Name - Bhatt Dhara J
Roll no: - 2
M.A.Part-2 - Sem-4
Paper - 02, Ec-401
Paper name – New Literature
Topic for Assignment -
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger: The Voice of Underclass
—A Postcolonial Dialectics
Submitted To: Dr.Dilipsir Barad
Department of English,
Bhavnagar University,
Bhavnagar.
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger: The Voice of Underclass
—A Postcolonial Dialectics
Introduction
In the post colonial dialectics ‘subaltern’ or ‘underclass’ occupies Prominent place which incorporates the entire people that is Subordinate in terms of class, caste, age, gender, and office, or in any other way. It is the subject position that defines subalternity. Even when it operates in terms of class, age and gender, it is more psychological than physical. The lack and deprivation, loneliness and alienation, subjugation and subordination, the resignation and silence, the resilience and neglect mark the lives of subaltern, even when they resist and rise up, they feel bounded and defeated by their subject positions. They have no representatives or spokesperson in the society they live in and so helplessly suffer and get marginal place or no place at all in the history and culture of which they are the essential part as human beings.
Adiga in his debut novel The White Tiger, which begged him Man Booker Prize 2008, created two different Indias in one: “an India of Light and an India of Darkness”. It is the India of Darkness which is focused by the novelist articulating the voice of silent majority, trying to dismantle the discrimination between the “Big Bellies and the Small Bellies” and create a society based on the principles of equality and justice. Balram Halwai, the protagonist is a typical voice of underclass metaphorically described as “Rooster coop” and struggling to set free from age-old slavery and exploitation. His anger, protest, indulgence in criminal acts, prostitution, drinking, chasing, grabbing all the opportunities, means air or foul endorse deep-rooted frustration and its reaction against the “haves”. Bloody acts, opportunism, entrepreneurial success of Balram, emergence of Socialists in India alarm that the voice of the underclass cannot be ignored for long. Ways of its subjection and articulation and reaction against it. The underclass is the result of our polity, bureaucratic set-up, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, caste and culture conflict, superstitions, social taboos, dowry practice, economic disparity, Zamindari system, corrupt education system, poor Health services, police and judicial working. These forces collectively operate to perpetuate the underclass .This underclass constitutes Dark India.
The novel is structured as a series of letters written to the Chinese Premier by a former car driver from Laxamangarh, Bihar. Why the Chinese Premier? “Because” the narrator Balram Halwai, based in the city of Bangalore acknowledges, “the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the White skinned man has wasted himself through buggery, mobile phone usage and drug abuse”. India of Light with access to education, health care, transportation facilities, electricity, running water, hope, justice emerging entrepreneurial power in the world surpassing China; India’s rapid advancement in the field of science and technology, space, real estate, yoga and meditation, hotel and tourism industry, expansion of cities and mall culture, Delhi is adulated as Young America in India; the voice of the underclass is strongly articulated and attempts to give them proper recognition in the society.
Entrepreneurial success is the hallmark of India
Entrepreneurial success is the hallmark of India: “You Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs….Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs–we entrepreneurs have set up all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now”. The visit of the Chinese Premier to Bangalore verifies China’s interest in India’s advancement in this area. The narrator explains the reasons for entrepreneurial success: “My country is the kind where it pays to play it both ways: the Indian entrepreneur has to be strait and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, at the same time”. The secrets of success in a modern globalized world has summed up in the last section of the novel.The secrets of success in a modern globalized world has summed up in the last section of the novel. Murder, manipulation, malpractices, opportunism, bribery, absconding police mirror to us.
The novel gives the detailed accounts of the Indian society
The novel gives the detailed accounts of the Indian society—rural as well as urban and its various facets. Laxamangarh, Gaya, Dhanbad, Delhi and Bangalore are generic, represent the portrait of India. Poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, caste and culture conflict, superstition, dowry practice, economic disparity, Zamindari system, and exploitation of marginal farmers and landless laborers, rise of Naxalism, corrupt education system, poor health services, tax evading racket, embittered master-servant relationship, prostitution, weakening family structure, entrepreneurial success and its fallout etc.Zamindari system and exploitation of marginal farmers and landless labourers, rise of Naxalism, corrupt education system, poor health services, tax evading racket, embittered master-servant relationship, prostitution, weakening family structure, entrepreneurial success and its fallout etc. constitute the basic structure of Indian society which largely forms the Dark image of India. Adiga who left Mangalore in 1991 when his father moved to Australia. After 15 years, returning to the city as a journalist with Time, he found it has changed vastly. The population of the city doubled, shopping malls and high-rise apartment buildings has reshaped the skyline. There were new five medical colleges, four dental colleges, fourteen physiotherapy colleges and three hundred fifty schools, colleges and polytechnics. The new affluence seemed to have come at a price. Looking around the transformed city, he also noticed a group of drifters and homeless men—the part of underclass who seemed to have been left out of the story of India’s growth.
It is poverty which compels Balram
It is poverty which compels Balram—The White Tiger to leave the school and work in a tea stall washing utensils and doing every kind of menial jobs. In the poverty-stricken society young kids are given no formal names –simply “Munna: It just means boy”; neither the mother nor the father is concerned about the name, Balram reports: “mother’s very ill…she lies in bed and spews blood. She’s got no time to name [and father] is a rickshaw puller…he’s got no time to name me”
Zamindari practice is also a powerful source of exploitation and subjugation of underclass. Buffalo, Stork, Wild Boar and Raven are four landlords who got their names from the peculiarities of appetite that had been detected in them. Stork owned the river that flowed outside the village, and he took “a cut of every catch of fish caught by every fisherman in the river, and a toll from every boatman who crossed the river” to reach Laxamangarh. Wild Boar, his brother owned all the good agricultural land around Laxamangarh. Men who wanted to work on those lands “had to bow down to his feet, and touch the dust under his slippers, and agree to swallow his day wages”. The Raven owned the worst land, which was dry, rocky hillside around the fort, and “took a cut from the goatherds who went up there to graze with their flocks. If they didn’t have their money, he liked to dip his beak into their backsides”. The bloody fighting between the Naxal outfits and the landlords, having their own private armies, hits the common man the most. They go around shooting and torture people suspected of sympathizing with the other.
The world of Darkness abounds with social taboos
The world of Darkness abounds with social taboos, rigid caste distinction, superstitions, and caste and culture conflict. Man is known and recognized by his caste. The old driver of Stork asked Bakram: “What caste are you?”. Similar question is asked by Stork: “Halwai….What caste is that, top or bottom?”Ram Persad, the servant of Stork disguised his identity because the prejudiced landlord didn’t like Muslim—he claimed to be a Hindu just to get a job and feed his starving family. On disclosure he was sacked from the job. While playing cricket, Roshan, the grandson of Stork calls himself Azaruddin, the Captain of India. Stork reacts quickly, “call you Gavasker.
The practice of dowry is another social stigma in Laxamangarh. The marriage of Balram’s cousin-sister Reena pushedthe whole family into world of misery and Balram is dropped from the school. Kishan’s marriage also brings huge dowry, Balramreports: “It was one of the good marriages. We had the boy and we screwed the girl’s family hard. I remember exactly what we got in dowry…five thousand rupees in cash, all crisp new unsoiled notes fresh from the bank, plus a Hero bicycle, plus a thick gold necklace for Kishan”.The life of underclass darkens when corrupt and defunct education system operates in the society. In Laxamangarh, there is a typical school teacher called, “big Paan—and spit Man”, goes to sleep by noon, and drinks toddy in the school. Supply of free food to the school goes to the teacher who gives legitimate excuse for it–“he hadn’t been paid his salary in six months”. Truck full of uniform that government had sent to school is not issued to the children, “but a week later they turned up for sale in the neighboring village”. The whole education system is governed by the “crowd of thugs and idiots”, which Adiga calls “Jungle.”Poor health services and non-implementation of government policies expose the rampant malpractices which collectively enhance the miseries of the poor. In Laxamangarh, there were three different foundation stones for a hospital, laid by three different politicians before three different elections. Balram’s father died due to the lack of hospital and medical facilities. Medical services are shown as an object of political mockery and social stigma.
Conclusion
Adiga has graphically portrayed the different images of India—India of Light and India of Dark. But his focus is on the latter and he tries to give it a literary voice. Adiga in conversation with HirshSawhney explained the nature of progress: “technology is one aspect of progress; it is not progress in itself. Progress is holistic—its water and cell phones” (brooklynsail.org). Deirdre Donahue considers the novel one of the most powerful books she has read in decades with, “No hyperbole…an amazing and angry novel about injustice and power” (complete-review.com). Lee Thomas has reviewed the novel in San Francisco Chronicle (April 27, 2008): “Adiga’s first novel TheWhiteTiger, delivers an indomitable central character and an India bristling with economic possibility, competing loyalties and class struggle” (sfgate.com). Sudheer Apte finds the most enjoyable part of the novel, “is richly observed world of have-nots in India…with his keen observation and sharp writing Adiga takes us into Balram Halwai’s mind, whether we want or not” (mostlyfiction.com). In an interview he was asked how he got the inspiration for Balram Halwaiand how he captured his voice? He replied:
Balram Halwai is a composite of various men I’ve met when traveling through India. I spend a lot of my time loitering about train stations, or bus stands, or servants’ quarters and slums, and I listen and talk to the people around me. There is a kind of continuous murmur or growl beneath middleclass life in India, and this noise never gets recorded, Balram is what you’d hear if one day the drain and faucets in your house started talking (Interview with the author.htm).
Adiga has successfully highlighted the subaltern issue in the novel and brought home the idea that in the story of India’s progress role of the underclass is important. He, as a communist manifesto, pleads strongly for the classless society.
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