in 1980, narayan was nominated to the rajya sabha, the upper house of the indian parliament, for his contributions to literature. during his entire six-year term, he was focused on one issue—the plight of school children, especially the heavy load of school books and the negative effect of the system on a child's creativity, which was something that he first highlighted in his debut novel, "swami and friends". his inaugural speech was focused on this particular problem, and resulted in the formation of a committee chaired by prof. yash pal, to recommend changes to the school educational system.