Re-Reading Swami and Friends in the Twenty First Century: Tracing Colonial, Post-Colonial and Independent Phases of Education in India (1835-2020)

Abstract

The present paper analyses the notion of colonial education represented by R.K. Narayan in his novel Swami and Friends (1935) and engages in a retrospective literary delineation of the education policies of India, locating three key moments in the trajectory of education in India- the English Education Policy of 1835, the National Policy on Education of 1986 and the National Education Policy of 2020, to demarcate three crucial phases- colonial, post-colonial and independent India’s approach to education. Subsequently, based on this critical analysis, the paper discusses the significance of re-reading the novel, and attempts to understand the basis for its enduring relevance in the twenty-first century.