A Study of the Portrayal of Postcolonial India in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

Abstract

The onset of globalization has only sharpened the tremendous socio-economic divide that marks the postmodern, postcolonial India. Even after many decades of independence, millions of Indians suffer from a lack of basic amenities. On the one hand, we have smart cities, metro trains, flyovers and airports; on the other hand, there are millions of villages which lack basic amenities of life. The predicament of the have-nots has caught the imagination of the Indian English writers, starting from Mulk Raj Anand. Aravind Adiga is a critically acclaimed novelist to emerge in current times. His The White Tiger got him the Booker Prize. He has mercilessly probed the woes that plague modern India in this work, combining realism, humour and satire. This article analyses Adiga’s depiction of contemporary India in The White Tiger.