ARVIND ADIGA’S THE WHITE TIGER AS SYMOBL OF SUBALTERN DEFIANCE
Abstract
This article is vivid juxtaposition of how post colonial India lives amidst the din and bustle of the new economic policies, globalization of 21st century and widely circulated slogans of shining India across the nation, in view of Arvind Adigas The White Tiger. India is still struggling with social dichotomy of haves and have nots. The gulf between rich, elite and socially privileged people who are micro minority in number and those majority people who are downtrodden, marginalized and poverty ridden, widens day by day. Economically backward groups are far away from the corridors of power and governance and hence ignored in large scale, on the cost of whom rich people are prospering and enjoying all luxuries of life. They are subalterns who are never allowed to speak but are always destined to be spoken for. Balram Halwai defies all the prevailing social milieu and transcends the so called systems, exploits the ever growing corruption of power centers, climbs the social hierarchy and raises to the status of elite class by acquiring wealth with his own wits and shrewdness, even daring to commit homicide of his own master. Years long bitter experiences of persecution and cruelties of rich people moulded a stubborn and solid killer within him who wants to be master of his own destiny.