Global India, Local Darkness: Neoliberalism in Aravind Adigas The White Tiger

Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger offers a searing critique of neoliberal India, where economic liberalization and globalization are celebrated as symbols of progress while simultaneously deepening social inequality and moral corruption. Through the journey of Balram Halwai—from a village teashop worker to a self-proclaimed entrepreneur—the novel exposes the contradictions of a nation striving to project a global image of prosperity while concealing the entrenched realities of poverty, caste oppression, and exploitation. The narrative illustrates how neoliberal policies legitimize systemic corruption, widen the gap between the “Light” and the “Darkness,” and transform violence into a tool of survival within a capitalist order. By foregrounding the stark disparities between rural stagnation and urban excess, Adiga underscores the human costs of India’s economic rise. This paper examines the intersections of neoliberal ideology, class mobility, and moral ambiguity in The White Tiger, arguing that the novel destabilizes the myth of globalization as an equalizing force and instead reveals its complicity in sustaining hierarchical and exploitative structures.