Journal of Literature, Culture and Media Studies

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A Critique of the Post- Independence Manichean World in India:International Financial Institutions’ Narratives Revisited in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger


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1 Yarmouk University, Irbid-Jordan, 211-63q, Jordan
     

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The paper contributes to global literary studies by critically contextualizing and reading Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008). Even though a high tech boom and stock-market bubble were produced as a result of certain neoliberal policies and programs imposed on India in 1991, there is another reality that has been buried and obscured in the mainstream discourse, which serves to promote the idea that neoliberal economic policies lead to socio-economic development and social justice. This essay serves to expose the contradictions inherent in the logic of neoliberal economic policies by using Adiga’s novel. In other words, the essay is intended to highlight the contradictions between what is publicly and ideologically presented and promoted and what is materially practiced. The novel exposes the fissures of official hegemonic discourses and global neoliberal institutions’ representations as the text refigures the hegemonic narrative of late capitalist development, which, in reality, serves to create a Manichean model of power relations to enclose and enslave the commons and to unevenly “develop” India. Some of global and local socio-economic policies and practices that perpetuate the Manichean model of power relations include privatization, outsourcing, and class/ caste system that works in concert with global neoliberal processes and forces.

Keywords

World Literature, Manichean World, India, Adiga, The White Tiger, Neoliberalism, Oppressed Class, Hegemonic Power, Privatization, Minority, Bourgeoisie, The High-Tech Boom, Capitalist Post Modernity.
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  • A Critique of the Post- Independence Manichean World in India:International Financial Institutions’ Narratives Revisited in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

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Authors

Abdullah M. Al-Dagamseh
Yarmouk University, Irbid-Jordan, 211-63q, Jordan

Abstract


The paper contributes to global literary studies by critically contextualizing and reading Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008). Even though a high tech boom and stock-market bubble were produced as a result of certain neoliberal policies and programs imposed on India in 1991, there is another reality that has been buried and obscured in the mainstream discourse, which serves to promote the idea that neoliberal economic policies lead to socio-economic development and social justice. This essay serves to expose the contradictions inherent in the logic of neoliberal economic policies by using Adiga’s novel. In other words, the essay is intended to highlight the contradictions between what is publicly and ideologically presented and promoted and what is materially practiced. The novel exposes the fissures of official hegemonic discourses and global neoliberal institutions’ representations as the text refigures the hegemonic narrative of late capitalist development, which, in reality, serves to create a Manichean model of power relations to enclose and enslave the commons and to unevenly “develop” India. Some of global and local socio-economic policies and practices that perpetuate the Manichean model of power relations include privatization, outsourcing, and class/ caste system that works in concert with global neoliberal processes and forces.

Keywords


World Literature, Manichean World, India, Adiga, The White Tiger, Neoliberalism, Oppressed Class, Hegemonic Power, Privatization, Minority, Bourgeoisie, The High-Tech Boom, Capitalist Post Modernity.

References