The White Tiger

“In fact, each time when great men like you visit our country I say it. Not that I have anything against great men. In my way, sir, I consider myself one of your kind. But whenever I see our prime minister and his distinguished sidekicks drive to the airport in black cars and get out and do namastes before you in front of a TV camera and tell you about how moral and saintly India is, I have to say that thing in English.”

Addressing Premier Wen Jiabao in a letter on the first night (of seven), Balram points out India’s performative politics, as is often the case in diplomacy. Claiming to be a great man, even though he murdered his employer and stole a bribe, Balram uses this comparison to illustrate the hypocrisy of those in leadership.

“‘The thing is, he probably has...what, two, three years of schooling in him? He can read and write, but he doesn’t get what he’s read. He’s half-baked. The country is full of people like him, I’ll tell you that. And we entrust our glorious parliamentary democracy’—he pointed at me—‘to characters like these. That’s the whole tragedy of this country.’”

Discussing Balram with Pinky Madam, Ashok finds Balram’s answers to his questions foolish, positing that India’s problems stem from “half-baked” voters like Balram. This image of people as clay transforms once Balram talks about his own education, as he sees his uneducated status as potential. Ashok calls out Balram’s supposed ignorance, ignoring that his family’s wealth robs those in the Darkness of opportunities.

“Now, being praised by the school inspector in front of my teacher and fellow students, being called a ‘White Tiger,’ being given a book, and being promised a scholarship: all this constituted good news, and the one infallible law of life in the Darkness is that good news becomes bad news—and soon.”

After Balram answers the school inspector’s questions correctly and receives a book, he observes that the inspector’s promise of a scholarship must be balanced with bad news. In the Darkness, Balram notes that all good things turn bad; for example, the Stork demands that he be paid back a loan from Balram’s family, forcing Balram to leave school.