The Identity of the Subaltern Class in Adiga’s The White Tiger

The White Tiger, which was first published in 2008, is the debut novel by Adiga in Indian literature. It reveals the two faces of an Indian society: “an India of light and an India of darkness”, with the main theme portraying the contrast between India’s rise as a modern global economy and its working or subaltern class, who live in crushing poverty. To unravel the subaltern class’ identity in Adiga’s The White Tiger from the perspective of a postcolonial dialectics, this study focuses on analyzing how the image of the subaltern class is portrayed in Adiga’s Indian society. It also seeks to unravel the nature of this class, its identity and the causes of its emergence, its persecution, its voiceless and its backlash.