“See, the Muslims have one god. The Christians have three gods. And we Hindus have 36,000,000 gods… Some believe none of them exist. There's just us and an ocean of darkness around us. I'm no philosopher or poet, how would I know the truth? It's true that all these gods seem to do awfully little work " much like our politicians " and yet keep winning re-election to their golden thrones in heaven, year after year” (p8).
Thus muses Balram Halwai, the anti-hero in Aravind Adiga's novel The White Tiger.
The White Tiger was recently voted winner of the prestigious 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. As such it is guaranteed literary immortality and a vastly increased worldwide readership. Not bad for its 33-year-old Indian author " a former journalist and one-time resident of Australia.
The novel tells the story of both Balram Halwai (servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer) and the New India (post-village, post-caste, post-religion and emerging super-power). It does so by means of a letter written by Balram (the "White Tiger") to His Excellency Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China.
Ostensibly written to the Chinese leader to explain the story of Balram's success, the letter reveals how the son of a rickshaw puller from rural India (the "Darkness') progressed from village boy to successful city businessman. The answer: entrepreneurial initiative and murder.
Balram is an amoral combination of cunning and innocence, and sadly, by implication, he is also indicative of the New India. Whereas in the United States "anyone can become President", in India "anyone can become an entrepreneur" " perhaps of an outsourcing business in Bangalore.
How so? Well in the Old India the country was like a “clean, well-kept, orderly zoo. Everyone in his place”. But then “on the fifteenth of August, 1947 " the day the British left " the cages had been let open; and the animals had attacked and ripped each other apart and jungle law replaced zoo law” (pp63-64).
This jungle law had helped reduce the land of a thousand castes to a country of just two " the rich and the poor " or the "Men with Big Bellies, and Men with Small Bellies" (p64).
And what can be said of the spiritual life of one of Christianity's largest mission fields? Well, as the novel presents things, religion is ubiquitous, essentially ineffectual and increasingly irrelevant as the opening quote suggests.
For our anti-hero, religion is uncertain " "What can a poor man's prayers mean to the 36,000,004 gods " .?" (p317). By contrast, capitalism (India's new religion) is far more reliable. "I have told you all you need to know about entrepreneurship " how it is fostered, how it overcomes hardships, how it remains steadfast to its true goals, and how it is rewarded with the gold medal of success" (p317).
The ethics of this new religion leave something to be desired. "But isn't it likely that everyone who counts in this world " has killed someone or other on their way to the top?" argues Balram. "All I wanted was the chance to be a man " and for that, one murder was enough" (p318).
Balram's world in this novel is a loveless, unforgiving one. A better advertisement for outreach to India with a gospel of grace could scarcely have been written.
Darkly humorous, fiercely satirical and by far the most readable of recent Booker-winners, The White Tiger seems assured of an extremely wide audience. It is informative, engaging and essentially tragic, with an eye for the details of Indian life, and its finger on the pulse of its changing culture.
If Adiga accurately reflects the subcontinental zeitgeist, India's future will be financially lucrative and spiritually bleak. Near the novel's conclusion Balram ponders the possibility of setting up an English language school for poor children in Bangalore: "A school where you won't be allowed to corrupt anyone's head with prayers and stories about God or Gandhi " nothing but the facts of life for these kids. A school full of White Tigers" (p319).
Stephen Liggins, a former editor with Anglican Media, is assistant minister at St Stephen's, Penrith.
