NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY, BHOPAL

A project on:

WRITE AN ESSAY
ON ARAVIND
ADIGA AS A
WRITER WITH
PARTICULAR
REFERENCE TO
Submitted To:
THE WHITE
TIGER Mukesh Srivastava

Submitted By:
Adnan Danish
Roll no: 2020 BALLB 06
Enrollment no: A-2179
B.A.L.L.B.(Hons.)
Semester- II
 1) THE TABLE OF CONTENTS

2) DECLARATION.................................................................................................................2

3) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...................................................................................................3

4) INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................4

a) Early Life and Education...............................................................................................5

b) Career.............................................................................................................................5

c) Achievements and other Works.....................................................................................6

5) ADIGA AS A WRITER.......................................................................................................7

6) ACADEMIC CRITICISM.................................................................................................12

7) CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................13

8) BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................................15
 DECLARATION

I, Adnan Danish do hereby declare that the Project titled ‘Write an Essay on Aravind Adiga
As A Writer with Particular Reference to The White Tiger’ is an outcome of my own
independent research endeavor and has been carried out under the guidance of Prof. Mukesh
Srivastava sir. Literature relied on me for the purpose of this project has been fully and
completely acknowledged in the footnotes and bibliography. The project is not plagiarized
and all reasoned steps have been taken to avoid plagiarism. Similarity index as per Turnitin
report is. If I fail to comply with the instructions of sir, my Project may be referred to the
Committee Against Use of Unfair Means and I will comply with the decision of said
Committee.

Adnan Danish
2020 BALLB 06
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thanks all those without whom this project couldn’t have been completed in
time. Their guidance, remarks and positive criticism had me on my toes and pushed me to
aim for better and better. Further I would like to thank my English teacher, Prof. Mukesh
Shrivastava Sir, who provided me the chance to work on the project and guided me
throughout the preparation and at the same time also provided with all the resources without
which it wouldn’t have been possible, especially in these times of pandemic when we are not
on the NLIU campus and cannot access the library physically. Lastly, I would like to thank
my family and friend for motivating me throughout this journey.

Adnan Danish
2020 BALLB 06
 WRITE AN ESSAY ON ARAVIND ADIGA AS A WRITER
WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE WHITE TIGER

INTRODUCTION

Aravind Adiga, a well-known author who has written a host of novels and is the Booker
Prize-winning author of The White Tiger (2008), has long been regarded as India's most
popular literary recluse, a rarity in today's publishing world where the mantra seems to be:
Publicize or be damned. His writings have inspired people all over the world. Arvind Adiga
is a journalist and writer of Indian Origin who has written many reviews and novels which
made him popular among the common people. He is best known for his debut novel The
White Tiger.

Early Life and Education

Aravind Adiga was born in Madras (now Chennai) on October 23, 1974, to Mangalore
natives Usha Adiga. K. Suryanarayana Adiga and Dr. K. Madhava Adiga and, his paternal
grandfather, was the former chairman of Karnataka Bank, and U. Rama Rao, his maternal
great-grandfather, was a Madras-based Congress politician and well-known physician.

Adiga grew up in Mangalore, where he went to Canara High School and then St. Aloysius
College, where he got his Secondary School Leaving Certificate in 1990. After emigrating to
Sydney with his family, Aravind attended James Ruse Agricultural High School. In 1997, he
received his bachelor's degree in English literature from Columbia College at Columbia
University in New York City, where he studied under renowned British historian Simon
Schama. One of his tutors at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he also studied, was
Hermione Lee.
Career

Aravind Adiga started his career in finance as an intern at the Financial Times. He wrote
about the stock market and investing for publications such as the Financial Times and
Money. During his tenure as a journalist, he reported on financial markets and investments,
and he also interviewed people including Donald Trump. Oscar and Lucinda, a 1988 novel by
previous Booker Prize recipient Peter Carey, was reviewed by him in The Second Circle, an
online literary journal.

Adiga was then employed by TIME, where he worked for three years as a South Asia
reporter before going freelance. At this time, he wrote The White Tiger. He is currently based
in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Achievements and other Works

Adiga's debut book, "The White Tiger," remains his most well-known book. This novel,
which won the Booker Prize in 2008 and was adapted into a Netflix Original film (2021
movie), was his debut novel. He is the fourth Indian-born author to earn the honour, after
Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, and Kiran Desai. V. S. Naipaul, another winner, is of Indian
descent but was born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad.

Adiga is best known for his debut novel “The White Tiger”. This novel was his first novel
which won the Booker Prize in 2008 and was made into a Netflix Original film (2021 film).
After Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, and Kiran Desai, he is the fourth Indian-born author
to receive the award. Another winner, V. S. Naipaul, is of Indian origin but was born on the
Caribbean island of Trinidad. The novel captivates the economic scenario which has changes
the common perspective of the people about Indian Economy. It examines the tension
between India's emergence as a new industrial economy and the protagonist, Balram, who
comes from a life of abject poverty in the countryside. He regularly addresses the rises and
downs of the Indian economy, as well as the consequences for middle-class men. He started
writing The White Tiger in 2005 but stopped halfway through. When he returned to India in
December 2006, he fully rewrote the book and finished it in early January. Adiga is now a
well-known figure in the literary community, not just in India but also worldwide, thanks to
The White Tiger.

Since The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga has written many online literary pieces and articles
for The Financial Times. His work has appeared in The Second Circle magazine. He explored
how 19th-century writers such as Flaubert, Balzac, and Dickens contributed to the
development of healthier communities in England and France. " It was announced shortly
after Adiga won the award that he had fired the agent who, a year ago, had secured him a deal
with “Atlantic Books at 2007 London book fair”. In April 2009, it was reported that the novel
will be adapted into a feature film. Because of the Booker Prize, the Indian hardcover edition
of The White Tiger sold over 200,000 copies.

Between the Assassinations, Adiga's second novel, was published in India in November 2008
and in the United States and the United Kingdom in mid-2009. Last Man in Tower, his third
novel, was released in the United Kingdom in 2011. Selection Day, his next book, was
released on September 8, 2016. In a report released in 2020, Amnesty International laments
the plight of refugees.
ADIGA AS A WRITER

Adiga's works can be seen as a critique of Indian society's contradictions. He claimed that the
critiques of 19th century European authors such as Balzac and Dickens assisted in the
transition of these cultures into healthier societies.

The theme of identity is frequently explored in literature, whether through novels or poetry,
in order to draw readers into the plot or character. It encourages them to empathise with the
characters' thoughts. Identity also assists in the distinction of a character from the rest. It is
important for the reader to consider the literary text's historical perspective, because if the
character is unfathomable, such as Shakespeare's lago, identification may be a difficult term
to grasp.

In the novel White Tiger, Adiga establishes two distinct India’s: the India of light and the
India of darkness. The novel focuses on the dark India, as it tells the storey of underclass
people who have become impoverished as a result of large-scale growth in India's major
cities. Balram Halwai, the novel's protagonist, is a traditional underclass man whose voice
goes unheard in society. This party of men is referred to as the 'rooster coop' in the book. He
is constantly attempting to free himself from centuries of bondage and corruption. His anger,
criminal activity, and alcohol are all manifestations of his deep-seated frustrations and how
he responds to them.

The protagonist, a rickshaw driver's uncle, is the centre of attention in the storey. His identity,
like the voices of other fishermen, landless labourers, and everyday wage jobs, is
marginalised. They are society's most needy people, and together they make up the India of
Night. When a new government launches a construction scheme, they are the one part of
community that remains homeless. They hide under the guise of improving the working
standards of Indians, and no one notices how miserable their lives are.

The novel is arranged as a collection of letters written by a former cab driver from
Laxamnagargh to the Chinese premier. Throughout the book, the author notices a steady
change in influence from the white man to the yellow and brown man. In his letter to the
premier, he details his rise to power and rank as the son of a rickshaw driver from a lower
caste. He exposes the rot in India's three major pillars: democracy, enterprise, and justice,
through his rise. The book makes an indirect assault on the governmental and bureaucratic
structure of the Indian society. It is kept accountable for the society's "rottenness" and
inequality, which obstructs both growth and health programmes. The novel also criticises the
country's "half-baked politicians" for failing to realise the country's full potential. The riches
and prosperity that came with growth were skewed to the already wealthy parts of society due
to the politicians' nepotism and hypocrisy. The system's inability to serve the underclasses
fuelled their drive to climb to the top after smashing it. The novel delves into both the rural
and urban dimensions of our culture, as well as the novel's many other facets that paint a
picture of India.

Aravind Adiga was born in Mangalore and attended school there for the majority of his
education. When he returned to the city, however, he was astounded to see the degree to
which the city had improved. However, he later realised that these modernization and growth
came at the expense of a certain segment of society. The daily miseries of drifters, ragpickers,
and street men were hidden behind the facade of a transformed city. Adiga tried to investigate
the lives of these men who lost their homes or had been displaced owing to urbanisation. The
storey of this underclass is told in ‘The White Tiger,' which describes how they have been
forced to beg for food and sleep under flyovers and in public parks.

About the fact that the author mentions both the India of light and the India of darkness, the
India of darkness is the main subject. Extreme poverty in the lives of both the rural and urban
middle classes is at the core of India's gloom. Unemployed youngsters have been fleeing to
the major cities as a result of the poverty. In the book, the protagonist and his brother are no
exceptions. Balram was forced to drop out of school and work in a tea shop to support his
family due to the harshness of poverty. The men returned from Dhanbad, Delhi, and Calcutta
a month before the rain, leaner, colder, and angrier, but with money in their pockets. They
were welcomed by the women who had been waiting for them. They fled behind the door and
pounced like wild cats on a lump of meat as soon as the men came in.

The India of darkness is the main focus, despite the fact that the author references both the
India of light and the India of darkness. Extreme poverty in the lives of India's rural and
urban middle classes is at the centre of the country's suffering. As a result of the poverty,
unemployed youth have been flocking to the major cities. The protagonist and his brother are
no anomalies in the novel. Due to the harshness of poverty, Balram was forced to drop out of
school and work in a tea shop to support his family. The men returned a month before the
rain, leaner, colder, and angrier, but with money in their pockets, from Dhanbad, Delhi, and
Calcutta. The woman who had been waiting for them greeted them warmly. As soon as the
men came in, they got behind the door pounced like wild cats on a piece of meat.

Zamindari system's existence and how it aids landlords in exploiting the landless labourers
who work for them is been criticized by the novel. ‘Buffalo,' ‘Stork,' ‘Wild Boar,' and
‘Raven' are the four main landlords listed in the. Because of their odd animal-like behaviour
and behaviours toward the underclass, each of them was given a name. For e.g., once his
labourers refused to pay the interest on borrowed money on time, ‘Raven' was known for
dipping his beak in them. These land lords treated their labourers as slaves, and the author
depicts the brutality of this treatment very well. These landlords are referred to as animals by
Adiga since they barely had to leave their mansions except to feed themselves.

The theme of caste is also a major theme in the novel. The castes of the characters are often
debated in the novel, and a man's worth is often decided by which caste he belongs to. Since
he claims that as a lower caste man, he does not deserve society's respect, the protagonist is
forced to change his name from Munna to Balram to The White Tiger to Ashok Sharma.
When he became richer, he changed his name to Ashok Sharma, symbolising his upper-class
standing as he ascended the social and economic ladder.

Adiga talks about struggle, dilemma, aspiration and disillusionment of the Indian middle
class in his novel “Between the Assassinations”, The novel discusses character sketches from
the time between Indira Gandhi's and Rajeev Gandhi's assassinations in terms of race, class,
ideology, profession, and preoccupation. The novel discusses character sketches from the
time between Indira Gandhi's and Rajeev Gandhi's assassinations in terms of race, class,
ideology, profession, and preoccupation. The storey is set in Kittur, a small village in
southern India. Despite the fact that the plot is set in a small town, the issue raised in the book
is of national significance. Each main character in the novel belongs to a distinct social
community. The novel's main character, Ziauddin, is a twelve-year-old who works in a tea
shop. He began working at a time when he should have been celebrating the last of his youth.
As a youth, his quest for identity leads him to a Muslim pathan with whom he develops a
sense of belonging. Adiga employs Zia as a tool to investigate the root causes of extremism.
Abbasi is a character that the author uses to bring up the subject of governmental
incompetence. His moral conscience compels him to close down the factory he owns. His
fight to reopen the factory reveals our bureaucratic sector's inherent dysfunction.

In the book, the caste into which a person is born is a major theme. It is symbolised as the
identity that defines whether you can be proud of yourself or ashamed of yourself. And if a
person from a lower caste grows up the economic ladder of society, he is always
embarrassed, and society refuses to accept him as aristocracy. Adiga makes use of Shankara's
character to bring up the problem of caste discrimination in society. He is an outraged young
boy who seeks to exact vengeance on the caste-based community by detonating a bomb in his
classroom. Caste prejudice, as well as the internal strife that has occurred as a result of this
conflict, has driven him to consider transitioning to Christianity, which has no castes and
judges’ individuals based on their acts. Shankara's dilemma poses a significant question in
the novel: which caste or class is the worst. Despite his wealth, Shankara does not enjoy the
same level of respect as some of the other upper caste men in society. He despised his
chauffeur because he was a member of the upper crust. Discrimination on the basis of caste
and class are two sides of the same coin. In both scenarios, those in positions of authority and
influence are hesitant to relinquish them, as well as to include someone who wishes to join
them. This frequently means that the upper class's socially poorer members will continue to
be so, while the lower caste men's wealthy members will have to fight for the respect they
rightfully deserve.

In ‘The White Tiger,' the alteration in the protagonist's name is crucial to the novel's effort to
focus on the character's personality. His caste affiliation, and hence his social standing, is
revealed by the name ‘Halwai.' The fact that his name changes in the book means that he is
linked to the story's plot and central ideas. The character is introduced as "Munna" which
means "boy" in the novel. He sobbed his way out of his village, pretending to want to live in
the city. His family and parents were unconcerned, and their lack of interest in the child was
apparent in the plot. One of his school teachers, who recognised his talent, gave him the name
Balram. For the first time in his life, the infant was given a distinct name, which was a kind
of elevation for him. The name is the same as Lord Krishna's younger brother.
The novel's substance is reflected in a long letter written by Balram to his Chinese premier,
Wen Jiabao, over several nights. This strategy helps to illustrate the protagonist's audacity
and greed. The letter was written at the height of his powers, and the address to which it is
delivered explicitly shows that he will communicate with those outside of his social circle.
And when he says, "In my way, sir, I consider myself one of your kind," he is not constrained
by his caste or birthplace. In reality, at the time, the only persona that defined him was the
one he was able to create for himself, and he does not feel himself to be inferior to others.

The White Tiger tells the storey of the modern India that has emerged as a result of
globalisation. Adiga is currently working on a novel about the new India, except this time it's
the "new India" envisioned by right-wing nationalists. He's also rumoured to be writing a
novel about his time in Mangalore. For Adiga, writing has always been a source of intrigue
and suspense.

ACADEMIC CRITICISM

The novel was set in a wider sense of contemporary Indian Literature in English described as
a first-person bildungsroman, as a novel about a fascinating success story about one
character's overnight rise from rags to rich, as well as India's growth as a global market
economy. Mendes (2010) sees an artificiality here that is cleverly disguised by irony, and
states the "'cardboard cut-out' title character armed with an inauthentic accent that inevitably
ignores problems of class politics." Sarmad Iqbal, a Pakistani writer, wrote for International
Policy Digest about Adiga's The White Tiger, writing, "This novel in many ways was an eye
opener for me about the expanding India as a Pakistani I grew up listening to and knowing
nothing positive about India." As one learns more about the dark secrets of a growing India
unveiled by Adiga in this book, one can found some striking correlations between what
happens in one’s own country and the 'enemy state'.
CONCLUSION

The elements of Adiga’s own multi- nationality heritage are incorporated into his characters,
questioning the influence of ethnic and class distinctions when deeper concerns about the
future of Indian citizenship and the history of Indian residents were often posed. In fictions,
be it a novel or a poetry the concept of identity is often discussed for the purpose of attracting
readers into the storey or the character. It allows them to empathise with the characters'
feelings. Identity also helps in distinguishing one character from the others.

The novel is arranged as a collection of letters written from Laxamnagargh to the Chinese
premier by the previous cab driver. A steady change in influence from the white man to the
yellow and brown man is been observed by the author throughout the book. The novel makes
an indirect assault on the Indian society's democratic and bureaucratic structure. It is kept
accountable for the society's "rottenness" and inequality, which obstructs both growth and
health services. The system's inability to serve the underclasses fuelled their drive to rise to
the top after smashing it. It delves into both the rural and urban dimensions of our culture, as
well as the novel's many other facets that paint an image of India.

Adiga was interested in learning more about the lives of people who had either been
displaced as a result of urbanisation or have lost their home. The White Tiger tells the story
of the underclass, who are expected to eat food earned by begging and sleep under flyovers or
in public parks.

In Between the Assassinations, Masterji's communal society is housed in the buildings, and
the experiences of forty-five of its founders are been told in the first few pages which
includes introduction. Masterji along with his group determines what they could risk in order
to accomplish their goals. At the end, the group achieves its goal by assassinating the man,
Masterji.
Adiga pulls from various canons and cultures to thoroughly explore the path that identity
follows when torn between individual sovereignty and collective allegiance, rather than
existing within a particular tradition, such as South Asian or Southern mystery novels,
postcolonial dialogues or contemporary Indian modern literature, or. This investigation leads
to a response to the novel's concerns about the ideals that emerge in the life of Mumbai and
India. The reader is able to gain a more authentic understanding of individualism, identity and
nationalism in India, though the characters like Masterji, as in Adiga's other books, is a
justice-seeking individual, identity, and nationalism as a result of the novel's narrative and
modern Indian setting than Adiga previously offered.

Adiga may have established himself as a writer with The White Tiger, but it is in his later
works that he seems to have found his stride. The canvas is broader and the cast of characters
is greater in these books, showing his finer influence over the medium. It's been fascinating to
watch him improve with and book he's written.

*****
BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Adiga, A., 2008. The White Tiger. s.l.:HarperCollins.

*****