The Political and the Personal Under British Colonial Rule
Set in a fictional town in south India circa 1930, Swami and Friends is defined by the pressures and complexities of British colonial rule over India. While the book’s events revolve around common childhood trials and tribulations, the personal experiences of the protagonist and his friends are colored by their political context, even when the characters themselves have little understanding of it. By examining British colonial rule through the lens of an ordinary boy’s relatable childhood, R.K. Narayan demonstrates the pervasiveness and subtlety of this political structure’s power. Swami’s story shows that the impact of colonial rule is present in every corner of Indian life during this era, and that no individual’s personal life can be truly separate from colonialism’s profound, sometimes contradictory effects.
The lighthearted conflicts of the book’s early chapters underscore Narayan’s point that that colonialism is present even in the innocent misadventures of children, although it may seem entertaining, inconsequential, or even impressive in their eyes. Narayan first addresses the influence of colonialism in the book’s opening chapter, when Swami and his classmates attend scripture class with Mr. Ebenezer, their fanatical Christian teacher. Narayan notes that the students sometimes enjoy the class because of the “stirring pictures” they imagine based on Biblical tales. For Swami and his friends, the Christianity imposed on them at the mission school is initially a source of idle entertainment rather than a menace or something to contemplate deeply. Yet Swami soon perceives the way that Ebenezer’s Christian teachings conflict with his own Hindu beliefs, and protests against his teacher. However, the consequences of this conflict are trivial; the class enjoys watching their teacher get scolded by the Mission School Headmaster and Swami is simply happy to escape punishment. Again, even in this direct conflict Swami is primarily occupied by childish concerns like impressing his friends and pleasing his father, and colonialism remains a backdrop that affects Swami without occupying much of his attention.
The budding friendship between Swami, Mani and their new classmate Rajam again illustrates the ways that the young boys take existing power structures for granted. Although Mani and Rajam at first intend to fight with each other, that animosity quickly dissolves into mutual admiration, leaving the boys untroubled by their initial reliance on violent dominance to solve their problems. When Swami finds out that Rajam’s father is the Police Superintendent, he is impressed and excited to be associated with such power, again demonstrating his childish inability to reflect on the value and legitimacy of the powers around him.
As Swami’s story progresses, however, the political context around him increasingly intrudes on his contained understanding of his life. Swami begins to take actions that appear outwardly political, but he still experiences these events in a personal, self-centered way. By blending Swami’s still-childish perspective with large-scale political events, Narayan again fuses the personal with the political and illustrates the impossibility of separating them, particularly within a context of colonialism. Swami, Mani, and Rajam try out the experience of being in power themselves by bullying a young boy named Karuppan and saying that they are “the Government Police out to catch humbugs like you.” The three boys make unreasonable demands and frighten the boy, but seem not to reflect on the effects of their actions. It seems, then, that Swami and his friends develop an unconscious tendency to act out the oppression they have experienced. Shortly thereafter, Swami and Mani inadvertently participate in a public protest against English oppression of Indian peasants, and become immediately emotionally attached to the cause. Swami “resolve[s] to boycott English goods” and burns his own cap “with a feeling that he was saving the country.” At this point, Swami’s emotional reaction to the notion of English oppression becomes clear, but he is not yet able to connect that feeling with his own actions more generally. When Swami finds himself caught up in a school boycott the next day, he participates actively in the increasingly dangerous event but thinks mostly of the fun he’s having rather than his behavior’s political meaning, as when he realizes happily that “there were many glass panes untouched yet.” It is only when Swami witnesses Rajam’s father “grimly ticking off seconds before giving orders for massacre” that he begins to gain awareness of the political tension present in his own life. Narayan notes that Swami “had unconsciously become defiant” through his new experience of protest. It is this subconscious change that leads Swami to run away from the Mission School, for the first time renouncing a major aspect of colonial oppression in his own life.
Though Swami and his friends gain some degree of political consciousness over the course of the story, their lives continue to be circumscribed by colonial power in ways that are largely invisible to them. Narayan illustrates this reality especially vividly through the boys’ experiences forming a cricket team. By highlighting the prominent and complicated role that a quintessentially English activity plays in the friends’ lives, Narayan demonstrates that individuals living under colonialism often have no choice but to tolerate—and sometimes even embrace—the cultures of their colonizers.
Although Swami, Mani, and Rajam are initially excited about starting a cricket team, they quickly discover that the logistics are more complicated than they expected, and Swami in particular worries about government registration and taxes. Reflecting on these difficulties, Rajam has “a momentary sympathy for Gandhi; no wonder he was dead against the government.” By equating the boys’ seemingly trivial problems with Gandhi’s opposition to the government, Narayan humorously points to the oppressive presence of the government in every Indian’s life, no matter how slight it might seem.
The formation of the cricket team initially serves as a way for Swami and Rajam to repair their friendship after their conflict over what Rajam calls Swami’s “political activities,” but eventually, the cricket team is also responsible for the breakup of Swami and Rajam’s friendship, when Rajam is unable to forgive Swami for missing the match. By using the game to both unite and divide the story’s protagonists, Narayan indicates the extent to which the characters may be at the mercy of English influence, even as they devote themselves to an English sport with seeming freedom. Political forces work their way into the personal goals and relationships of Swami and his friends even during their leisure time, again demonstrating that no private life can be truly independent from politics in the context of a colonized state.
Education and Oppression
Difficulty within educational settings is one of Swami’s constant conflicts throughout the novel. Rather than simply depicting the ordinary childhood struggles of homework and unfair teachers, Narayan uses these familiar obstacles to enact a smaller version of the colonial oppression that suffuses the book. For Swami, school is a place of both growth and restriction, where rigid rules come into conflict with Swami’s nuanced inner life. Throughout, Narayan’s depictions of Swami’s school days add depth and specificity to the book’s larger points about the intersection of the personal and the political.
Many of Swami’s most immediate experiences of oppression occur within school settings. He encounters violence, humiliation, and requirements that quash his imaginative and sensitive nature. All of these restrictions on Swami’s individual life seem to mirror the dehumanizing nature of colonial power on India’s larger population. At both of his schools, Swami is subject to punishments that cause him pain and embarrassment, such as being caned or being made to stand on a bench in front of the class. After he leaves the Mission School and enters the Board School, Swami’s schedule becomes more restrictive, and he is required to complete drill practices and scout classes after school in addition to a heavy load of homework. Even though the Board School Headmaster is eventually revealed to be a frail older man who sleeps on the job, he still wields absolute power over Swami and will not let him leave school early to participate in cricket practice. Narayan’s descriptions of Swami’s engagement with academic work also hint at the way that his schools fail to engage his full humanity. Puzzling over a mathematical word problem about selling mangos, Swami feels “utterly hopeless” without deeper knowledge of who the men in the problem are and how their personalities affect the situation. With this example, Narayan hints at the ways that Swami perceives the lack of humanity in the structures he encounters at school.
However, Swami also derives meaning and a sense of belonging from his schools, even as they cause him pain. The positive aspects of Swami’s educational experiences indicate that because these institutions are so deeply ingrained in Swami’s life, he must necessarily learn to derive some satisfaction from them, just as the Indian people under English rule must carry on finding meaning in their lives even in unfair circumstances.
School forms the core of social life for Swami and his friends, as indicated when their friend Somu fails an exam and then vanishes from the story: “Somu was not promoted, and that meant he was automatically excluded from the group, the law being inexorable in that respect.” Because Swami’s friendships are so important to him, and school defines the structure of those friendships, the school plays a crucial role in developing meaning in his life. Although the Board School causes Swami more difficulty, it also helps him develop academically. He gains “rigour and discipline” where before he was unengaged with his work, which allows him to live up to his father’s high expectations and gain a greater sense of self-efficacy and interpersonal connection—even in regard to his old school. When Swami prepares to run away after leaving the Board School, he stops at his old mission school and fondly remembers his time there, thinking: “All his friends were there…happy, dignified, and honored within the walls of the august Albert Mission School. He alone was out of it, isolated, as if he were a leper.” His sense of belonging indicates that he considers the school a kind of home and that he is invested in the idea of its goodness, despite the pain he experienced there.
The schools’ dual role as structures of both support and oppression plays out vividly in the way that the school setting can change quickly from organized to chaotic. This sense of instability and potential for confusion again functions as a microcosm of Swami’s broader sociopolitical context, where the margin between safety and danger is often small. When the term ends at the Mission School, jubilant celebration rapidly turns into destructive mayhem. As Swami reflects on the rumor that enemies stab each other on the last day of school, Narayan writes: “Swaminathan had no enemy as far as he could remember. But who could say? The school was a bad place.” This scene exemplifies the uncertainty and sense of amorphous danger that pervades Swami’s life at school and, as the story progresses, begins to affect him outside of school as well.
The Fluidity of Identity
Although little more than a year passes over the course of Swami’s story, his identity and those of his friends change and develop many times throughout the novel. By demonstrating how malleable his characters’ essential traits and roles are, Narayan casts doubt on the idea of objectively “true” identity, instead seeming to argue that even core characteristics like goodness and badness can be changed and chosen according to the desires of individuals and groups. This changeability is often a positive force in the characters’ lives, but Narayan also uses it to underscore the inherent instability and ambiguity that Swami and his friends must learn to face.
Swami’s understanding of himself is particularly fluid throughout the novel. He often lies to others about his behavior or motivations and sometimes fools himself in the process, effectively changing himself into a different person to suit different circumstances. When Swami feels insecure about writing too little on his exam, he tells his friends that he wrote half a page and “believed it for the moment,” even though he only wrote one sentence. Swami is not actually a good student, but he takes on the identity of one in order to make himself feel more confident in his group of friends. Compiling the list of supplies he needs for that same exam, Swami finds: “The list was disappointing. He had never known that his wants were so few.” To cope with that disappointment, he creates a more detailed list of things he doesn’t particularly need, in order to fashion himself into a more important person with more substantial wants. When Swami first begins playing cricket, he bowls well once and is immediately nicknamed Tate, after a famous cricket player. Although Swami attends few practices after that point and ultimately misses the crucial match, his friends continue calling him Tate and he brags about the nickname to his family. Again, Swami’s identity shifts in a moment to suit the desires of himself and his friends and make them all feel more confident about their cricket team.
The malleable social roles of Swami and his friends also demonstrate the flexibility of each of their individual identities. Sometimes the friends choose to define each other in positive ways, but sometimes they choose to exclude and belittle each other. Their group dynamics illustrate how readily “good” characters can become “bad” and vice versa, again emphasizing the relative nature of each of their identities, particularly in the way they are shaped by the perceptions of others. When Swami and Mani first meet Rajam, they are convinced that he is evil and plan to fight with him. However, once Mani and Rajam face each other to fight, they quickly set aside their differences: Rajam says, “I won’t mind being your friend,” and Mani replies, “Nor I.” With that simple exchange, the boys effortlessly create a friendship that leaves Swami in a state of “perfect peace.” However, Swami soon loses the respect of his older group of friends, who begin calling him a “tail” because of his attachment to Rajam. Narayan calls this experience “probably Swaminathan’s first shock in life,” and describes how it leaves him wondering whether his friends are the same people they used to be. Although the friends soon reconcile, the shocking rupture shows how quickly esteemed individuals can become untrustworthy, creating danger in social contexts that had previously seemed safe.
Toward the end of the novel, Swami begins to understand the idea of identity, both his own and those of his friends, as less concrete than he has previously thought. Instead of alternating between distinct identities, Swami and his friends begin to take on multiple identities at the same time. This shift into greater ambiguity adds new depth to Narayan’s examination of the changeable nature of personhood. When Swami runs away following his departure from the Board School, he becomes lost and disoriented in an unfamiliar setting. He begins to imagine terrible dangers on the dark roads around him, and he even becomes delusional in his desperation. At the height of this crisis, Swami loses his sense of himself almost completely and perceives around him “a sense of inhumanity.” During this episode, Swami effectively merges with the frightening night, demonstrating that even the basic individual identity itself can vanish at times.
When Rajam moves away, he has not yet reconciled with Swami after their fight over the cricket match. With Mani’s help, Swami gives Rajam a book of fairy tales as a going-away present, but he is not able to hear Rajam’s reply over the noise of the train. The book ends with Swami uncertain of whether Rajam considers him a friend or an enemy. Similarly, the previously straightforward Mani takes on an ambiguous role at the end, refusing to give Swami a clear answer about whether or not Rajam will be in touch. Narayan writes that “for once Mani’s face had become inscrutable,” ending Swami’s story in uncertainty and confusion. This conclusion—or lack thereof—indicates particularly clearly Narayan’s point that it is impossible to define an individual’s identity with any real certainty, even when the individual is a close friend or even oneself.Although little more than a year passes over the course of Swami’s story, his identity and those of his friends change and develop many times throughout the novel. By demonstrating how malleable his characters’ essential traits and roles are, Narayan casts doubt on the idea of objectively “true” identity, instead seeming to argue that even core characteristics like goodness and badness can be changed and chosen according to the desires of individuals and groups. This changeability is often a positive force in the characters’ lives, but Narayan also uses it to underscore the inherent instability and ambiguity that Swami and his friends must learn to face.
Swami’s understanding of himself is particularly fluid throughout the novel. He often lies to others about his behavior or motivations and sometimes fools himself in the process, effectively changing himself into a different person to suit different circumstances. When Swami feels insecure about writing too little on his exam, he tells his friends that he wrote half a page and “believed it for the moment,” even though he only wrote one sentence. Swami is not actually a good student, but he takes on the identity of one in order to make himself feel more confident in his group of friends. Compiling the list of supplies he needs for that same exam, Swami finds: “The list was disappointing. He had never known that his wants were so few.” To cope with that disappointment, he creates a more detailed list of things he doesn’t particularly need, in order to fashion himself into a more important person with more substantial wants. When Swami first begins playing cricket, he bowls well once and is immediately nicknamed Tate, after a famous cricket player. Although Swami attends few practices after that point and ultimately misses the crucial match, his friends continue calling him Tate and he brags about the nickname to his family. Again, Swami’s identity shifts in a moment to suit the desires of himself and his friends and make them all feel more confident about their cricket team.
The malleable social roles of Swami and his friends also demonstrate the flexibility of each of their individual identities. Sometimes the friends choose to define each other in positive ways, but sometimes they choose to exclude and belittle each other. Their group dynamics illustrate how readily “good” characters can become “bad” and vice versa, again emphasizing the relative nature of each of their identities, particularly in the way they are shaped by the perceptions of others. When Swami and Mani first meet Rajam, they are convinced that he is evil and plan to fight with him. However, once Mani and Rajam face each other to fight, they quickly set aside their differences: Rajam says, “I won’t mind being your friend,” and Mani replies, “Nor I.” With that simple exchange, the boys effortlessly create a friendship that leaves Swami in a state of “perfect peace.” However, Swami soon loses the respect of his older group of friends, who begin calling him a “tail” because of his attachment to Rajam. Narayan calls this experience “probably Swaminathan’s first shock in life,” and describes how it leaves him wondering whether his friends are the same people they used to be. Although the friends soon reconcile, the shocking rupture shows how quickly esteemed individuals can become untrustworthy, creating danger in social contexts that had previously seemed safe.
Toward the end of the novel, Swami begins to understand the idea of identity, both his own and those of his friends, as less concrete than he has previously thought. Instead of alternating between distinct identities, Swami and his friends begin to take on multiple identities at the same time. This shift into greater ambiguity adds new depth to Narayan’s examination of the changeable nature of personhood. When Swami runs away following his departure from the Board School, he becomes lost and disoriented in an unfamiliar setting. He begins to imagine terrible dangers on the dark roads around him, and he even becomes delusional in his desperation. At the height of this crisis, Swami loses his sense of himself almost completely and perceives around him “a sense of inhumanity.” During this episode, Swami effectively merges with the frightening night, demonstrating that even the basic individual identity itself can vanish at times.
When Rajam moves away, he has not yet reconciled with Swami after their fight over the cricket match. With Mani’s help, Swami gives Rajam a book of fairy tales as a going-away present, but he is not able to hear Rajam’s reply over the noise of the train. The book ends with Swami uncertain of whether Rajam considers him a friend or an enemy. Similarly, the previously straightforward Mani takes on an ambiguous role at the end, refusing to give Swami a clear answer about whether or not Rajam will be in touch. Narayan writes that “for once Mani’s face had become inscrutable,” ending Swami’s story in uncertainty and confusion. This conclusion—or lack thereof—indicates particularly clearly Narayan’s point that it is impossible to define an individual’s identity with any real certainty, even when the individual is a close friend or even oneself.
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