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The role of media in society
The role of media in society
Corruption in india essay
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Adiga’s story begins with out narrator, Balram, who writes to the premier of China and explains how the world of India is not what is advertised to the world. India is separated between the light and dark, the few rich, and the very poor. India’s Caste system, although outlawed, still carries power throughout the country, locking many residents in with no upward mobility. The metaphor of the “Rooster Coop” shows us the power of the light over the dark; the poor know their place under the might of the rich, and any dissention results in the banishment, or death, of the dissenter’s family. The rich are oblivious to the needs of the poor, yet our narrator, Balram, is able to use his skills as an entrepreneur to achieve his status, even in the rejection of his own familial tradition, as he relives his tale of escaping the darkness into the light. Balram shows the premier how the country of India is not just the peaceful place of Gandhi that many believe, but a country run by a corrupt government with a powerful rich, and in order to escape the darkness, you must be willing to risk everything.
Like many before him, Balram grew up in the dark in the small town Laxmangarh, owned by the rich, and attended a miserable school with a teacher that stole money for clothing and lunches. However, during a visit from a government inspector, Balram is labeled as a “White Tiger” one who comes along only once in a generation, for his academic skills (30). This is the beginning of Balram’s aspiration for success, as an entrepreneur, as he begins to truly “listen” to learn from his surroundings.
Our next example of corruption in India and marginalization of the poor is when Balram’s father dies of TB after years of pulling a rickshaw for a livi...
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...or for directions. Many of the poor literally live on the side of the rode breathing in the exhaust of the polluted air. The shopping malls, guarded by the poor against the poor, are only allowed for the rich who safety move from their homes, and in their cars to their malls, without ever noticing the world around them. This is the country of India in a nutshell; the rich that ignore the poor every chance they are given; yet the poor are always aware and must tend to the rich. The government plays a large role in using, yet containing the poor. Murder Weekly, a magazine published by the government and sold cheap, describes stories of servants who wish to kill their masters in revenge of poor treatment, only there’s a twist; the murderer always gets caught as it is meant to keep the servants at bay for when they feel they are going defy their social status (104).
In Annawadi, the slum setting of the book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” nearly everything falls under the law of the free market. Things that most countries deem “basic rights,” the Indian people of Annawadi have to pay for. Clean water, education, and medical attention from hospitals are just a few things that are exploited by police officers, gangs and slumlords. The liberalization of India caused the country to begin a process of economic reform. People from the countryside flocked to the cities to find work in the new booming economy that no longer depended on its agriculture. With the increase in population around the bustling cities, came competiveness for opportunity. This competiveness made poverty rates skyrocket, making corruption (and corrupt activities) in Annawadi the only clear way of making it out of the slums. “In the West, and among some in the Indian elite, this word, corruption, had purely negative connotations; it was seen as blocking India’s modern, global ambitions. But for the poor of the country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corrupti...
...oes not show emotion to either side, which truly makes a difference. I am astounded that the slum dwellers of Annawadi are doing what they can to make it through the day, attempting to fulfill Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs of the Western world. This development into a Western country was short-cut ridden, the result of corruption and social structural factors that cause widespread poverty. The other side of greed is apparent within this non-fiction text, a moving text published by Katherine Boo.
Deloria, with his analytical survey, Indians in Unexpected Places, recounts the synthesis of western white expectations, and American Indians. The book takes its title from the general thesis, which explores not only the relationship between Indians and their introduction into an alien culture, but also the expectations that we have of Indians and how they “should” interact with our white western culture. According to Deloria, the common notion is that, “Indian people, corralled on isolated and impoverished reservations, missed out on modernity- indeed, almost missed out of history itself.” (Deloria p. 6) This falsified expectation that we have of the Native American peoples causes us to balk at the anomalies of an Indian when combined with Western culture.
In The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga our protagonist struggles in his journey to adulthood. Born to a rickshaw puller who ends up dying of tuberculosis due to government corruption, Balram sets his sights to become somebody better than his father–– someone who wears the uniform–– as he’s a smart person and an entrepreneur. On his journey, he is confronted with many difficult decisions which help him discover the kind of person that he is; while also learning how corrupt the upper class is and how that has to do with the government. In the end he succeeds and goes from a rooster in the Rooster Coop, to somebody who 's broken out and made it–– out of the darkness, into the light. However, this doesn
In order to raise awareness of the staggering injustices, oppression and mass poverty that plague many Indian informal settlements (referred to as slum), Katherine Boo’s novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, unveils stories of typical life in a Mumbai slum. Discussing topics surrounding gender relations, environmental issues, and corruption, religion and class hierarchies as well as demonstrating India’s level of socioeconomic development. Encompassing this, the following paper will argue that Boo’s novel successfully depicts the mass social inequality within India. With cities amongst the fastest growing economies in South Eastern Asia, it is difficult to see advances in the individual well-being of the vast majority of the nation. With high
In the novel, The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga the main character, is Balram, one of the children in the “darkness” of India. Adiga sheds a new light on the poor of India, by writing from the point of view of a man who was at one time in the “darkness” or the slums of India and came into the “light” or rich point of view in India. Balram’s job as a driver allows him to see both sides of the poverty line in India. He sees that the poor are used and thrown away, while the rich are well off and have no understanding of the problems the poor people must face. The servants are kept in a mental “Rooster Coop” by their masters. The government in India supposedly tries to help the poor, but if there is one thing Adiga proves in The White Tiger, it is that India’s government is corrupted. Despite the government promises in India designed to satisfy the poor, the extreme differences between the rich and the poor and the idea of the Rooster Coop cause the poor of India to remain in the slums.
In the film, “Slumdog Millionaire” showed the world how India is a society that is filled with violence and abuse. Slumdog Millionaire exposes the tragic effects of poverty in many different cities of India. The film talks about a Mumbai boy, Jamal, who grew up in the slums that became a contestant on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” During the contest, Jamal were arrested under suspicion of cheating. Jamal was being interrogated by the police, and revealed events from his life history to explain why he knew the answers on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”
Slumdog Millionaire is an action-laced film, which describes one, indian orphan’s journey to seek his lost love and win India’s version of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’. Jamal Malik and his brother Salim grew up in the slums of Mumbai. After their mother was killed, Jamal and Salim met Latika. Throughout many journeys and hardships, Jamal becomes separated from the two people remaining in his life. Director Danny Boyle effectively demonstrates the dissention between the Indian social classes throughout the injustices bore against the people, the fight for economic gains, and Jamal’s indifference to the money earned in ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’.
In Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo tells the stories and struggles of families living in a slum adjacent to the Sahar Airport in Mumbai, India. Boo details the ways in which the residents of this slum, Annawadi, attempt to escape their poverty, but fail to do so. Despite numerous initiatives sponsored by the Central Government of India to improve the lives of the many individuals living in Annawadi, these programs are ultimately unable to do so due to deep-rooted corruption in the city of Mumbai. Regardless of this, the residents of Annawadi seem to accept corruption as a fact of life, and do little to fight it. As illustrated over the course of Boo’s narrative, this results from the fact that many Annawadians recognize the ways in which the laws of their society allow for the unfair treatment of certain groups of people, especially the poor and religious minorities, and are also cognizant of the fact that they have no real power to change a system that
In Avarind Adiga’s novel, the White Tiger, Balram’s final goal is to move from the darkness to the light, however, he fails to realize that even the light is darkness. Balram wishes to escape the darkness to the light so that he can escape poverty and create a better life for himself. He hopes to create a better life in the light is where the rich are able to live carefree lives, and be ignorant of the consequences of their actions. Light offers hope for a better life, but once the poor who were living in the darkness make it to the light, their lives are as bad, if not worse than as it was in the darkness. The black river – the Mother Ganga, is darkness itself, filling the country with darkness, extinguishing the light. Light cannot exist
India is a country of stark contrasts. The rich and the poor live in different worlds yet often side by side. The live in daily contact with the rich, often working for them. Aravind Adaga attempts to address these themes in his book, the White Tiger: A Novel compelling cohesive narrative. He tells the story of Balram, a young poor man of with a strong moral foundation. The books shows his slow descent from that moralistic young man, to one who throws aside his family his principals and murders a man in order to escape the rooster coop. IN this book, The rooster coop is a clear analogy to the poor of India, with the Butchers representing their masters. This is the voice of despair. The author is trying to
Lately Indian novelist has shifted from rural to metro India, which is the living soul of the country. The problems of urbanization and the problems faced by the people of metro India find a powerful expression in Indian English fiction.
Balram sticks out in a crowd of regular Indians. As the novel progresses, more of this individuality starts to penetrate and he prays for the time where he can embrace it. As Sara Schotland explains it, “The tiger metaphor is the key to Balram’s character: he is absolutely unwilling to remain in the cage to which he is assigned by family, caste, and society” (Schotland). This quest for self expression which Balram undergoes, is not typically found in people of his kind, further validating that he is indeed “The White
In the novel, parental absence escalates sibling conflict, which leads to the characters escapement, ultimately resulting in Bim’s anger. While some readers may think that Clear Light of Day just represents a single family’s struggle, the novel clearly represents India’s struggle as well. India’s independence from Britain consequently leads to the formation of Pakistan and continual religious and political conflict. This novel is an allegory that explains political combat in an accessible way because everyone is part of a family. This novel not only models the reasons for conflict in India but for other nations and even families as well.
Tagore outlines the oppression of the past in his interesting yet profoundly genuine illustration Kartar Bhoot ("The Ghost of the Leader"). As the regarded pioneer of a nonexistent area is going to bite the dust, his terrified supporters dem...