Analysis Of Ana Cristina Mendes's Exciting Tales Of Exotic Dark India

Owing to India’s diversity, these identities are determined by caste, ancestry, socioeconomic class, religion, sexual orientation and geographic location, and play an important role in determining the social position of an individual (Anne, Callahan & Kang, 2011). Within this diversity, certain identities are privileged over others, due to social hierarchies and inequalities, whose roots are more than a thousand years old. These inequalities have marginalized groups and communities which is evident from their meagre participation in politics, access to health and education services and

Caste is not a singular entity operating from an isolated standpoint. Rather, the caste hierarchy and oppression manifests itself through various other binaries, that of gender - man and woman, culture in terms of civilized and uncivilized, societal stratification in terms of high and low, ethical valuation in terms of good and bad, pure and impure. This paper plans to locate the ritualization and naturalization of the caste system- particularly the brahminical patriarchy in terms of gender, specifically from a critical feminist standpoint. This brahminical patriarchy is not only a prerogative of the brahmins but also seen as virtuous and therefore 'to be emulated' by those seeking upward mobiliy in the social order. It further seeks to explore the notion of rape as a means of symbolic assertion of power of one caste group over the other.

In Nehru’s India, women were victims of a “passive revolution” that subtly advanced bourgeoisie men of higher castes under a guise of parliamentary democracy. Though women have presided over the Indian National Congress, served as a prime minister, and represent a large part of India’s la...

In order to understand why Whitty’s argument is effectively communicated it must be noted that this article was published in the politically progressive magazine, Mother Jones. The audience of Mother Jones mostly consists of young adults, mostly women, who want to be informed on the corruptness of the media, the government and the corporate world. In order to be fully effective in presenting her points, Whitty starts her article by creating a gloomy imagery through her story of the city of Calcutta and the hard lives which its citizens live. Through her use of words such as “broken down…. Smoky streets” to describe the scene at Calcutta, she is able to create this gloomy image. She ties this gloomy story to how the population of Calcutta is the reason for the harsh living environment and how immense its population density is when compared to cities like New York. Additionally, she discusses how the increase in population has caused harsh lives for individuals in the Himalayas, the rest of India and the rest of the world. Through these examples she ties the notion that the root causes of such hard lives are because of the “dwindling of resources and escalating pollution,” which are caused by the exponential growth of humankind. She goes on to

Environmental degradation is nothing but an outcome of the dynamic interplay of socio-economic, institutional and technological activities. Environmental changes can be governed by many factors including economic growth, population growth, urbanization, agricultural intensification, mounting energy use and transportation. In the era of industrial revolution and sustainable development, poverty still resides as a problem at the root of several environmental problems. The basic intertwined liaison between environmental degradation, poverty, and violent conflict has been a prominent theme contained within the literature on sustainable development and conflict resolution since the mid-twentieth century. Although, some analysts have argued that violence has not been limited to the poor and deprived, but many have concluded from various studies that the devastation of the environment, poverty, and conflict are inextricably knotted. As a Journalist in Times of India, Adiga travelled a lot in different places in India and got unveiling realities with his novel. Therefore, he portrays these realities in the novel through the story of Balram’s, who belongs to a poor and low caste shudra, sufferings in this Materialist era and his journey for lightness from his native place Laxmangarh, situated in the darkness of Jharkhand (India), to the materialistic world of Delhi and Bangalore. He admits in the novel, “like all good stories; mine begins far away from Banglore. You see, I am in the light now, but I was born and raised in Darkness.” (p.14) Adiga portrays the real picture of India of light with the colour of bitterness, conflict, cunningness, corruption, murder and massive toxic traffic jams.

Susan Bayly. (1999). Caste, Society and Politics in India: from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press

The corruption in hospitals, where “doctors can keep their government salary and work in private hospitals”, sees people like Balram’s father die of horrible deaths every day. Dismayed by the lack of respect of the government for its dying citizens, Balram is corrupted by the fact that in the “darkness”, there is no service, not even in death. Balram also claims that “the schoolteacher had stolen our lunch money”, which was for a government funded lunch program. However, Balram doesn’t blame him, which justifies that Balram, from such a young age gives into the idea of corruption saying that “...you can’t expect a man in a dung heap to smell sweet”. In addition to his father and the school teacher, Balram is corrupted by his childhood hero Vijay. Growing up, Balram idolises Vijay for having escaped “the darkness”. However what he is ignorant of is that even though Vijay is in “the light” he is still corrupted by “the darkness”. Balram explains that “Vijay and a policemen beat another men to death”, yet he doesn’t see it as a problem, because he understand that one cannot become successful in such a corrupt system without becoming as corrupt as the system itself. It is here that Adiga asks the question of how are impoverished Indians are expected to refuse to engage in corruption when they live in such poor conditions. Thus, the reader is able to sympathize with Balram’s corruption,

In the novel, The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga the main character, is Balram, one of the children in the “darkness” of India. Adiga sheds a new light on the poor of India, by writing from the point of view of a man who was at one time in the “darkness” or the slums of India and came into the “light” or rich point of view in India. Balram’s job as a driver allows him to see both sides of the poverty line in India. He sees that the poor are used and thrown away, while the rich are well off and have no understanding of the problems the poor people must face. The servants are kept in a mental “Rooster Coop” by their masters. The government in India supposedly tries to help the poor, but if there is one thing Adiga proves in The White Tiger, it is that India’s government is corrupted. Despite the government promises in India designed to satisfy the poor, the extreme differences between the rich and the poor and the idea of the Rooster Coop cause the poor of India to remain in the slums.

The London Quarterly Review IX, published in October of 1857, is emblematic of the widespread media coverage surrounding the Revolution of 1857. Western readers saw India as a primitive land where events like the Black Hole of Calcutta contrasted native barbarity with European

Naipaul, V.S., India: A Wounded Civilization. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983. All subsequent reference with page numbers are from this edition.