Aravind Adiga's Between the Assassinations:Chronicles of Aspiration and Disillusionment

The present paper attempts to explore how Adiga, in his second novel Between the Assassinations (2008), depicts the journey of Indian society from aspirations to disillusionment by raising very vital issues of national importance such as corruption, terrorism, religious fanaticism, child labour and social discrimination on the grounds of caste, religion, class and gender through a story of ‘everyman’ of ‘everytown’ of the period of transition between the assassinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi viz. 1984 to 1991. The paper describes how Adiga presents a scathing critique of the individual vices such as deceit, hypocrisy, avarice and false pride in one’s social status based on caste, religion and wealth and rotten religious, social and political systems which are working together for disintegration of human values and society as a whole. Adiga seems to implicitly suggest us to get rid of the individual vices, social evils and rotten systems through revolutionary social, economic, bureaucratic and political reforms. The issues raised by Adiga hold perpetual relevance for Indian society.