Echoing Pang of Subjugated and Subaltern: A Study of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger
Abstract:
Postcolonialism, as a critical literary theory, encompasses a wide range of serious issues concerning the lives and ideology of the colonized nations and its people. The social unrest caused by inequality, class difference and uneven economic conditions in India are diluting the ethical standards across the masses. The value system of the colonized countries has drastically changed in the aftermath of colonization. The people, who fought unitedly against the British Empire without any sort of differences of caste, creed, race, religion and financial status, have grown hostile to each other today. Social, political and economic conditions in post-colonial India are changing rapidly. The disparity between the rich and the poor is seriously growing wider. Atrocities, exploitation, injustice and subjugation of the poor at the hands of the rich has been a mundane affair. Corruption and crime are the offspring of these changed trends and times. As a postcolonial text, ‘The White Tiger’ depicts the condition of the poor and marginalized in all its complexity in the post-liberalized Indian society. Marginality, in the novel, is seen as a systemic condition that is sustained through the hegemonic exercise of power by one group of people over another. The present article sheds light on the plight of the subaltern and subjugated of post-independence India with reference to Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger’. The young promising Indo Australian novelist Aravind Adiga has very artistically addressed these diverse issues in his debut, 2008 Booker winner masterpiece, ‘The White Tiger’. Adiga has described social unrest in Indian society while raising important and urgent issues such as poverty, hunger, oppression, social inequality, and injustice based on caste, religion and class through the story of a man, who came from a modest background, to attain entrepreneurial success by resorting through foul means. Aravind Adiga is very solemnly and modestly advocating the ardent need of changes in the social, economic and political conditions to harness the welfare of Indian society.
Keywords: Subaltern, subjugation, oppression, marginalized, colonized, post-colonialism
Introduction:
Indian writing in English has created its unique identity in line with the literature being written in the regional languages. It is also apparent that there is ample scope for critical evaluation of any work of Indian writing in English through the lens of various critical theories like postcolonial, postmodern and others. The upsurge in this context has been witnessed like never before. Ever since around 1930s, a trend has been witnessed wherein the works of Indian writers writing in English have attempted to present the colonial encounter with the British rule. The literature being produced in other colonized nations have also played domineering role in shaping the texture of the Indian writing in English especially in terms of voicing the oppressions, tyranny, subjugation, exploitation and so on being experienced during colonized times. It can be fairly claimed that the outcry of the colonized and post colonized India is nicely portrayed through various literary genres of the Indian writing in English. By appropriating the colonizer’s language, the colonized tries to express his struggle over his identities of place, history, race and culture, and the reality of his self to the global audience. This has played instrumental role in making the trampled and suppressed raise their voice against the colonized supremacy and oppressions.
Plot of The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga:
The White Tiger, authored by Aravind Adiga, is an epistolary novel comprising of letters written by Balram Halwai to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabo, who is on a visit to India to learn from his entrepreneurial success. Balram tells the Premier of his move from the impoverished village of Laxmangarh to New Delhi to become a chauffeur, the murder of his boss and his absconding to Bangalore to start his own successful taxi company. The vicissitudes of Balram Halwai’s life are poignantly presented showing the readers how the son of a puller managed to escape the life of servitude and became a successful entrepreneur.
Balram was born into a lower middle class family of a small village in Gaya district. He lived there with his grandmother, parents, brother and extended family. Despite being very bright, he had to leave his studies to help his family pay for his cousin sister’s dowry. He and his brother were employed in a tea stall in Dhanbad. Balram, being a patient listener, learnt a lot about Indian economy and the government from the conversations of the customers. Having worked there for some time, he decides to take up driving as a profession. He manages to learn driving and accepts the job as a driver of Ashok, son of a landlord from Laxmangarh. His ability as a skilful driver makes him favourite of Ashok and he makes him the main driver of his luxurious Honda City Car. Balram is making remarkable progress, but he grows self-centred and oblivious to the family relations. He stops sending money back to his family and disrespects everyone in his family.
Balram witnesses the corruption and bribe culture in government when he moves to Delhi as a driver of Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam. The difference between the rich and the poor come to fore more brightly as they live side by side. In drunken state one night, Pinky forcibly takes the driver seat from Balram, runs over the car and kills a child. Ashok's family asks Balram to confess that he had been driving the car. Ashok becomes increasingly involved in bribing government officials to win their favour for the family coal business of Ashok. Tempted by the greed, Balram decides to kill Ashok to become rich overnight and to escape India's Rooster Coop – the metaphor coined by Balram to describe the destitute condition of the poor in India. The innocent rustic boy transforms into a cruel unscrupulous youth! One day he bludgeons Ashok with a bottle and runs away to Bangalore with a large sum of money of bribe. Balram has mastered the art of turning the winds to his favour in the company of Ashok. He employs all the skills of getting things done by hook or crook. In Bangalore, he bribes a police officer to help him launch a taxi service business. Like Ashok, he settles the run over case of one of his drivers by paying a sum of money to the poor family. Balram justifies his deeds by claiming that he deserves the freedom and the property as a reward for the sufferings he underwent at the hands of the rich like Ashok.
‘India Shines’ - a reality or a myth?
Globalization has sharply impacted trade, commerce and industry the world over with exchange of knowledge and innovative technologies at the core. The governments promote industries, offer subsidies and relax the norms to encourage industrial development. Start-ups, innovations and incubation are encouraged to make the country self-reliant. Indian government has launched various missions like ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atmanrbhar Bharat’ for encouraging the entrepreneurs to produce the goods needed within the country to preserve the foreign exchange. Such initiatives and promotions generate a large number of jobs for the country men and contribute significantly in attaining, improving and maintaining the estimated figures of GDP. The government earns revenue by imposing tax and these money are used in developing the infrastructure. All this looks optimistic on the surface, but there is a darker side to this promising picture. The government takes credit for the development to win the favour and to remain in the power. In fact, the bigger share of this progress goes to the one with the capital and the poor has to struggle very hard to make his two ends meet! The novel shows the hidden truth behind India’s entrepreneurship through the protagonist who becomes a “self-made entrepreneur” after committing murder of his master and usurping his wealth.
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, in the truest sense, is a critique on the so-called progress and prosperity dictum ‘India Shines’. Aravind Adiga presents the real condition and perennial sufferings of the deprived sections in India - the lower strata – that constitute over three quarters of the total population and are exploited by the privileged classes constituting only twenty five percent of the Indian population. Deprivation and subjugation mark their lives and relegate them to the status of the subaltern who cannot speak. They are assigned no significance nor are they cared for despite their being essential part of the country’s culture. Balram Halwai, the protagonist of The White Tiger, expresses his anger towards the ill-treatment of the poor when he says, “. . . in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days there are only two castes: Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat or get eaten up” (TWT 64). This brings out the gulf between the rich and the poor prevalent in Indian society. In the words of Samual Missal, “The marginality is, undoubtedly, the outcome of privatization. liberalization and globalization policies that had been let loose in the Indian economy in 1991 and it has accentuated further deprivation of the underclass.”
By depicting the life of the poor and the innocent, the author attacks the rotten political system, economic structure, degradation of moral values and increased corruption in every walk of life in India. When the country goes through all these evils, the author wonders how anyone could chant a slogan ‘India shines’. The social divide based on economic condition is too apparent in present India. Adiga has expressed his serious concern for this in the novel. He is well-aware of the dire consequences this situation can lead to.
The sole objective of Adiga in writing this novel is to catch the voice of the people whom we see in every nook and corner of India - the colossal underclass. Though India claims to be in the race of becoming a super power due to its booming economy, it is still nearer to darkness. The author brings forth this dark side of India by highlighting a number of issues related to the new world order such as multinational capitalism, global imperialism, class and caste discriminations etc. that prove ‘India Shining’ dictum a mere myth.
Suppression and subjugation of subaltern:
The White Tiger hints at the gap between the wealthy capitalists and the rustic; the oppressor and the oppressed; the subjugator and the subjugated. The subjugated are subjected to suffer socially, politically, culturally and professionally at the hands of the capitalists. They are helpless to raise their voice and powerless to resist the exploitation and humiliation imposed on them. They remain inarticulate and tolerate the oppressions silently with a strong will to end the suffering. They have the instinct of rebellion, but they maintain their loyalty to their masters even with the strong desire to break the chains. In fact, it was Balram’s father who instils in him the thought of becoming a man, not to live and die as a slave thus provoking him to pursue the goal of becoming one of those men in the light. He says, “My whole life I have been treated like a donkey. All I want is that one son of mine – at least one – should live like a man” (TWT 26).
Balram expresses his displeasure and protests against the way the underclass has remained a slave. Mark his words when he says:
In the temple, you will find a picture of a monkey in the color of saffron, a half man - a monkey: This is Hanuman, God is the favorite of all, in the dark. Do you know about Hanuman, sir? He was a faithful servant of God Rama, so we worship him in our temples that he is a great example is how his teachers serve with absolute loyalty, love and devotion. These are the types of gods that have imposed on us, Mr. Jiabo. Now I realized how difficult it is for a man is to find freedom in India. (TWT 19)
On another occasion Balram expresses his protest thus: “A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 percent to exist in perpetual servitude; a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man’s hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse” (TWT 176).
Adiga portrays the different images of India – India of Light and India of Dark. He attacks the affluent and corporate giants who as the uncrowned rulers of the country control the political leaders and the government officials and make them act according to their whims and fancies. They hypnotize the general public by building infrastructure and making them believe that the country is progressing, employment opportunities are growing, increase of per capita income, economic growth and improvement in financial status. The fact is that the people belonging to this category are very few compared to a large majority who struggle every day to make their both ends meet. They are the victims of oppression and subjugation: they are the subaltern that cannot speak.
The ‘Rooster Coop’ Metaphor:
The central theme of the novel is suppression. It is at many junctures in the novel that Baram voices his anger borne out of the helplessness and dependency. He feels disappointed by the state of life he and the people of his class are in. He says:
Look at the men, working in the tea shop - men, I say, but better to call them human spiders that go crawling in between and under the tables with rags in their hands, crushed humans in crushed uniforms, sluggish, unshaven, in their thirties or forties or fifties but still “boys.” But that is your fate if you do your job well—with honesty, dedication, and sincerity the way Gandhi would have done it, no doubt. (TWT 51)
Adiga has used the metaphor of Rooster Coop’ to delineate the helpless condition of the lower strata people of India. He believes that the roosters guarding the chicken coop recognize the fact that they are ready for slaughter but are unwilling to run away. This presents the lower strata people are destined to live. Balram expresses his anguish for this condition when he says:
“… Go to Old Delhi …. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly coloured roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, stiff as worms in the stomach, pecking and shitting each other and only biting their breath. …. They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country (TWT 173-74).
The Rationale of ‘The White Tiger’:
Balram is smart, honest and upbeat guy in a crowd of thugs and idiots. He is the only student in the class who can read phrases written by the school inspector on the blackboard. Having been impressed by his talent, the inspector calls him ‘a white tiger’. This phrase stands for ‘the one with unique qualities’ as ‘white tiger’ is a rare breed. It appears that the school inspector could foresee that he (Balram) would do something extraordinary in his life. Balram’s growth from a poor village boy to a successful business symbolizes his convincing fight to free from the brutal society. The title of the novel ‘The White Tiger’ is suggestive of the fierce powers that the tiger possesses. It symbolizes courage, bravery and superiority. The White Tiger, being a rare species, symbolizes power and prominence in East Asian culture. It stands as a symbol for freedom, free will and individuality. Tiger, as an animal, can never be a slave; it can only be the master. A caged tiger displays great power the way it walks inside the cage, desires freedom, waits for the right moment and grabs the opportunity. Freedom, according to Balram, is financial prosperity and limitless power in society. Balram, like a ‘White Tiger’ escapes from the life of bondage, restrictions and slavery. On seeing a caged tiger in the zoo, he gets hypnotized by its movements and identifies himself with the caged tiger: “The tiger was hypnotizing himself by walking like this – that was the way he could tolerate this cage” (TWT 237). Balram grows fierce having suffered severely. Gregory Elizabeth marks, “The white tiger within him decides “‘to spill a little blood’ on his way to independence.” Balram acquires freedom from the shackles y killing Ashok. “I‟ve made it! I‟ve broken out of the coop!” (TWT 275). He is so mesmerized by the limitless powers of the tiger that he calls his taxi company ‘White Tiger Technology Drivers’.
The oppressed class gets acquainted with the life style of their masters, their strengths and their weaknesses and then wait for an opportunity to hit back. They also have the seeds of evils in them and these evils finally force them to challenge the existing order – the man-made order of discrimination on the basis of caste and class – the oppressed revolt against the oppressor. When a subaltern is given voice, he\she can speak in a powerful language that can challenge the pillars of established social order. When a subaltern raises his voice, he starts questioning and that is what Balram does in this novel. On watching the world around him, on seeing the treacherous ways in which people involve themselves in this shining India, Balram decides to shine. This is a way of protest against exploitation, and suppression of his class. As a typical voice of the colonized, he struggles to set himself free from age-old slavery and bondage. His anger and frustration make him protest and he gets involved in criminal activities and vices of the society such as prostitution, drinking, grabbing all the opportunities that come his way and even goes to the extent of killing his master. Balram truly stands for the exploited class.
What looks fair to Balram is a crime in reality. Justice carries a certain intuitive, virtuous quality as it encompasses a sense of fairness, merit and equality. How should the justice be reviewed if it is entailed by a violent act of murder? Adiga has nicely portrayed Balram’s liking of justice tainted with violence through the plight of a subaltern character. It is through the perspective of a poor character that Adiga seeks to thematize law within the novel, just like the way through the corruption of a forced confession for a fatal hit-and-run accident actually committed by his boss’s wife.
Balram, on the surface a crook who kills his master to attain success, is internally a spokesperson of underdogs. Circumstances make him what he becomes. He shows his humanitarian and liberal attitude to the real education of the underprivileged masses. The real end of education is, Balram thinks, to make human beings real human beings full of human qualities. He says, “After three or four years in real estate, I think I might sell everything, take the money, and start a school – an English language school – for poor children in Bangalore. A school where you won’t be allowed to corrupt anyone’s head with prayers and stories about God or Gandhi – nothing but the facts of life for their kids. A school full of White Tigers, unleashed on Bangalore!” (TWT 319)
By highlighting the subaltern issue, Adiga reiterates that if a country claims ‘to be shining’, it has to deal with the problems of ‘darkness’ - the sufferings of the colonized and to transform their lives. Then only can we hope to see India ‘truly shining’. Until then it remains only in words, but not in action. Krishna Singh quotes the words of Aravind Adiga:
At a time when India is going through great changes and with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society…. Criticism by writers like Flaubert, Balzac and Dickens in the 19th century helped England and France to become better societies. That’s why I am trying to do – it’s not an attack on the country, it’s about the greater process of self-examination.
Conclusion:
Chaos and turmoil are indicative of the required changes to be effected soon without much delay to guard against the probable disorder, damage and destruction. Social inequality and injustice carry with them revolution on the other end of the tunnel. When the oppressions cross all the limits, it calls for ‘fight to finish’. ‘To struggle with the circumstances’ is an integral part of everybody’s life. Fight, being the essential impulse, assigns inner strength to one. Indian English literature portrays many such struggles in various genres. Aravind Adiga, by writing The White Tiger, has hinted at the volcano in the form of frustration in the hearts of the suppressed class of Indian society. The novel deals with the social exclusion of the person who carries with him incorrigible wounds of social stigma and destitution. The actions and reactions of Balram Halwai result from his plight. He suffers from endless existential crisis from which there is no escape. Aravind Adiga, by writing this novel, is urging the decision makers, the legal system and the intellectuals to prioritize this task of reforming their lives. He fears that the volcano of anger may erupt anytime and it will cause wide-spread devastation and destruction. He urges modestly that let the subaltern voice their pains and plight. By depicting the lives of this trampled class, the author attacks the rotten political system, economic structure, degradation of moral values and increased corruption in every walk of life in India.
Works Cited