"Go to Old Delhi, and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundreds of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country." 
 White Tiger is about this 'Rooster Coop', the psychological barrier reinforced with discrimination and violence that keeps the new, developed and Rich India from the 'Other India'. The dark India, the poor India the India that supplies the slaves for the Rich India. 
 The Rooster Coop prevents rebellion, it lulls the masses with a sense of hopelessness while at the same time tempting them with the possibility of unlimited riches, just out of reach. The narrator is Balram Hawlai, onetime lowest of low, onetime Rooster Coop inmate and now a rich entrepreneur. Oh and yes, murderer. The story is about how he got from the 'Darkness' to the 'Light'. 
 It is essentially a cracking study of neoliberal India enveloped in a fantastically entertaining yarn. Inequality, corruption, state sanctioned violence, rebellions, racism, poverty, squalor, perversion and oppression are in stark contrast to opulent wealth, luxury, power and beauty. 
 To some all this might seem a little paranoid and you know, out there. But really, who are we to judge? Modern economic policies have contributed to much the same all over the world. 'Democracy' and 'liberalism' has contributed to the development of a whole new class system deviously concealed under ideals of 'Freedom' and 'Entrepreneurship'. 
 Most people reading this book are probably going to be from the classes of the 'privileged'. Good education, English speaking and at least white collar. And so can reasonably expected to be a little skeptical of the world that White Tiger portrays.