Alex Jung
The 2008 Booker Prize recipient, Aravind Adiga, and his book “The White Tiger” highlight and critique the reality of social disparity in India.
Children in a slum area in Karnataka, India. Asian Development Bank. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
India's social disparity, notably the caste system, has become widely known around the world and depicted in vast platforms of media, from the news and social media to novels and the film industry. Although poverty rates have steadily declined amid globalization and development plans, the issue is still immense. According to Professor Sabina Alkire at the University of Oxford, "374 million poor people are deprived in nutrition, sanitation, housing and cooking fuel at the same time; 445 million lack both electricity and clean drinking water." Further commentary on social disparity in Indian society is found in Aravind Adiga's “The White Tiger.” This fictional text, published in 2008, follows the story of a servant, Balram Halwai, who recounts his life journey, from being raised in the slums of Laxmangarh, a town in India, to eventually becoming an entrepreneur. Throughout the text, readers gain insight into the extent of social disparity and the lack of resources for those of the lower caste. Though a work of fiction, the novel’s insights into Indian society are far from unreal. The various analogies presented in the book have real-life implications that are supported by contemporary understandings of the poverty rates and inequality in Indian society.
An important aspect that Aravind Adiga touches on is the healthcare system in local Indian communities. When Balram's father is dying, he shares his frustration with the lack of hospital infrastructure and personnel, saying, “There is no hospital in Laxmangarh, although there are three different foundation stones for a hospital.” Balram's father dies before receiving any form of treatment, and even before a doctor had come to see him.
According to a 2016 study from The Lancet, India ranks 145th out of 195 countries in terms of healthcare access and quality. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, India's public health expenditure is among the lowest in the world, with only around 3.31% of the GDP spent on healthcare. This is significantly lower than many other nations, such as Germany's 12.6% and the United States' 16.5%. This has ultimately led to the underfunding of hospitals, clinics and basic equipment.
Furthermore, due to the country’s population of 1.4 billion people and its being the seventh largest nation in the world by landmass, there is a stark rural-urban divide and difficulty in physically supporting all Indian citizens. Healthcare facilities and support are often densely concentrated in urban areas, such as Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. The lack of healthcare facilities and personnel was severely tested during the COVID-19 pandemic, wherein there was a shortage of 600,000 doctors and 2 million nurses while facing the nation’s high death and infection rates.
Adiga also considers the challenges to education for many children and youth in lower socioeconomic groups. He critiques this issue through Balram, who reflects, “Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never allowed to complete our schooling.” In 2021, India’s Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, estimated that more than 150 million Indian youth and children are not receiving formal education. This issue reveals another disparity: gender. Women and girls are disproportionately worse off from the education inequality in India. For example, the global women's literacy rate is 79.9%, whereas in India it is only 62.3%. For men, the global rate is 89.2% as opposed to 80% in India, but this difference is not as large as that of women. The conditions of poverty in India, especially in rural areas, significantly affect women's and girls’ education and livelihood.
One of the biggest realities that stem from this is child marriages. According to UNICEF, nearly one in four women in India was married or in union before their 18th birthday, even though child marriage is illegal in the country. Oftentimes, girls and women are most vulnerable to child marriage when coming from rural areas or poorer households, with an expectation of giving birth and raising a family. As a consequence, fewer than 20% of girls remain in school after child marriage. This practice has declined over the past few decades, but it continues to be an issue in several rural areas and is often difficult to hold accountable for.
“A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 percent—as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way—to exist in perpetual servitude; a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man's hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse.” This quote from Adiga's work comments greatly on the wealth disparity and the evidently visible caste system operating in India. Though the caste system, which traces back to ancient times, was abolished in 1950, wealth inequality and disparity are still significant issues. 2021 data found that the richest 1% hold 40% of the total country's wealth, while the bottom 50% only hold 3%. Through an economic lens, this disparity can be explained by India's shift toward a capital-intensive growth, with industries’ high fixed asset investments in machinery and infrastructure. This means that those who had existing capital were able to make a significant profit, leading to a larger gap between the rich and the poor. Furthermore, the weak protection for workers in India, including low minimum wage regulations and no bargaining rights, continues to lead to significant wage differences between skilled and unskilled workers. Through the social lens, the disparities in education and healthcare also prevent progress in several areas and among marginalized groups.
India continues to progress, with many of its disparities and poverty rates decreasing year by year. However, having the largest population in the world and a disparity that has existed for centuries, India continues to struggle with ensuring the basic fundamental human rights of many citizens. Thus, there is a lot to learn about India through Adiga's novel. Ultimately, the decline in disparity does not mean people can neglect the ongoing poverty that millions still face today, which continues to require international and national attention.
Alex Jung
Alex is from New Zealand and South Korea, and is currently a student at the University of Chicago. He is majoring in Political Science and International Relations, and minoring in Middle Eastern Studies. He is passionate about social justice for minorities and indigenous communities. In his free time, he enjoys learning languages (Korean, English, Mandarin, and Persian) and writing novels and short stories.