Gopal Krishna Gokhale
Gopal Krishna Gokhale (
गोपाल कृष्ण गोखले) was born on
May 9,
1866, in
Kolhat,
Maharashtra, and he became one of the most learned men in
India, a leader of social and political reformists and one of the earliest, founding leaders of the
Indian Independence Movement. Gokhale was a senior leader of the
Indian National Congress and the
Servants of India Society. The latter was committed to only social reform, but the Congress Party in Gokhale's time was the main vehicle for Indian political representation.
Gokhale was a great, early Indian champion for public education. Being one of the first generations of Indians to receive college education, Gokhale was respected widely in the nascent Indian intellectual community and across India, whose people looked up to him as the least elitist of educated Indians. Coming from a background of poverty, Gokhale was a real man of the people, a hero to young Indians discovering the new age and the prospects of the coming 20th century; he worked amongst common Indians to encourage education, sanitation and public development. He actively spoke against ignorance, casteism and untouchability in Indian society. Gokhale was also reputed for working for trust and friendship between
Hindu and
Muslim communities. It should be remembered that Gokhale was a pioneer in this work, never done before in Indian history by Indians.
Along with distinguished colleagues like
Bal Gangadhar Tilak,
Dadabhai Naoroji,
Bipin Chandra Pal,
Lala Lajpat Rai and
Annie Besant, Gokhale fought for decades to obtain greater political representation and power over public affairs for common Indians. He was moderate in his views and attitudes, and sought to petition the British authorities, cultivate a process of dialogue and discussion which would yield greater British respect for Indian rights. Gokhale had visited Ireland
[Cited by John Hume in his acceptance speech for the 2001 Gandhi Peace Prize. Reported in Seminar Magazine No.511 March 2002, accessed at [1] July 26, 2006] and arranged for an Irish nationalist,
Alfred Webb, to serve as President of the Indian National Congress in 1894. In
1906, Gokhale and Tilak were the respective leaders of the moderates and extremists (now known by the more politically correct term,'aggressive nationalists') in the Congress. Tilak advocated civil agitation and direct revolution to overthrow the British Empire, and the Congress Party split into two wings. The two sides would patch up in 1916.
Gokhale not support explicit Indian independence, for such an idea was not understood or expressed until after the
World War I. Gopal Krishna Gokhale's biggest contribution to India was as a teacher, nurturer of a whole new generation of leaders conscious to their responsibilities to a wider nation.
Gokhale was famously a mentor to a young barrister who had been blooded in the work of revolution in South Africa a few years earlier.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi received great warmth and hospitality from Gokhale, including personal guidance, knowledge and understanding of India, the issues of common Indians and Indian politics. By
1920, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would become known as Mahatma Gandhi, and as the leader of nationalist Indians and the largest non-violent revolution in the history of the world. However, Gokhale himself died in 1915. In his autobiography, Gandhi calls Gokhale his mentor and guide, while
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the future founder of
Pakistan, in
1912 wanted to become the "Muslim Gokhale," "Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity."
* M.K. Gandhi:
My Autobiography, or The Story of My Experiments With Truth (
1929)
* Jinnah of Pakistan by Stanely Wolpert printed by Oxford University Press
