Injustice And Poverty In Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger

Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger highlights his views of the injustice and poverty present in India’s class system. He does this through the perspective of Balram Halwai, a fictional village boy from Laxmangarh. In this epistolary novel, Balram narrates his life in the form of a seven-part letter addressed to Wen Jiabao, the premier of China. He describes how he escaped his caste, which was thought to be impossible, and became a successful entrepreneur after killing his own master. The inequality between rich and poor is an important motive of the story. This paper will go in depth into the representation of the poor, the motivation for it and the effects it has on the interpretation of the story.

One aspect of Indian society which

Even though discrimination against lower castes is illegal in India under its constitution, it does still happen. There is a wide abundance of bribing present in both governmental and non-governmental situations. For example, a person high on the caste system can bribe police officers with money to cover up murders, and rich people have privileges in shopping malls. Balram experiences his first signs of corruption at a young age, when the Great Socialist bribed all votes from the workers of his tea shop. He also becomes the victim of corruption after his master’s girlfriend kills a child in a car accident due to drunk driving. His own master then turns on him to blame him for the murder. After Balram moves to Bangalore, he bribes a police officer in order to help start his own taxi

Because the caste system is often thought of as an ancient fact of Hindu life, the poor people have become so acceptant of their caste that they are not motivated to become successful, even when an opportunity is handed to them. Balram explains this phenomenon using a rooster coop, which plays an important motive in the novel. He compares the poor people of India to the quality of life in a rooster coop, where large amounts of roosters are trapped tightly into a cage. Above the cage, a butcher slaughters other chickens. Even though the roosters know their fate, they do not try to escape. “The very same thing is being done with human beings in this