Assignment :- 13 Class difference in The White Tiger

Assignment :- 13  Class difference in The White Tiger

Name :- Rathod Nikita p.
Roll No :- 21
Enrolment no :- 2060108420190038
Semester :- M. A. Semester - 4
Assignment Topic :- Class difference in The White Tiger
Paper no :- 13 (The New Literature)
Year :- 2018-2020
Email-id :- nikitarathod0101@gmail.com
Words :- 1517
Submitted to :- Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English. Maharaja krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

















(1) Class difference in The White Tiger.
=> The White Tiger is novel written by Arvind Adiga. First published in India in 2008 and also win the Man Booker Prize in 2008. In the story Balram Halwai is main character. He is the center in the story. The struggle among social classes has become prominent to a grea extent and the upper class society has been subjugating the middle and lower classes to suit their own needs. The White Tiger explores the controversial issues of Indian poverty and corruption vividly in a setting of 1990S economically booming Modern India.
     The writer broadly discusses that the existence of neo-imperialism and the economical domination which were created under the colonial rule, still control the postcolonial nations like India, by their own elite groups. Only the authorities have been changed from the colonial masters to the upper class landlord's and Industrial magnates.
The white Tiger revolves around Balram Halwai, the Self-made entrepreneur who had once been a rickshaw puller's son. Rural India is shown to be dominated by economy. Balram belongs to the working class of rural Laxmangarh small village located in Bihar State in India. His family was very large and father is rickshaw puller who left his soul on the steps of government hospital. Balram is  worked with his brother in tea canteen but cannot earn bread and butter for running family. So he determined to seek out new job of driving for better proppects. Balram has initial become aware about his ability, when school inspector asked questions, and he offers brilliant answers. He was named as "The White Tiger" by the school inspector. But poverty forces him to leave his school.
One working class exploits other class. And with the help of one village person he learns to drive. Poverty was the prime cause behind this entire predicament so for money he moves Dhanbad to Delhi in search for work. In Delhi, he got job as driver in a royal family having connections with political leaders in Delhi. He got job because he is from their village thus here we have tendency to see that class has sympathy about their village people. Balram takes support of religion to achieve first post in working class. He has struggled alot to achieve the faith of his owner and becomes successful as faithful servant.
  Adiga has shown how poverty has usurped the whole society where the poor people are deprived of the basic rights of free citizens, like education and health. They exploited by rich people. Because of their poor condition. Such exploration leads the chracter like Balram Halwai to indulge in betrayal, Murder.
Example :- Ashok asks some questions to Balram.
"Mr. Ashok asked, 'How many planets are there in the sky?'
" Balram, who was the first prime minister of India? "
" And then : 'Balram, what is the difference between a Hindu and a Muslim?' "
And then : 'What is the name of our Continent?'
Mr. Ashok leaned back and asked pinky madam, Did you hear his answers? '
' Was he joking?', she asked.
So In this conversation Ashok asks some questions to Balram. Balram does not give any right answer of questions. Balram leaves his school because of poor condition. He works for his family in very early age. And Pinky Madam is a wife of Mr. Ashok. She does not like India. Balram does not English. That's why whenever Balram is there, at that time pinky Madam and Mr. Ashok speaks English language. So Language also becomes one reason of difference.
Then Balram said,
"Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never allowed to complete our schooling. Open our skulls, look in with a penlight, and you'll find an odd museum of ideas : sentences of history or mathematics remembered from school textbooks (no boy remembers his schooling like one who was taken out of school, let me assure you), sentences about politics read in a newspaper while waiting for someone to come to an office, triangles and pyramids seen on the torn pages of the old geometry textbooks which every tea shop in this country uses to wrap its snacks in, bits of All India Radio news bulletins, things that drop into your mind, like lizards from the ceiling, in the half-hour before falling asleep - all these ideas, half formed and half digested and half Correct, mix up with other half - cooked ideas in your head, and I guess these half-formed ideas bugger one another, and make more half-formed ideas, and this is what you act on and live with."
So Balram goes school but he does not complete his schooling because of poor condition. His father also died and that's why Balram and his brother get responsibility of his family. That's why he wants to complete his schooling but situations forces him that's why he leaves his school. He sacrifice for his family. They lives in very bad condition. And then he joins drivers job at Ashok's home. He is good observer. He learns through his observations. That's why In his life's journey he learns many things through his observations. And he also learns through his experience.
Adiga presents two different sides of India. One is dark side and another side is light side. one is the dark side where people have been suffering from extreme poverty, diseases, class struggle and illiteracy; and the other side is the glorious city life after the economical libaralisation in 1991. Balrams father dies of tuberculosis because of the poor treatment in the hospital and the corruption among the workers in the public fields. Despite being a bright student and having the rarest talent like the rare creature the white tiger Balram turns up to be the driver of the sons of the Stork.
And Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam mocks on him, using a English language. And once Pinky Madam does incident. And because of her mistake that person is died. And Later on blame goes on Balram. And Balram goes in the jail. He does not do anything. But he becomes the part of that incident. And he becomes victims, even he is not part of that incident. Pinky Madam runaway. He belongs to poor condition that'swhy blame goes on him. And Pinky Madam remains innocent. Rich people have power and position. But Poor people nothing else. That's why they becomes helpless.
Adiga narrates story with dark humour. Social and political canvas is there. Ashok, despite being the son of a corrupt landlord, trusts Balram wholeheartedly, but Balram sees it as the ladder of his progression. Balram knows how the upper caste/class Indians once exploited the lower class people like his forefathers under the colonial rule. Despite being born in a poor family, Balram has a strong sense of perception and he uses it to listen to others capturing the best to develop his status. According to him, people are still living their lives in misery as they have less or no desire to change their status. Only seeing the rotten things would not make any change, one has to accumulate the best from the rotten ones.
Balram learns many things from his master. And He also kills his master Ashok. And takes his identity and becomes rich. The relativity of the centre and marginality is also a concern in this novel. The post-structural analysis of the novel shows how the binary oppositions created on the basis of power structure are completely relative. Master/slave, occident/orient, good/evil, day/night are just easily breakable and reversible structures in Adigas novel. The Balram takes the position of Ashok exploiting him. Balram also becomes like Mr. Ashok, he becomes murderer and he does corruption. He becomes rich in wrong way. For him money becomes more important.
Conclusion :-
So people are divided in class. Because economy people divide in poor or rich category. One has power and another has no power. The major cause of class conflict is inequality in the society that created distinction among people. When person does not possess access to the basic resources like nutritious food, healthy life, basic education, a job and own a home. This suggests that person is not just poor, but he is inadequate classes turned into class conflict.  Poor people suffers to fulfill for their basic need. In the story also Balram struggles to get money. And he becomes rich. But his path is wrong. Balram comes from dark side, poverty and he becomes the part of another side light, bright side of India. Starting of the novel is poor and helpless but at end he becomes successful entrepreneur. He is man of action. He changes his situation through his disicion. At the end of the novel he get power and position in the society.

Work  Cited :-

Singh, Smriti and Biswas, Sanjib Kr. Portrayal of Poverty and Corruption Ridden Postcolonial India in Aravind Adigas The White Tiger. 05 2017. 9 March 2020 <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317166161_Portrayal_of_Poverty_and_Corruption_Ridden_Postcolonial_India_in_Aravind_Adiga's_The_White_Tiger/citation/download>.

Mastud, Shahaji. From Class Consciousness to Individual Consciousness: The Contour of Inequality in Aravind Adigas The White Tiger. 10 2017. 8 March 2020 <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320754289_From_Class_Consciousness_to_Individual_Consciousness_The_Contour_of_Inequality_in_Aravind_Adiga's_The_White_Tiger/citation/download>.

Adiga, Arvind. The White Tiger. HarperCollins Publisher India a Joint Venture with The India Today Grroup. New Delhi: HarperCollins Publisher India a Joint Venture with The India Today Grroup, 2008.