A letter to Aravind Adiga

Dear Mr. Adiga,

Firstly, I congratulate you on winning the prestigious Booker prize. It is a remarkable achievement indeed for a young first-time novelist.

I started reading “White tiger” but was straight away baffled by a work in English that begins, “Neither I nor you speak any English, but there are some things that can only be said in English”. Why would a major work in the English language adopt the epistolatory voice of someone who does not know the language and be addressed to someone else who does not know both English and the language spoken by the letter writer, I wondered. But, that is not why I am writing to you.

I have read much about how you came to write this book. You have been quoted as saying,” So, where's this Shining India everyone's talking about? It was time someone broke the myth," and that “The world needed to see the other side of India."

But then Mr. Adiga, India Shining was a merely a marketing slogan and marketing slogans are not the gospel truth (it is probably the very opposite). I do think that the real perception of India outside the country is still very third world. It is not as though we are being seen as a developed country simply because there have been some positive economic developments recently. No one thinks that the spectacular GDP growth of recent years has wiped out poverty in India! This growth has not been inclusive and income inequality is a huge problem; these facts are well acknowledged by economists, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister. If you want proof, I can Google and send you some links. It is obvious that the Indian growth story has a long way to go.

You also talk about this incident which seems to have been a key inspiration. “I was buying furniture in New Delhi five years ago and the storeowner said, `Don't give me cash, give me a deposit of Rs 1,000 [$25], and give the rest to the man when he delivers it.' So when the man came to my house -- and he was a very poor man -- he put down the furniture and then I paid him the money. Then he asked for a Rs 10 tip which I gave it him. I was amazed that this man who made a maximum of Rs 1,000 a month or perhaps even less, was taking a bundle of money to give to his master. I wondered what made this man and people like him honest? This is something people in India take for granted. In essence, the novel began as a way of understanding this phenomenon. The social structure of the master and the servants, I realised, was not anything like in the [rest of the] world”.

I, would like to suggest that what made him honest had nothing to do with servant-master (your expression, I myself would not care to use it) but rather police-jail. Let us assume he was not servile at all, he had no family to think about, but, if he stole the money he could end up in jail. Most people like to avoid jail. A whole system of law and order is based on that.

You further say, “It is, like, basically you follow your dharma or code of life because who you are depends on the economic well-being of your family and the name your family has. You cannot take the money and run because that will put your entire family in peril or in disgrace”.

Firstly, you almost sound like you want the man to take the money and run! Secondly, if you try to take the money and run, you could end up in jail and that is an excellent reason not to do it. And it is merely universal human nature to pause and think about the consequences of your action on your family; it is not some special dharma and code designed to keep poor Indians poor! We do have to be more mindful of the “family name” in India, but all Indians have to do that. Finally, did you even consider the possibility that all masters are not bad people and that some actually treat their servants with kindness and that is why large scale servant rebellion has been prevented? Do consider my explanations too because they are simple and they do not strain logic to it’s limits.

The letter writer of your novel, Mr. Balram Halwai is upset that visiting dignitaries such as the Chinese premier Mr. Wen Jiabao are shown how “Moral and saintly India is”; what would Balram want us to do? Should we go, “Welcome Mr. Jiabao and now here is a tour of the seamy underbelly of India”? The angry but clear thinking Mr. Halwai could have done better than to expect that, officially speaking, we would do anything other than paint a rosy picture of India. That is only reasonable, is it not?

I only wish Balram had realized that the foreign dignitaries are not so stupid as to believe everything they are told (he seems intelligent enough); that the visitors do know that the carefully orchestrated presentation of India they have received is not the “real” truth about India. They know that all Indians don’t live in the same five-star hotel conditions that they have experienced and eat gourmet food prepared by talented chefs. These people do business with India and I am sure they encounter corruption, bureaucracy, politically motivated hurdles and all other sorts of obstacles. They could tell Mr. Halwai a thing or two!

Now, there would be a real problem if the dark side of India went unexposed in the mass media. But, that is not the case. I dare you to open the daily newspaper and not see grim news about corruption, the recent communal violence in Orissa, Karnataka, Assam and Maharashtra, terror attacks, caste oppression and the lack of basic infrastructure in terms of housing, education and medical care for many millions. You know how I know these things? I read “The Hindu” daily, available on the Internet for everyone in the world to read.

To act as though the dark realities of India have gone unexposed is to discredit the work of intrepid Indian journalists, you yourself were one of them. The system is not perfect but truths do come out and receive wide coverage outside India; people are afraid to visit India due to a perception of increased terror risk, devout Christians around the world are worried about atrocities in the far corner of Kandhamal in Orissa. I doubt that we can quietly cover these things up by saying Incredible India and India Shining. So we sometimes come up with marketing slogans, what is wrong about that? Good things have happened too you know; the GDP growth of the last few years is not a myth.

You did manage the “darkly comic” Mr. Adiga, with a citizen of a democratic country- where the media functions with a decent amount of freedom-writing a letter exposing it to the head of a state famous for it’s non-transparent ways and where the truths are actually hidden!

Your literary achievement cannot be doubted, you have presented your take on things that need to be talked about and you have a written a very important book. But, the truth about India is neither shining nor dark; it is one of partial illumination. India shining does not work and neither does dark India.

Regards,
Meera