Aravind Adiga’s “The White Tiger” is a story of a man, Balram Halwai, born in some village in north India who goes on to become a driver in Dhanbad, robs and murders his employer and establishes a cab business in Bangalore. The story is narrated in the form of a letter written by Balram to the premier of China (Weird literary device, that). The only noteworthy thing about the novel is the utter ugliness of the story, the characters and the life it portrays. The language is crude and vulgar, well suited to the tale. There is not much of a story.

<Spoiler warning>

 Balram born in a poor family in a feudal village wants to make something of his life. He goes to Dhanbad, takes driving lessons from some taxi driver and is able to find a job as a driver (actually an all-purpose servant) in the household of a landlord from his own village. He is expected to behave like a feudal servant. The landlord’s son, Mr Ashok, who has recently returned from America is the only person to treat him with any sort of respect. There is another driver in the household, Ram Persad. Balram resents his seniority, and upon discovering that Ram Persad is actually a Muslim pretending to be a Hindu for the sake of his job, threatens to expose him. Ram Persad escapes and Balram becomes the senior servant. Mr Ashok goes to Delhi to bribe some minister and takes Balram with him. Mr Ashok’s wife, Pinky madam, wants to return to America and is angry with Mr Ashok for having lied to him about his intentions to stay in India. One day, after Mr Ashok and Pinky madam have got drunk, Pinky madam runs over a child on the streets of Delhi. Mr Ashok and his brother get a signed statement from Balram stating that he is the only one responsible. The matter, however is never investigated by the police as there are no witnesses. This is the last straw for Pinky madam and she leaves her husband and returns to America. Before leaving, she gives some money to Balram, who spends it on a prostitute. Mr Ashok sinks into a depression and starts drinking. Balram who has until then worked honestly, starts drinking and stealing. One day, as Mr Ashok is going to some minister’s place to bribe him, Balram murders him and runs away with the bribe to Bangalore, where he establishes a cab business, catering to call-centers.

</Spoiler warning>

The story serves as a prop for Aravind Adiga to describe the feudal village life, rigging of elections, corruption among the socialist leaders, the brutal repression of the poor by the landlords, superstitions, family burdens, treatment of servants, abysmal living conditions in the city slums, etc. By making Balram the narrator, Adiga seeks to present a poor man’s perspective of modern India. For Balram, human life is and always has been all about class conflict – a struggle between the rich and poor, each class seeking to defeat the other. At several places, there is a mention of the cliched idea of two Indias – a modern, Western, rich India and a feudal, poor one.

There can be no doubt that most of Adiga’s descriptions are accurate. This should be no surprise to anyone who has looked at a slum in any Indian city. The motives and ideas that he gives to his characters are questionable. He describes the poor (in the cities) as living in anticipation of an insurrection. Really? There is a naxal threat in several places in rural India, but insurrection in the cities?

Finally, the book seems quite pointless. Why describe that which everyone knows and sees if you have nothing new to say? The wikipedia entry on Aravind Adiga says “At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society (Indian). That’s what I’m trying to do – it is not an attack on the country, it’s about the greater process of self-examination.” First, the great changes seem to be over. After a decade of some much needed economic reforms (in the 90s), India seems to be settling back into a slumber. The political situation has already hit rock-bottom and there are no signs of any improvement. Yes, there are brutal injustices and everyone knows it. With Adiga having nothing new to say, “The White Tiger” comes across as poverty porn (a phrase coined after the release of the movie Slumdog Millionaire, which I haven’t yet watched).

The Times of India reports

Mumbai: It was meant to be a grand procession, planned by Samajwadi Party candidate Abu Asim Azmi from the Bandra-Kherwadi signal to the collector’s office where he was to file his nomination papers for the Mumbai North-West Lok Sabha constituency on Monday. But it turned out to be a damp squib as TV channels began airing visuals of Azmi’s brother Shahid “distributing’’ cash among some people in the crowd.
    The TV visuals prompted Election Commission officials to conduct an inquiry into the incident although Shahid Azmi denied the charge.

So the Election Commission is worried about candidates handing out their own (presumably) money to voters. But no one is bothered when candidates of all parties make promises to hand out other people’s money to voters (search for the manifestos of various parties to see what I mean)!

In an eminently readable article in The Objective Standard, Raymond Niles presents the history of the electric grid in America, the formation of state enforced monopolies and the unending stream of problems that has plagued the industry ever since. The thesis of his article is that the problems would not have arisen if the property rights of the utility companies had been recognized. From the article,

“In many cities, if not most, some form of bribery was required to persuade city officials to grant permission to build and operate an electric grid. Because electric utility systems could not be built without using the city streets, city officials were well positioned to coerce money and other terms from utilities. In Chicago, such extortion became an art form, perfected by members of the city council known as the “Grey Wolves.”
…
Having observed the city’s refusal to grant Yerkes a longer and more secure franchise, Samuel Insull stepped forward with a new idea; he proposed regulation of the electric utility industry at the state level. Instead of challenging the government’s control of the rights-of-way and the corruption it entailed, Insull accepted the government’s involvement and sought a seemingly superior and less arbitrary form of it.”

There are several aspects of this history that deserve analysis.

The motivation of the state officials:
It is notable that it wasn’t the state officials who wanted or proposed state regulation. They were merely exploiting an opportunity to extort money from others achievements - achievements which they could not have hoped to equal but were in a position to control. They either did not know or did not care that a system of extortion is unsustainable – that their victims could not continue to operate under extortion. They did not even have the vision to institutionalize their extortion into a system of regulation.

The motivation of the innovators:
The innovators like Insull were men who had the vision to build large profitable systems. They were driven by their desire to translate their vision into reality and were prepared to overcome any obstacles that others might put in their way. They had the foresight to realize that they could not survive under constant extortion and to seek a “seemingly superior and less arbitrary form of government involvement”.

The motivation of the regulators:
The regulators – the people who propose regulation or attempt to improve it or rid it of corruption – are usually motivated by a genuine but misguided desire to improve the workings of government. They do not necessarily want to expand the role of government, they don’t even see it as an issue. They don’t realize that a system of regulation is fundamentally corrupt – or if they do, they see no way out of it.

The growth of regulation:
The growth of regulation described in the article follows a familiar and tragic pattern. Innovators come up with a vision for a better future – a vision that if put into reality will give them large profits and improve the quality of life of all who deal with them. People in positions of political power see an opportunity to extort money by putting obstacles in their path. The innovators who rarely understand the political issues involved attempt shortcuts to get rid of the obstacles. The worthier innovators attempt to find long term solutions to the obstacles and legalize the process of extortion. Controls breed more controls with time.

This familiar pattern is not inevitable. It is important to realize that the people responsible for the growth of regulation are the innovators. Any significant change in the workings of a society – whether for better or worse – is initiated by its better men – the men of vision who can dream of something new and the men of action who can turn the dreams into reality.

Property rights form the backbone of any political system. Men cannot deal with each other effectively without holding clear, legally recognized title to the products of their efforts. Men cannot plan long range if their actions are controlled by the whims of regulatory boards. But a political system needs a foundation – an understanding of man’s means of dealing with reality, an understanding of the purpose of man’s life, an understanding of men’s interactions in a society and an understanding of the purpose of a political system. This foundation is philosophy. Without this foundation, any political system – whether it be democracy in India or theocracy in Iran or fascism in China - is headed in the same direction - towards chaos. As I mentioned in my previous post in this series, philosophy is difficult. But the first step in understanding and applying it is acknowleding that it is real – that it plays a pivotal role in the life of every man and that it can be discovered and understood.

In an article in The Indian Express, Meeta Rajivlochan says that civil servants should “owe allegiance to the constitution first and foremost”. She goes on to say

“Overt neutrality and strong commitment to the Constitution and the rules of the land make a bureaucrat function much better”.

and concludes

“It is the danger of relinquishing a commitment to the Constitution of India in favour of a more personalised commitment  (political, religious, cultural or otherwise), and not corruption, which is by far the greatest malaise facing the civil service today. Corruption merely undermines the moral integrity of the individual. Abandoning of political neutrality undermines the entire structure and logic of bureaucracy.”

Meeta is right that corruption is not the greatest problem with the Indian state. She is also right in her identification of the problem. But she misses out on its cause. The idea that civil servants should be committed to upholding the constitution comes from the idea of rule by laws, not by men. But an implementation of that idea is only possible if laws are objective, principled and limited. The Indian constitution grants parliament almost unlimited powers to enact laws. It is this that allows politicians and thus the bureaucracy to get away with anything. It is this that breeds corruption.

(Part 2 will take a more detailed look at the Indian Constitution)