Creation and Criticism

Aravind Adiga in his novel Between the Assassinations treats living issues which continue to plague India even today. Although many major and minor issues have found reflections, in this paper, for matter of space and also in view of their significance, I have chosen to examine only three issues, namely, Corruption, Cartelism and Communalism which predominantly sap the very vitality of the nation. The intention behind this study is to sensitize the readers towards these issues bearing grave national significance. The same has been examined using the interdisciplinary approach. For example, books of history, fictions and non-fictions of other writers of corresponding period have been cross-examined. Bribery, trafficking of banned goods and practising of quackery or adultery have been found to be the most prevalent forms of corruption. While some commit it out of habit, others do it due to structural make up of our country. The novelist, due to changes in Indian society and in the caste system, rightly focuses on caste contradictions instead of caste conflicts that occurred earlier. The presence of the communally charged Indian society seems to be happening due to historical reasons and gets sustenance from politics and other vested interests.

Keywords: Living Issues, Corruption, Casteism, Communalism, Caste conflicts, Caste contradictions.

What strikes first in the book is the title Between the Assassinations. It refers to a seven years period from 1984 to 1991, between two tragedies that shocked the nation with the assassinations of Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi. In this novel the author, through a series of stories, deftly chronicles the growth and transformation of a small south Indian fictional town Kittur, a replica of India. But after examining that inside story of the novel it has been found that it has got nothing to do with either of the assassinations and the author deliberately chose this sensational title.

If we glance through history books of post-independent India, we find that no historian has treated this seven-year period as a historical turning point. But when we observe closely some of non-fictions published recently on modern India, the said period, on many counts, seems to be somewhat specific. It is therefore no surprise that Shashi Tharoor in his non-fiction India: From Midnight to Millennium and Beyond (1997) has treated the period almost with a similar subtitle, Two Assassinations and a Funeral. No surprise if this may have been an inspiration for the title of Adiga's present novel. Similarly, Ramchandra Guha, a modern Indian historian, in his popular non-fiction India After Gandhi (2008) too has treated the period under a separate subtitle The Son Also Rises on the pretext that Rajiv Gandhi's liberalising of license Raj and other economic reforms led India to new era. In the light of these facts we may conclude that the title of the novel is justified.

Like Adiga's Booker-winning novel The White Tiger, the novel Between the Assassinations also foregrounds certain issues of a social and administrative nature with which Indian society is still struggling today. This makes the novel relevant to the present-day system of society and administration. In this sense Between the Assassinations fulfils the prime requirement of the novel promulgated in the theory of novel namely, realism, relating the subject matter to the ongoing process in society. In his book Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory, J.A. Cuddon confirms that “in literature realism is the portrayal of life with fidelity” (729).

If we observe the reviews on Adiga's Between the Assassinations that have appeared so far in various newspapers and on the net, we find none of them has highlighted the issues raised in the novel. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to make a critical study of three major social and political issues of India documented in this novel namely, corruption, casteism and communalism.

The major issues raised in the novel are corruption, communalism, casteism and sex, violence and disease among the youths while terrorism, poverty, poor-rich divide, pitfalls of modernisation and communism have been given minor treatments though issues may not be minor. But for the sake of space, we shall confine the paper to three mentioned major issues.

Of all the major issues, corruption has received huge treatment perhaps because the author is aware how this evil has sapped the very vitality of the nation. The novelist not only focuses on its various forms but he also highlights its ubiquitous presence. There is not a single authority, government or otherwise, which does not claim its undue share from Abbasi, the shirt factory owner of Kittur. He had to pay off to:

the electricity man, the water board man; half the income tax department of Kittur; half the excise department of Kittur; six different officials of the telephone board; a land tax official of the Kittur city corporation; a sanitary inspector of the Karnataka state Health Board; a health inspector of Karnataka state sanitary Board; a delegation of the All India small factory workers’ union; delegation of the Kittur Congress party; the Kittur BJP; the Kittur Communist Party; the Kittur Muslim league. (Between the Assassinations 28-29)

As is clear from this excerpt, bribery is the most prevalent form of corruption. Two business men like many others, shirt-factory owners, Sunil Settee and Silk and Royan Store owner Podiwal, have also been shown as victims of bribery. Similarly, Xerox Ramakrishna who is arrested twenty-one times for selling illegal photocopies of books is every time released with the help of corrupt police inspector Ramesh and immoral advocate D’ Sauza. Here too the strong nexus of police, advocate and the black-marketeer is based on bribery.

Illegal manufacturing and trafficking of banned goods is shown as another form of corruption which in glimpses are reflected in the novel. Abbasi, for example, “marks Mahmood whose only business was the sale and repurchase of stolen cars. He also marks Kalam, who was rumoured to import hashish from Bombay and ship it to Sri Lanka” (Between the Assassinations 32). Such activities are shown to be very common in different parts of Kuttur.

One other form of corruption, reflected through the stories of the novel, is the practice of quackery. But the reasons accounted for the prevalence of this and some other forms of corruption is the rising prices. Ratnakar Shetty, a pseudo-sexologist sells pills made of white flour to sex victims. When asked why he does so, he replies: “What choice do I have if I do not sell them those white pills, how will I marry my daughters off” (Between the Assassinations 228)? His justification indicates the rising prices, prevalence of high dowry rates and the challenge of maintaining large number of children besides many other compulsive factors which account for circular presence of corruption. There is no respite. Abbasi, an honest factory owner of Kittur learns: “I thought things would get better this fellow Rajiv Gandhi taking over but he's let us down” (Between the Assassinations 33).

The issue recurs in Adiga’s booker-winning novel The White Tiger wherein the compulsive factors of corruption are explained by the chief protagonist of the novel, Balram Halwai, in letters supposed to be sent to Chinese Premier. There are two options if one chooses not to be corrupt. One option is to become the white tiger, i.e., to kill some rich person to have some beginning in the world of wealth and honour and escape it safely. But only rarest of the rare, only tiger can kill some rich person to have some beginning in the world of wealth and honour and escape it safely. The poor cannot exercise this choice because it is not an easy option. The result of the other option is a Balram as described thus:

Go to tea shop anywhere along the Ganga, sir, and look at the tea shop-men, I say, but better to call them human spiders that go crawling in between and under the table with rags in their hand, crushed humans in crushed uniform, sluggish, unshaven in their thirties, forties, fifties but still boys. But that is your fate if you do your job well with honesty; the way Gandhi would have done it, no doubt. (The White Tiger 51)

Similarly, in Between The Assassinations Adiga portrays two characters who try to practise honesty. The first one was Gururaj Kamath, a famous journalist, sort of a celebrity of Kittur, who was kicked off his job and consequently turned mad. Similarly, Abbasi who wanted to beat the dragon the corrupt officer, once for all, had to close his factory.

Caste conflict is another living issue which has received fair amount of treatment in this novel. What strikes us most is not only its perpetuation but also what noted historian of modern India, Bipin Chandra, explains, “its aspects of hierarchy of high and low, of touchable and untouchable, which has provided legislation for the unequal access to resources and to the exploitation and oppression of lower caste, besides discrimination against lower castes by higher castes” (India Since Independence 631).

But it is to be noted that the caste system which Adiga deals with in his novel is much different from those of Bipin Chandra or Mulk Raj Anand and Arundhati Roy. They felt very strongly about the repressive and rigid caste system prevalent in their times. Historically speaking the issue has been partly resolved. The casteist phenomenon is not so acute today as it used to be during pre-independence years. But it continues to exist in various other forms. In fact, with the arrival of Chetan Bhagat generation of writers, characters make fun of casteism.

In Chetan Bhagat’s fiction entitled 2 States, we observe a very subtle comment on changing form of caseism in cosmopolitan India as is reflected in conversation between two characters Krish and Ananya. Krish asks:

‘So you are an expert on rasom and sambhar. Are you south Indian?’

‘Tamilian, please be precise. In fact, Tamil Brahmin which is very different from Tamilians. Never forget that.’ She leaned back as the waiter served meal. She tore a chicken leg with her teeth.

‘And how exactly are Tamil Brahmins different?’

‘Well, for one thing, no meat and drinking, she said as she fostered a cross with the chicken leg.’

‘Absolutely,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘I didn’t say I am a practising Tamil Brahmin. But you should know that I am born into the purest of the pure upper caste communities ever created. What about you commoner?’

‘I am a Panjabi, though I never lived in Punjab. I grew up in Delhi. And I have no idea about any caste, but we do eat chicken. And I can digest bad sombhar better than Tamil Brahmans, I said’ (2 States 7).

Adiga, therefore, instead of caste conflicts deals with caste contradictions that have merged in the globalized world where inter-caste and cross-culture marriages are becoming very common. Indian caste system too finds itself caught between tradition and modernity. Therefore, the problem of locating Shankar in the caste hierarchy is those of thousands of others who are products of inter-caste and inter-cultural marriages. Despite all kinds of modernisations and globalizations Shankar, in vain, looks for an escape from caste tangles. He turns to Christianity thinking “among Christians there is no caste. Everyone is judged by what one has done with his life.” But the discriminatory treatment that he met by the Jesuits made him aware of what Bipin Chandra explains, “the caste system is prevalent not only among the Hindus but also among Sikhs, Christians and Muslims.”

The caste consciousness is very deep rooted and it afflicts people from the very young age. We can sense it from Ziauddin, a twelve-year-old boy’s reactions. In the first story of the novel, the boy asks a stranger: “Are you really Pathan, Sir? On his affirmative answer he exclaimed: “me too! Me too!” (Between the Assassination 14). But those who want total root out of this system, immediately become reactionary. For example, what Shankar’s the most trusted Professor Daryl D’ Sauza suggests is only a reaction against this rigid system: “One solution is what the Naxalites have done. Just blow up the upper caste entirely.” Similarly, Shankar’s exploding of bomb shows merely his utmost frustration and outburst of his anger: “I have burst a bomb to end 5,000 years old caste system that still operates in the country. I have burst a bomb only to show that man should not be judged, as I have been, merely by the accident of his birth” (Between the Assassinations 59).

But change is equally glaring. The literal meaning of Shankar itself suggests a new kind of problem that has emerged in the modernised India. Where to place a Shankar in the caste hierarchy? Adiga captures the change in the caste system. The change provides relief to one and reaction in the other. An old man laments over the change: “There is no such thing as caste. Brahmins eat meat. Kshatrias get educated and write books and lower castes convert to Christianity and Islam” (Between the Assassinations 68).

The change through which the caste system is undergoing in this globalizing world also echoes through Adiga’s another novel, The White Tiger in which Balram Halwai, the chief protagonist of the novel says: “In the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes. Men with Big Bellies and Men with small Bellies. And only two destinies; eat or get eaten up” (The White Tiger 64).

In this novel Adiga throws light on one more complication in the changing caste system, i.e., emergence of caste within caste and exploitation of one by the other for political and economic gains. Shankar was under the impression that M.P. of the area belonged to his caste Hoyka. He gets disillusioned when Prof. D’Sauza explained him about the politics of caste within caste:

There is no such thing as Hoyka, my dear fellow. The caste is subdivided into seven smaller castes. The Member of Parliament is a Kollaba, the top of the seven castes. The Kollabas have always been millionaires. They have exploited the six Hoyka castes for years. And now again this man is playing Hoyka card to get himself re-elected so that he can sit in office in New Delhi and take large parcels filled with cash from businessmen. (Between the Assassinations 73)

The third major issue to which the novelist sensitises the readers is the presence of communalism. Many writers and historians have tried to understand the reasons behind this menace. It is interesting to note as to how an American businessman, a character in the Shashi Tharoor's novel Riot, interprets it. He says: “You have too much history. Far more than you can use peacefully. So, you end up wielding history like a battle axe against each other” (Preface xxiv).

It is a sarcasm and also a reality that baffles India. Communalism is one of the products of such a history and is one of the most serious dangers that Indian society is facing today. Its undermining of secularism has become a menace to the hard-won unity of the Indian people. Naturally while mapping the social and economic reality of Kittur, Adiga's Between the Assassinations captures the communal undertones which are reflected through some of his stories. The scenes that portray the living realities of the society are reflected as appropriate and truthful descriptions in some of the stories. In one of the stories, we mark a scene of communal disharmony wherein “the mosque is at the centre of a legal tussle between the school authorities and a legal Islamic organisation both of which claim possession of the land on which it stands on” (Between the Assassinations 84). How the whole atmosphere of Kittur or by implication of India is communally charged can be understood through the statement of a police inspector Ramesh who is outraged and gets threatened with the illegal sale of the banned book The Satanic Verses: “Don't you know the book is banned, you son-of-a-bald woman? You think you are going to start a riot among the Muslims? And get me and even other policemen here transferred to salt Market village” (Between the Assassinations 47)?

In one of the stories of the novel, a Muslim policeman Aziz thanks Journalist Gururaj Kamath, for his honest coverage of the riot that had occurred in Kittur. When Kamath said that he had reported only truth, Aziz in his compliments almost summed up the role of media in escalating riots. “If more people did what you do, there won't be any more riots in the town sir” (Between the Assassinations 117). If we look further into the matter we will understand the truth of the matter better. Kamath had honestly covered the religious tension between the two communities that had been instigated by the Member of Parliament of Kittur and mafia of the port to transfer the land in their own hands: “The violence was planned. Muslim goons burnt Muslim shops and Hindu goons Hindu shops. It was real state transaction masquerading as a religious riot” (Between the Assassinations 126).

From the opening line of the novel itself it is clear that the whole atmosphere of Kittur is communally charged and it is affecting even the children. A Muslim boy aged twelve, Zianuddin says: “I am a Muslim sir; I do not do hanky panky.” It is significant to note that the boy who is barely twelve-year-old harbours in his mind a sense of communal superiority. This is further substantiated by his reaction when he is beaten by his Hindu employer: “We came here and built the Taj Mahal and The Red Fort in Delhi and so you don't treat me like this. You son of a bold woman you.” Similarly, his biasness against the Hindu is also reflected in his statement: “Hindus don’t give us jobs; they don’t give us respect” (Between the Assassinations 15).

Adiga through his stories sensitises the readers to this grave issue. But it is historian's Job to account for the reasons why a minor boy like Ziauddin becomes communally afflicted. Ramchandra Guha, a famous historian of Modern India in his popular book India After Gandhi tries to analyse the reasons:

As a rule, the Muslims in India were poorer than the Hindus, as well as less educated. There were few Muslims entrepreneurs, but no real Muslim middle class. They continued to be under represented in the professions and in government service. Forty per cent of Muslims lived in cities, lived below poverty line; the situation in the countryside is not better.... Few Muslim girls were sent to schools, while the boys were sent to Madarsas (religious schools) whose archaic curricula did not equip them for jobs in the modern economy.... The young men, especially sought succor in religion, seeing in a renewed commitment to Islam, an alternative to poverty and persecution in the world outside. (India after Gandhi 650)

It is obvious from the above study that the rising populations, poverty, lack of education, unemployment and poor-rich divide result in unhealthy competitions for inadequate economic resources and opportunities which further accentuate communal conflicts. But Adiga’s Between the Assassinations, being a work of fictional art, does not trade beyond its scope. He reports what he observes and leaves the reasons behind these issues to be explored by the historians, sociologists and others.

Works Cited:

Adiga, Aravind. Between the Assassinations. Picador India, 2008.

Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. Harper Collins Publishers India, 2008.

Bhagat, Chetan. 2 States. Rupa & Co., 2010.

Chandra, Bipin, Mridula Mukherjee, and Aditya Mukherjee. India Since Independence. Penguin India Ltd., 2007.

Cuddon, J.A. Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory. Penguin Books, 1998.

Guha, Ramachandra. India After Gandhi. Picador India, 2008.

Tharoor, Shashi. India From Midnight to the Millenium and Beyond. Penguin India Ltd, 2007.

About the Author:

Prof. Shrikant Singh is the founder Head of the Postgraduate and Research Department of English, Nava Nalanda Mahavihara, Nalanda (Deemed University under Ministry of Culture, Govt of India)), Bihar, India. He was formerly Dean Academic and Registrar of the University. He has authored, edited and translated a number of books besides publishing over 50 research papers in different journals and books. He has been founder co-editor of Research Journal of the university, Sri Nalanda. His research area of interest includes Buddhism in English literature. He has delivered talks on Nalanda Studies, The Buddha and Vivekananda: Millenia Stars, Bihar Studies and Peace Poetry of Thich Nhat Hanh etc. He can be contacted at dr.shrikant.singh@gmail.com.