Over-urbanization In Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

Since its publication, Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger has aroused international attention, which has won him the Man Booker Prize in 2008. In this novel, Adiga realistically depicts the overwhelming dark reality of contemporary India. Through the description of how the hero, Balram, a country boy, turns into a “successful” entrepreneur in a big city, Aravind Adiga examines and criticizes the problems occurring in the process of urbanization. According to Pranati Datta, urbanization in India occurs without industrialization or a strong economic base. The rapid speed of urbanization is not due to urban pull but due to rural push. After huge influxes of urban migration, high rates of unemployment, pervasive poverty, slums, inequalities, exploitation, severe environmental pollution and degradation in the quality of urban life have constituted the features of over-urbanization in India, which is precisely what Aravind Adiga vividly depicts in his masterpiece The White Tiger. This thesis argues that Adiga, while sorting out the problems concerning the economy, the politics and civil life in the novel, probes into the issue of over-urbanization in India and try to sound an alarm for developing countries. This reveals his profound criticism of the phenomenon of over-urbanization and his deep concern about the social development in developing countries.This paper is composed of five parts. In Chapter One, the author gives a brief introduction to Aravind Adiga and The White Tiger. In addition, this chapter offers an overview of domestic and overseas studies of this novel. Then, it goes on to underscore Pranati Datta’s interpretation of India’s over-urbanization and provide a sketch of the arguments and contents of this thesis. Chapter Two illustrates the problems with regard to the Indian economy revealed in the novel, focusing on the economic instability caused by over-urbanization. The author considers the severe poor-rich divide, the threats brought out by economic liberalization and unhealthy labor market, heaping sharp criticism on the problems in economy engendered by over-urbanization. In Chapter Three, impact of over-urbanization on Indian politics is addressed. Over-urbanization is interconnected with political issues; corruption of the officials, impotence of the government and the loopholes in the process of urbanization deprive the country of a correct direction. Chapter Four focuses on the Indian civil life described in the novel, which likewise shows the damages brought by over-urbanization to rural and urban residents in India. Environmental pollution, ignorance of education and inadequate medical care constitute the explicit impact of over-urbanization on the Indian people. Chapter Five is the conclusion where the author sums up the impact of over-urbanization in the novel. It also analyzes the three reasons that contribute to over-urbanization in India, revealing Aravind Adiga’s concern about the urbanization process in developing countries.