E-C-401. New Literature

Name- Patel Payal G.

Sem-  M.A. Sem-IV

Roll no- 16

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

Year-2012

Submitted to- Dr. Dilip Barad

Head of the Department of English

Bhavnagar University

Bhavnagar

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

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 villains 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. Now, Salman Khan in Dabbang becomes modern hero, who has moral values but in modern terms. 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 Madame, 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. India was having the heroes like Rama, Krishna, Mahavir Swami, Gautama Buddha, Gandhiji, Swami Vivekananda etc. and there was a golden time during their time and when it had all the providence. But, 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)

From 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. 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:

Arvind Adiga tells two interrelated stories of Balram and his ambition, and his ambition causes moral decay. Darwinian concept of Survival of the fittest is very applicable to the novel. But what matters a lot in this novel is changing milieu and morality. It can be considered as new morality which is full of immoral items.