Throughout the book, there are references to how Balram is very different from those back in his home environment. He is referred to as the "white tiger"[11] (which also happens to be the title of the book). A white tiger symbolizes power in East Asian cultures,[12] such as in Vietnam. It is also a symbol for freedom and individuality. Balram is seen as different from those he grew up with. He is the one who got out of the "Darkness" and found his way into the "Light".
"The Corruption of the Law Enforcement in Aravind Adiga's Novel The White Tiger." Kibin, 2023, www.kibin.com/essay-examples/the-corruption-of-the-law-enforcement-in-aravind-adigas-novel-the-white-tiger-ns8ghda2
The White Tiger Corruption Essay
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"Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger shows that corruption is inescapable in modern India. Discuss the merits of Adiga's thesis." eNotes Editorial, 9 Oct. 2018, -help/white-tiger-shows-that-corruption-inecable-modern-479486.Accessed 9 Feb. 2023.
Unlike the acrc, the omb in the Philippines can investigate and prosecute corruption cases in addition to its other functions of graft prevention, disciplinary control, and providing assistance to public requests to expedite the delivery of services. However, the omb's ineffectiveness as the lead aca in combating corruption is the result of its serious staff shortage, limited budget, poor reputation, and inability to cooperate with the other acas in the Philippines. This explains why the omb is also viewed as a paper tiger instead of a watchdog or attack dog.
The White Tiger is presented as an epistolary novel, a series of letters written over the period of seven nights. It's just an excuse, of course, for the narrator, Balram Halwai, to tell his story -- a supposedly creative approach that, at least initially certainly gets the reader's attention. The person Balram is writing to is the premier of China, Wen Jiabao, due to visit the city Balram is living in -- Bangalore, India -- in a week's time. What, one wonders, could possess an Indian entrepreneur living in Bangalore to write at such length to the premier of China ? Balram does have a story to tell, but unfortunately the connexion to his ostensible audience (the Chinese premier) is barely made. Sure, Balram explains that he can tell the premier all about Indian entrepreneurship -- something he hears China is missing -- and he makes the occasional comparisons between India and China, but it ultimately proves to be a feeble excuse for him to unburden himself, and because the premise is so poorly utilised undermines much of the novel. Balram does have something to get off his chest, of course, and his letters to the Chinese premier are a confession of sorts. Balram tells his life-story, recounting how he got to where he now is -- a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore. And from early on we learn that he is a wanted man, as he writes about a poster describing him and alluding to his misdeeds. And soon he reveals what crime he has on his hands, too. But the story he tells circles around the crime and only gets to it in good time, as Balram recounts the whole story of how he wound up in the position he now is more or less chronologically. Born in northern India, in a tiny hell-hole called Laxmangarh, his parents couldn't even be bothered to give him a name, just calling him 'munna' -- 'boy'. The near-feudal conditions there meant that everything was controlled by a very few powerful families, and that opportunities were limited. Balram calls himself; "half-baked", like many others in the country -- not allowed to finish school, with only a smattering of all sorts of knowledge. In fact, he was a smart lad, and that was even recognised by a school inspector, who praised him as a 'white tiger', "the rarest of animals -- the creature that only comes along once in a generation". The school inspector promises to arrange a scholarship and proper schooling for the young boy, but, of course, instead his family takes him out of school and puts him to work at a teashop (to pay for marrying off one of the daughters in the family). Family ties mean a great deal here, and it is the family that decides what happens to the various members (including when and who to marry) -- and that lays claim to most of everyone's earnings. Balram slowly manages to distance himself from his family, but it takes a while. They do stump up the money for him to taking driving lessons, which he sees as a great opportunity -- and which turns out to be one, as he lucks into a job with the relative of someone from his hometown. Being a driver for Mr.Ashok and his wife, Pinky Madam, also eventually gets him to Delhi, comfortably far from his demanding family. Balram explains why Indian servants are so honest: because of what he calls the Rooster Coop. No matter what the opportunity, a servant will not take advantage of his master -- not when it comes to what really matters. A bag containing a million dollars can be entrusted to any servant, he claims, as doing anything improper would have terrible consequences. The servant might get away with it, but:only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed -- hunted, beaten, and burned alive by the Masters -- can break out of the Coop. That would take no normal human being, but a freak, a pervert of nature. 'White Tiger' Balram, of course, fits the bill ..... This is a psychologically pretty interesting situation, but here as elsewhere Adiga doesn't do much with his premises. For one, he doesn't convey adequately why so many Indians are supposedly stuck in this Coop -- with families like Balram's, it's a wonder far more don't go on rampages and wipe them out themselves. And Balram's own pangs of conscience (or indifference) aren't nearly considered enough. Along the long way Adiga does a decent job of describing the divide between the haves and have-nots, and the way the servant-class is treated. He's particularly good on Indian corruption, from the vote-rigging of the local elections, where the 'Great Socialist' candidate is unopposable, to the conditions at school, where the teacher steals the money for the school-food-programme and sells the uniforms meant for the students -- but no one holds it against him, because he hasn't been paid in six months and that's simply the way the system works. Anyone in power abuses it for his or her own benefit.By the end, when he's a boss, Balram has certainly learned to work the system too -- which is largely about greasing the proper wheels (and palms). Balram's adventures in the big city and as an employee of a man who keeps having to pay bribes to politicians (and whose marriage falls apart) allows for some amusing observations and commentary on contemporary Indian conditions, and a nice contrast of poverty and wealth, but much of it feels a bit forced. Most of the narrative drive comes from the build up to the crime Balram commits, but that also distracts from Adiga's other purposes, making for a muddled mix where nothing -- the crime, Balram's learning curve and then his business ventures, the state of modern India -- is adequately presented. Yes, The White Tiger 'says a lot' about contemporary India, but it tries to do so far too hard. Adiga has some talent, but leaves it at loose ends here. What suspense he builds up early on surrounding Balram's crime dissipates far too fast, while he tries too hard with his Indian panorama. And Balram isn't a fully realised or convincing character, either, even though he's talking (or telling his story) all the time, as Adiga's attempt to make him both a peasant-everyman (representative of so many Indians) and a white tiger confuses things. "I'm tomorrow", Adiga has Balram claim early on, but it's unclear what kind of tomorrow he represents: his success is found in imitating the dime-a-dozen corrupt wealthy class (which is nothing new) -- and in abandoning his family. The latter seems a much rarer step -- is Adiga suggesting that is the wave of the future ? and that when it comes -- watch out ?! Should these 'letters' ever have reached Chinese premier Wen Jiabao he would, no doubt, have been completely baffled by them -- as well as why they were addressed to him. Unfortunately, readers of the novel likely will be similarly baffled. There are some good ideas here, and the writing (bit by bit, at least) isn't bad, but the whole is disappointing. (Also: while Adiga is hardly the first writer with a privileged background to write a book like this, it's hard not feel that it's a bit rich coming from a well- and foreign-educated (Columbia and Oxford !) author to take as his protagonist (and mouthpiece) someone so down-and-out that his parents didn't even bother giving him a name and then have the character find success in this particular way.)
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