This document provides an abstract for a paper analyzing Aravind Adiga's novel "The White Tiger" and its portrayal of modern India. It discusses Adiga's background and how he won the Booker Prize for the novel. It outlines the paper's objectives of determining how realistic Adiga's image of India is, what motivated him to write the novel, and critical views opposing his portrayal. It provides quotes from the novel depicting the divide between light and dark India and corruption in the education system. It discusses criticisms of Adiga's characterization and overly dark portrayal of India. The document analyzes how Adiga used the novel to expose issues in rural India, politics, and the treatment of the poor.

1. ● Name : Nirali Makvana
● Sem : 4 ( M.A )
● Roll no. : 14
● Subject : The New Literature
● Topic : The image of INDIA with the reference of
The White Tiger
● Submitted to : Department of English, Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji, Bhavnagar University.
● Email ID : niralimakvana9599@gmail.com

2. Abstract
We are living in the country where we have world’s biggest constitution, where we
have great democracy but the question that Is it so ? Are the people living happily
? Are they getting equal rights ? The answers of these questions give us the true
picture of India. Why we aren’t in the list of world’s happiest country ? As we all
know that Literature gives us the X - ray image of society which shows good as
well as bad picture of society. We have the writers who gave the literature which
shows the real picture of India. Salman Rushdie, V.S Naipaul, Aravind Adiga are
the writers who criticised a lot because of their writing. Let us see how Aravind
Adiga had given us the picture of India.

3. Objectives
- To find out how far do we considered that Aravind Adiga’s
India is real India ?
- What were the reasons which forced Adiga to write the novel “
The White Tiger” ?
- To find out the critical views which stand against Aravind
Adiga’s portrayal of the picture of India.
- Can we find the picture of that India in Todays time ?

4. Brief Introduction about the Author and the text
Aravind Adiga is an Indian writer and
Journalist. Who was born on 23rd October
1974 in Madras and won the Man Booker
Prize for fiction in 2008. He wrote many short
stories and novels named,
● Between the Assassination
● Last Man in Tower
● Selection Day

5. The White Tiger
Adiga’s debut novel “ The White Tiger “ won the 2008
Booker Prize and has been adapted into a Netflix original
movie “ The White Tiger “ ( 2021 film )
The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India’s
class struggle in a globalized world as told through a
retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, A Village Boy.
Aravind Adiga is the fourth Indian born author to win the
prize after Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai.

6. “ Please understand, Your excellency, that India is two countries
in one: an India of light and an India of Darkness. The Ocean
brings light to my country. Every place on the map of India near
the ocean is well off. But the river brings darkness to India - The
Black River. ( The White Tiger, 14 )

7. If the Indian village is paradise then the school is a paradise within a
paradise.
There was supposed to be free food at my school - a government
program gave every boy three rotis, yellow daal and pickles at
lunchtime. But we never ever saw rotis or yellow daal or pickles and
every one new why : the school teacher had stolen our lunch money.
There is no duster in this class; there are no chairs; there are no
uniforms for the boys.How much money have you stolen from the
school funds. ( The White Tiger, p- 20-21 )

8. M.Q Khan criticised the book and said that
“ We find that apart from its sheer dark picture of
India, the novel lacks in its authenticity, complete and
absolute truth as well as artistic mode and stylistic
feature. Adiga’s expression is dull, drab and bereft of
any stylistic features. Adiga looks at things purely
from the Indian angle. Adiga forgets and perhaps
deliberately overlooks the fact that the India he
presents is not the whole of India nor the real India. It
may be Adiga’s India. But it is certainly not
everybody’s India.”

9. Commenting on his art of characterization Amitav
Kumar observes that,
“ I found Adiga’s villains utterly cartoonist, like
the character in a bad bollywood melodrama.
However, it was his presentation of ordinary
people that I found not trite but also offensive.” (
The Hindu, Literary Review, Nov 2, p - 1 )

10. Adiga has written the novel The White Tiger in the phase of his
career when India was facing problems of corruption, moral
depravity deceit. In the realistic portrayal of Indian society. He
has canvassed to us a class of people where are social status are
being determined by economic status. In his debut novel. The
White Tiger, Adiga exposes the real but ugly face of India’s
heart of darkness, mainly the rural India, Indian political
system and government machinery. Politicians and bureaucrats
misappropriate public money. Politicians and bourgeoisie follow
the colonialist tendencies of exploitative methods.

11. The situation of poor people during corona time….

12. Health care and Education system in India

13. Work Citation
Abullais, M. “Corruption as Responsible Factor for Poverty in Aravind Adiga's The
White Tiger.” SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH, vol. 8, no. 1, ser. 1, Jan. 2008. 1,
doi:https://doi.org/10.24113/ijellh.v8i1.10341
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. HarperCollins, 2008.
Khan, M Q. “The White Tiger: A Critique.” Journal of Literature, Culture and
Media Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 2009, pp. 84–97. Winter.
.