

Batch: 2014 - 2016

Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Submitted  To :

Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad,

Head of the Department,

Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Introduction :-

The White Tiger is the debut novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It was first published in 2008 and won the 40th Man Booker Prize in the same year. The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India’s class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy.

Aravind Adiga is an Indian-Australian writer and journalist. He was born on 23 October 1974 in Madras.

The White Tiger by Arvinda Adiga tells two interrelated and interested stories about Balram and his success in life, his success causes moral decay. Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest is very applicable to the novel. But what are really matters a lot in this novel is changing phase of morality, which can be considered as new morality which is full of immortal items.

How the white tiger challenge the ethnic codes of India?

Let’s have a look on this question very deeply with some basic arguments.

The way writer has narrates the Nation and the character is a bit shock full to the readers. India has changed its face and the new face is full of crime and corruption.

The situation has become in such a way that none will believe another one easily. The image of India is changed and it is worse than the prior where the humanity and honesty was at the centre of Indian’s Heart.

The novel presents the elements of darkness and light of India. It talks about the journey of darkness to light. How Balram Halwai, as a son of poor rickshaw puller, escaped a life of servitude to become a successful businessman, describing himself as an Entrepreneur.

Balram being the hero of the novel talks about his life to Mr. Jiabao. He begins the story by telling about his service at tea-shop with his brother at Dhanbad. While working in the tea-shop he begins to learn about India’s government and economy from the customer’s Conversation. Balram describe himself as a bad servant and decides to be a Rich person.

He learns how to drive and got a job at Mr.Ashok’s house. Balram moves to Delhi and worked at Mr.Ashok’s place as driver cum Servant. Being a servant he learned lot of things about the harsh reality of life.

The White Tiger is the form of seven letters to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao who is planning to visit India and the letters are delivered by a Bangalore Businessman Balram Halwai. In these letters he tells him his journey from Munna to the White Tiger, the portrayal of New India. When he becomes a driver of a rich family in New Delhi, he learns that success often involves corruption, cruelty and inhumanity.

Delhi has become the synonym of crime and corruption. The situation has become in a way strange that none believe another one easily.

Newspapers, now, speak of the cases of exploitation, mal-practice, cheating, murder, bribery, fraud, etc. the image of India is changed and it is worse than the prior one when honesty and humanity was at heart of India.

This is how the novel challenges the Ethnic codes which make people aware of moral values but those values are subsiding day by day in India. 

One more thing which is highlighted in the novel is communication between rival countries India and China. Both these countries are emerging as next powerful country of the world and Adiga has shown this idea even in the novel. As Balram Halwai sends the Chinese premier letters, it means he makes him aware of Indian culture and moral aspects. China is far better so far as their moral codes are concerned.

The White Tiger is his rebuke of the cheerful and false notions of a new and transformed India. Adiga has travelled various parts of the country including places whose backwardness has shocked his sensibility. He himself says about this novel that it has been the fruit of his labours as a reporter.

Balram Halwai writes about three countries with admiration;

Only three nations have never let themselves be ruled by foreigners: China, Afghanistan, and Abyssinia. These are only three nations I admire. (The White Tiger)

Furthermore, Adiga writes;

The future of the world lies with the yellow man and brown man because “our erstwhile master, the white skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage and drug abuse.”

(The White Tiger)

As it is mentioned earlier, he tries to portray the picture of India, and India- China are emerging countries.

This novel also presents the elements of darkness in the entire book. Balram Halwai comes from Biharic-rural area and in New Delhi and Bangalore becomes villain’s character. His actions question the morality of India. It is the country where the myths of Gods and Goddesses exist, where the martyrs became the winners, where Gandhiji was born and where humanity was at the heart.

Now, the condition is changed, the myths are washed away and the Gandhian ideologies become ancestral and the martyrs become the foolish who sacrificed their lives for their patriarchy.

 Balram is not only a hero but a modern –Indian hero, and modern heroes are different from their ancestors. Balram, at the same time, is not only an entrepreneur but also a roguish criminal with a remarkable capacity of self-justification.

The characters also seem superficial. Balram’s boss and his wife, Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam, are caricatures of the insensitive upper-class, cruel to and remote from their employs. Balram and other driver Ram Prasad go for buying liquor for his boss. This is the present India where wine becomes the livelihood of modern man and people openly accept it and enjoy it. The White Tiger also shows this mentality of Indian.

It advocates the idea of crime similar to the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo, at the very beginning of the novel he writes;

Behind every great fortune there is a Great Crime  - Balzac

(The Godfather by Mario Puzo)

Same thing is similar to this novel and to the character of Balram Halwai, as his fortune and his modernity as a master become a part of crime. He murders Mr. Ashok, his master, to whom he was merely a driver but as he shows modern India, kills his master and breaks the ethnic codes of India.

West culture and tradition have affected Indian society in a way that Indian people even have surpassed all the levels of immorality.

In the novel, the present situation of India is demonstrated for example, there is the voting system and it is already pre-planned whoever will become next minister is decided at the beginning and sometimes they force people to vote particular party.

For example, Vijay, the bus conductor attacks and insults the rickshaw-puller for election. Indian water system, roads, hospitals get repaired or established when the election comes close. People cheer up the Great Socialists saying that “Long live the Great Socialist.” But those socialists are corrupted, they have reached to their success by committing crime or murder which is the dark side of India.

This is how the moral ideas are broken down by those who crush the poor people and slaves. Munna is the poor boy but when experiences reach to him, he puts his step forward to Mr. Ashok. In older India, the multiculturalism prevailed and all the castes and cultures lived together like bread and butter, but, the present condition says something else about India.

Now, there is no relation between Hindu and Muslim at least not that much of the prior one. The number of murder rape and revenge is increasing each day.

This is how the writings of the novel challenge the Ethical elements of India, as Mukesh says to Ashok,

This is India, not America. There’s always a way out here. (The White Tiger. pg-121)

With the help of  Mukesh’ statement, it becomes clear what exactly he does is the comparison between India and America so far as their moral conduct is concerned.

America is far better than India because the people are not that far corrupted, first of all for them their nationality becomes important and then other matters come as its follower. They give priority to their nation whereas; Indian people are always concerned about their own advantages. Patriarchy has evaporated from the mind of the nationalists.

The novel also advocates the Marxist theory of all are equal but the novel does not deal with the idea of social values. Balram kills Mr. Ashok to be equal to him but at the same time he becomes a murderer.

That’s why it is said that,

All Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others.

 - Animal Farm (1945)

The Indian nation has failed somewhere and the statue of Gandhiji in The White Tiger is shown differently than the statue of him in Delhi.

It also presents the ideas of class conflict, society division and rapidly changing world. Bourgeoisie class is at the centre because the number of this class people is highest than any other and also it shows that progress can make an unmake civilization, as it is called unethical progress.

The idea of uniform is also very big thing in this novel. For example, dress, fashion, popular magazine, popular music, slang, television and internet are demonstrated as alternative subversive cultures as against the established standard cultures. There are layers of cultures like high culture and low culture. It is having consumption behaviour like if you have money you spend.

Idea of success overtakes humanity which happens in the novel The White Tiger. Changing behaviour and changing language become a share of this novel.

Conclusion :-

Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger observes the competitive “Jungle Law” current in Indian culture by demonstrating how the traditional values and behaviours of the caste system are undermined by the Western ideas of individualism and capitalism which imply the fittest survive and succeed.

The desperately clinging traditions of caste prohibit success and advancement, thus the only way to improve one's self is to betray such institutions.

Work Sited :-

·        preserve.lehigh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2499&context=etd

·        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Tiger

·        patelpayal321011.blogspot.com/2012/04/e-c-401-new-literature.html

·        kuvadiyadeepika092011.blogspot.com/2013/04/new-literature.html

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