DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY IN ARAVIND ADIGA’S THE WHITE TIGER: A CRITICAL STUDY THROUGH DR. B. R. AMBEDKAR’S CRITIQUE OF CASTE DEMOCRACY

Abstract [English]

The present research study investigates the theme of deprivation of liberty in Aravind Adiga's well-known novel The White Tiger (2008) from the perspective of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s critique of caste democracy. It is commonly considered that the novel is just about class struggle, entrepreneurship, and individual mobility. In fact, it is an insightful commentary on the social injustices of postcolonial democratic India that result from the persistence of caste-based hierarchies. Ambedkar's conception of caste as a system of graded inequality, the worthlessness of political democracy without social democracy, and the refusal of individual freedom in caste society offer a powerful tool to interpret the evolution of Balram Halwai from enslavement to conditional liberty.

This research, by pointing out caste not as an outdated phenomenon but as a structure of power control, discovers that Balram's freedom is not liberation in the Ambedkarite sense but a re-enactment of the relations of power. His shifting from village to city, from servant to master does not break down the caste structures but rather allows him to become part of its framework. The paper asserts that the deprivation of freedom in The White Tiger is the consequence of the system, which is the caste democracy, and therefore it cannot be solved a person by acts of defiance.