THE WHITE
TIGER
-Arvind Adiga
Arvind Adiga is a writer and
journalist raised in India and Australia. He studied English literature at
Columbia College and Oxford University. Before pursuing his career as a fiction
writer, Adiga worked as both a correspondent for Time Magazine and
a financial journalist for the Financial Times. His experience
working as a business journalist caused him to mistrust business magazines and
get-rich-quick literature, informing the tone with which he describes India’s economic
boom in The White Tiger.
The White Tiger takes
place in modern day India, but Balram traces the socioeconomic inequality with
which he struggles back to 1947: the year India gained its independence from
Britain through the Indian Independence Act. The act made India independent,
which quickly led to race riots between Muslim and Hindu Indians, and the
establishment of Muslim Pakistan as a separate independent state. In the 1960s,
shortly after gaining their independence, Indians abolished the Caste System,
which had rigidly enforced the social role of all Indians under British Rule
and for thousands of years before that. Balram believes that the
disorganization and chaos following the end of the caste system has contributed
to even more extreme inequality. The action of The White Tiger takes
place in economically flourishing modern India. After approaching bankruptcy in
1991, the Indian government received a major loan from the International
Monetary Fund and began a program of economic liberalization, resulting in a
high rate of economic growth and foreign investment that continues to this day.
Unfortunately, the economic boom has also drastically increased income
inequality. The White Tiger tells the story of those left
behind in the midst of India’s rapid economic rise.
The entire novel is narrated
through letters by Balram Halwai to the Premier of China,
who will soon be visiting India. Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished
background, born in the village of Laxmangarh. Early on, he describes his basic
story: he transcended his humble beginnings to become a successful entrepreneur
in Bangalore, largely through the murder Mr. Ashok, who had been his
employer. Balram also makes clear that because of the murder, it is likely that
his own family has been massacred in retribution.
In Laxmangarh, Balram was
raised in a large, poor family from the Halwai caste, a caste that indicates
sweet-makers. The village is dominated and oppressed by the “Four Animals,”
four landlords known as the Wild Boar, the Stork, the Buffalo,
and the Raven. Balram's father is a struggling rickshaw driver, and his
mother died when he is young. The alpha figure of his family was his pushy
grandmother, Kusum.
Balram was initially referred
to simply as “Munna,” meaning “boy," since his family had not bothered to
name him. He did not have another name until his schoolteacher dubbed him
Balram. The boy proved him intelligent and talented, and was praised one day as
a rare “White Tiger” by a visiting school inspector. Unfortunately, Balram was
removed from school after only a few years, to work in a tea shop with his
brother, Kishan. There, he furthered his education by eavesdropping on the
conversations of shop customers. Balram feels that there are two Indias: the
impoverished “Darkness” of the rural inner continent, and the “Light” of urban
coastal India. A mechanism that he dubs the “Rooster Coop” traps the Indian
underclass in a perpetual state of servitude. It involves both deliberate
methods used by the upper class and a mentality enforced by the underclass on
itself.
Balram’s father died from
tuberculosis in a decrepit village hospital, where no doctors were present due
to abundant corruption within all the government institutions in the Darkness.
After the father’s death, Kishan got married and moved with Balram to the city
of Dhanbad to work. There, Balram decided to become a chauffeur, and raised
money to take driving lessons from a taxi driver.
Once trained, Balram was
hired by the Stork - whom he crossed path with coincidentally - as a chauffeur
for his sons, Mushek Sir (known as the Mongoose) and Mr. Ashok.
Officially, Balram was the “second driver,” driving the Maruti Suzuki, while
another servant, Ram Persad, drove the more desirable Honda City.
As a driver in the Stork’s
household, Balram lived a stable and satisfactory life. He wore a uniform and
slept in a covered room which he shared with Ram Persad. When Ashok and his
wife, Pinky Madam, decided to visit Laxmangarh one day, Balram drove them
there, and thus had a chance to visit his family. They were proud of his
accomplishments, but Kusum pressured him to get married, which angered him
since that would cede what he saw as his upward mobility. He stormed out of the
house and climbed to the Black Fort above the village, spitting from there down
upon the view of Laxmangarh far below.
Balram describes at length
the corrupt nature of politics in the Darkness. A politician known as
the Great Socialist controls the Darkness through election fraud. The
Stork’s family, involved in shady business dealings in the coal industry, must
regularly bribe the Great Socialist to ensure their success.
As part of these political
maneuverings, Ashok and Pinky Madam made plans to go to Delhi for three months.
When Balram learned that only one driver would be brought with them, he spied
on Ram Persad to discover that the man was secretly a Muslim who had lied about
his identity to gain employment. Once his secret was out, Ram Persad left, and
Balram was brought to Delhi as the driver of the Honda City.
Balram considers Delhi to be
a crazy city, rife with traffic jams and pollution, and with illogically
numbered houses and circuitous streets that are difficult to navigate. Ashok
and Pinky Madam rented an apartment in Gurgaon, the most American part of the
city, since Pinky Madam hated India and missed New York. Balram lived in the
servant’s quarters in the basement of the building. Teased and ostracized by
the other servants, he nevertheless found a mentor in a fellow driver he refers
to as Vitiligo-Lips, since the pigment of the man's lips is affected by
the skin condition vitiligo. To escape the teasing, Balram chose to live in a
tiny, decrepit room swarming with cockroaches.
After a while, the Mongoose
returned to Dhanbad, leaving Ashok as Balram’s sole master in Delhi. One night,
a drunken Pinky Madam insisted on driving the car, and she accidentally killed
a child in a hit-and-run. The next morning, the Mongoose arrived and announced
that Balram would confess to the crime, and serve jail time on Pinky Madam’s
behalf. Balram was terrified by the prospect of going to jail, but was relieved
when the Stork arrived and casually mentioned that they had gotten out of the
incident through their police connections.
During this time, Balram's
political consciousness grows more intense, and his resentment towards the
upper class more violent. Much of the novel traces his growth from a meek
peasant to an inflamed individual capable of murder in pursuit of his own
success.
A few days later,
Pinky Madam found Balram and asked him to drive her to the airport. With this
abrupt departure, she ended her marriage to Ashok. When Ashok discovered that
Balram took her to the airport without informing him, he furiously attacked the
driver, who defended himself by kicking Ashok in the chest.
Dealing with the divorce,
Ashok began to live a debauched lifestyle, frequently getting drunk and going
out to clubs, while Balram cared for him like a wife. Ashok rekindled a
relationship with his former lover, Ms. Uma. Their relationship grew more
serious, but he remained anxious about telling his family about her. Meanwhile,
on his family's behalf, Ashok frequently collected large sums of money in a red
bag, using it to bribe government ministers.
Balram’s family sent a young
male relative, Dharam, for Balram to care for. Dharam is a sweet and
obedient companion. One day, Balram took Dharam to the zoo, where Balram
observed a white tiger in a cage.
Finally deciding to break
free of the Rooster Coop, Balram fashioned a weapon from a broken whiskey
bottle, and lured Ashok from the car. He rammed the bottle into Ashok’s skull,
and then stabbed him in the neck, killing him. He stole the red bag, filled
with 700,000 rupees, and escaped with Dharam to Bangalore. In revenge for his
actions, the Stork’s family likely murdered all of Balram’s family, though
Balram remains unsure of their exact fate. Nevertheless, he chose to commit the
murder knowing this was a likely outcome.
In Bangalore, Balram found
great success. He launched a taxi service for call center workers, which he
calls White Tiger Technology Drivers. By bribing the police, Balram was able to
gain influence and make his business successful. Demonstrating how far he has
come, he is able to cover up a fatal accident through his connection to the
authorities. He considers himself to be a quintessential entrepreneurial
success story that represents the future of India, and presents himself as such
to the Premier.
