An evil birthed by Social evils

The Netflix feature, “The White Tiger” is a psychological thriller written and directed by Ramin
Bahrani and was released worldwide on 22nd January 2022. The movie is an adaptation of Aravind
Adiga’s 2008 award-winning novel with the same title. The movie highlights the deeply rooted
problems in Indian society like class struggles, social inequality, corruption, and poverty. The story is
about a man who is determined to escape the state of bondage set by the social constructs around
him by any means possible. The storyline shows how underprivileged the lives of people living in
rural India are and how one of them had to take extreme measures to escape a life of poverty. With a
terrific cast consisting of Rajkumar Rao and Priyanka Chopra led by Adarsh Gourav, the film is a
thrilling cinematic masterpiece, making it a must-watch.

The movie starts off with Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav), a successful entrepreneur telling his story
about how he escaped poverty and why he is wanted by the police for committing Murder, to a
Chinese businessman visiting India. The first few minutes of the movie show us the background of
Balram and his home village, setting the plot of the movie and showing us what life in a rural village
looks like. This is a very important theme of the movie portraying the life of the people living in rural
India, which is full of challenges, and almost impossible to overcome. The demise of Balram’s father
due to the lack of healthcare facilities in Balram’s village, Laxmangarh, is a major issue raised up by
the movie as it shows the lack of very basic amenities, making it a difficult task for the people living
in rural India to lead sustained lifestyle.

The movie also highlights the reasons why it is extremely difficult for poor people to escape poverty
and live a healthier and better life, social contrasts like orthodox beliefs and discrimination based on
religion and caste make it a very difficult task. In the movie we see that Balram was forced to quit his
education and take up menial jobs to help his family, and pay the landlords because of his
grandmother’s orthodox beliefs that the caste Balram belonged to, the Halwais, was only supposed
to serve the higher class and nothing more. A person faces backlash from society if he tries to move
beyond the work his caste is supposed to perform, like when Balram decides to learn how to drive a
car, his driving instructor says that he is not born for driving, but only for making sweets. This is a
major reason why it is very difficult for some people to move beyond their current social and
economic activities and it prevents them from moving up the social ladder. Another example of
discrimination in the movie is based on religion, as Balram cunningly tells his masters that their
senior servant was hiding the truth about his religion being Islam because the masters don’t let any
person following Islam work for them. This scene in the movie signifies the hatred of people towards
other religions and stripping them of opportunities based on the religion they practice. Balram’s
grandmother was also very keen on getting him married at a young age, which would’ve tied his feet
to his small village, he refused to get married, in the urge to earn something more with his life than
just 2 meals a day.

Another significant reason for the widespread poverty in India is also shown in the movie, due to
years of servitude, the people of the lower class have a particular mindset that doesn’t allow them to
move beyond the fixed social ladder and limits their social and economic activities to serving people
of the higher class. To elaborate more on the ideas addressed in the film, analogies related to wild
animals are used, for example when Balram states in the movie, “The greatest thing to come out of
this country in its 10,000 years of history is the rooster coop. They can see and smell the blood, they
know they are next, yet they don’t rebel. They don’t try to get out of the coop.” This quote states
that due to years of discrimination and living under harsh circumstances, the serving mentality of the
lower class of people has been passed down to them and they don’t resist it because they treat it like
it's their fixed reality.

“India is two countries in one, an India of light, and an India of darkness.” The posh and glorious side
of India, the India of light, and the darker side of India derived from poverty and inequality. Balram
belonged to a small village of Laxmangarh, which is in the darkness. Due to various reasons like social
discrimination and family pressure, Balram didn’t pursue his education and took up menial jobs.
However, seeing his family suffer and his father die due to lack of money and basic amenities, Balram
refused to abide by the mindset of his family and village which would chain him to a similar life as
them. Balram understood all the challenges he had to overcome to leave the life of poverty behind
him, he went to Delhi and became a driver for the family of his village’s landlord who had been
exploiting his village for a long time. Balram had always admired the lifestyle of the rich, he wanted
to have the same luxuries and wanted the landlord’s youngest son, Ashok Shah (Rajkumar Rao) to be
his master. Ashok Shah was a foreign return whose character was confused and torn between his
privilege and his mindfulness about the social atrocities around him, he understood the evils of the
Indian society but felt helpless and continued to do what his father and brother did. Rajkumar Rao
does an excellent job of portraying the character of Ashok. However, the primary focus of the movie
lies in the problematic and complex character of Balram. With ambitions higher than ever, Balram
begins his new life in Delhi as a naïve servant but as time passes, his ambitions steer him into a path
much darker than what he could have imagined.

At the beginning of the film, Balram idolizes his masters and has the same serving mentality as the
rest of the people at the bottom of the class structure, the breaking point for Balram was the night of
an accident. Ashok's wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra) was drunk driving late at night with her husband
when she hit a small child on the road and decided to flee the scene. The next day Balram was made
to sign some papers taking the whole blame for the accident and was treated with utmost respect by
the Landlord's family. However, as the investigation proceeded, Balram's confession wasn't needed
anymore and the family's behaviour towards Balram drastically changed. Balram understood that the
rich class of people doesn't care about people like him and that in this dog-eat-dog world, he
shouldn't be fooled by the masks they put on when they're in need of something. As Balram spent
more time in the big city of Delhi, around wealthy people and politicians, he understood the
hypocrisy and the exploitative nature of the rich class which enraged his ambition to stop being
dependent on them for a living and make something more out of his life.

A story that Balram takes inspiration from is about a cunning Brahmin trying to trick Buddha. The
Brahmin asks, “Master do you consider yourself man or god?” to which the Buddha smiles and says,
“Neither, I’m just one who has woken up while the rest of you are still sleeping.” Balram uses another
analogy to address himself as a person who has woken up to reality while the rest of the people still
have a blindfold on their eyes, he calls himself the white tiger, an animal that is born once in a blue
moon, which signifies the rarity of his journey. As Balram plans to break out of the coop and wake up
to the realities of the world he decides to take some fraudulent steps in order to earn more money
and deceive his masters, he eventually decides to take it big and steal a bag full of cash from his
masters which they paid regularly to local politicians to avoid paying taxes, which is another very cu
problem in the Indian society that is addressed in the movie. Corruption is a major factor that
increases income inequality and poverty, which also portrays the wrongs that are growing like cancer
within Indian politics. Politicians taking bribes and giving illegal tax relaxations to business owners for
their personal profit, increasing the economic gap between the rich and the poor is harming the
economic growth of the people at the bottom of the social ladder.

Balram was determined to take any steps in order to achieve the life of luxury he always wanted and
as soon as he gets the opportunity, he murders his master Ashok and flees the city with the money
he stole. We can clearly see the character development Balram goes through as the film proceeds
but the fact that the man who he was, naïve and innocent, is still very prominent in his personality as
it was a hard pill for him to swallow to accept the fact that he killed the man he used to look up to.
Balram however, explaining to the Chinese businessman, felt like he had no other way to escape the
coop, as he states that “Men born in light, like my master, have a choice to be good. Men born in the
coop, like me, we don’t have that choice.” And that Crime and Politics are the only two ways to help
the poor climb up the pit of poverty, making it almost an impossible task. The guilt and uneasiness
Balram was feeling were subdued by the feeling of his dream coming to life. As Balram left Delhi after
committing multiple crimes, he went to Bengaluru to pursue the business idea he overheard his
masters talking about, Outsourcing. Using the stolen money Balram starts a Taxi company with more
than 26 vehicles and 30 drivers and uses some of the remaining money to bribe a senior police
officer into not arresting him and help shut down the competition in the business he established
himself in, which again signifies corruption at the lower levels of administration in India. This is a
crucial aspect of the film as it shows the change in mindset and ethics that we see in Balram as he
decides to take the road paved with crime, corruption, and politics to become successful. Adarsh
Gourav does an excellent job, playing the character of Balram while showing changes in his
personality as the movie proceeds.

In conclusion, “The White Tiger” is a remarkable blend of thrill and drama, as it unfolds the journey
of Balram from being an innocent poor man doing menial jobs and living in Rural India to a criminally
successful entrepreneur while highlighting the problems within the social conditions that we live in.
Ramin Bahrani does a magnificent job of depicting the class struggle in India, exploring its darker side
and its consequences for the common man. The storytelling and visually compelling cinematography
of the movie provides the watcher with a worthwhile experience.