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Ryan Doyle

Dr. Zalar

INTR 3000

11 April 2017

The Imperative of Human Freedom

In contemporary American society and much of the Western world, the idea

valued above all others save perhaps romantic love is freedom. As often as Americans

and other Western countries use the word freedom, in debates, casual conversations

or in law, the nature of freedom is rarely considered. Furthermore, the Western

tradition defines freedom as absolute instead of culturally relative. Freedom is much

like a stream flowing with the shape of the rock beneath it; the essential elements are

the same, but it conforms to the nature of the culture it dwells in. What freedom means

in India is different from what freedom means in the United States; each definition

involves cultural context and connotations alien to the other. I believe that Adigas

definition of freedom is incomplete because they dont fully explore the Western

tradition of Enlightenment thought. Freedom as a concept divides into of a number of

smaller intellectual freedoms and rights protected by documents and law, but those are

founded upon more basic principles. The freedoms that are often left unrecognized or
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taken for granted are issues like being treated with the dignity inherent to every human

person and having ones basic needs met.

In the White Tiger, even basic freedoms display an entrepreneurial nature, a

status reserved for only select few, either rich people or people willing to abandon their

morality and traditions; to risk everything to claw themselves a little further out of the

Darkness and into the Light of India. When describing how to break out of the Rooster

Coop, Balram states, That would take no normal human being, but a freak, a pervert of

nature. It would, in fact, take a White Tiger. You are listening to the story of a social

entrepreneur, sir (150). This view of the Rooster Coop, a place where getting ahead

requires either working for generations to make any progress or abandoning the

traditional morals of the society to get ahead, paints a depressing picture for Indias so-

called democracy. The social systems also reinforce an ideal of humble servitude and

loyalty to the family, which would be less harmful to the upper classes, but offer an

effective means of ensuring poverty in the lower classes. Balram makes the claim that,

the Indian family, is the reason we are trapped and tied to the coop (150). Being free

in this society without laws to guarantee freedoms and rights means being powerful

enough to prevent yourself being used by others, as well as being willing to break

taboos and morals to reach goals. These points that Adiga makes are the points I can

support wholeheartedly, that freedom is arbitrarily restricted to certain classes of

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people and that all people are deserving of having their basic dignity recognized as well

as their basic needs met.

The issue I take with Balram as a character I can morally support is his killing of

Mr. Ashok, or specifically, the repercussions it has on Balrams family. Balram justifies

his actions through his own lens, but I dont believe that freedom worth what he

sacrificed for it. In a society without rules and laws, freedom is existing without being

beholden to a master or a landlord. Balram states that he feels his killing of Mr. Ashok

was worth it, stating, I'll never say I made a mistake that night in Delhi when I slit my

master's throat. I'll say it was all worthwhile to know, just for a day, just for an hour,

just for a minute, what it means not to be a servant (276). In this case, Balram was

safeguarding his essential liberties as well as his own life by acting in this manner.

Calling the homicide of Ashok murder implies that Ashok is an innocent and that

Balrams life was not in danger. Balram was not in immediate threat of losing his life,

but if Ashok fired him, Balram would have returned home to Laxmarnagh and he

would have died a coal miner or a rickshaw driver. However, I cannot support his

decision even in light of these premises, because of the implication that Balram

sacrificing his family was worth it or justified. Balram may not have actively killed his

family, but he did directly cause their death, if it in fact happened. I feel that the love of

family and the bonds that it creates supersede even this innate desire for freedom.

Furthermore, by the definition of murder, Balram may not have killed his family, but
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Balrams actions led to the killing of innocents, making him at least somewhat guilty of

their deaths.

These ideas on freedom form one part of my definition of freedom, but a full

definition of freedom in my view also implies certain rights characteristic of Western

Enlightenment thinking. Western freedoms encompass the pre-political rights espoused

by the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty, and property as well as the

politically protected rights of the First Amendment. Even international humanitarian

law comes from the same principles, with Article I of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights reading All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a

spirit of brotherhood. These rights, to contrast those in The White Tiger, spring from the

principle of protecting people, successfully or not, from abuses of power. In this

theoretical system, power is gained and lost and gained again without affecting the

basic quality of life for the governed population. Under these rules, any government

infringing on these basic human dignities is ipso facto unjust and should be

overthrown. Balram talks about the supposed rights in India very similarly, stating,

Now, Mr. Premier, the little take-home pamphlet that you will be given by the prime

minister will no doubt contain a very large section on the splendor of democracy in

India-the awe-inspiring spectacle of one billion people casting their votes to determine

their own future, in full freedom of franchise, and so on and so forth (79). These rights
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were presumably set into place with ideals taken from the British and the

Enlightenment much like the American laws were, the execution of them likely faltered

at one point and the jungle law reasserted itself with force.

While cultural perceptions of freedom are fluid, the freedoms international law

guarantees demand the same level of dedication and enforcement in all countries.

Living without a desperate need for sustenance and with protections from abuse of

power is a right that all people deserve. Balram quotes the poet Iqbal in saying, They

remain slaves because they can't see what is beautiful in this world (34). This implies

some fault on the part of the slaves, that if only the slaves were smarter or knew better,

that they too would be free. Freedom is not a privilege earned by knowledge or effort.

Freedom is essential to a full experience of the human condition, and without freedom

in ones, few people can make up for its absence. If hope is the thing with feathers that

perches in the soul, as Emily Dickinson said, freedom is the song it sings in the heart.