Gopal Krishna Gokhale

We are most of us in India, a somewhat dreamy race … Dreams have their importance in shaping aspirations for the future, but in practical matters, we have to be practical men.

—Gopal Krishna Gokhale

A teacher of English literature in a school in Poona had to teach a lesson from the biography of the British admiral Nelson. He found it hard to understand as it was full of complex nautical terms. Most teachers would have just looked up the meaning of the words in the dictionary but this teacher was different. On the following weekend he travelled to Bombay to look at the ships in the docks and asked the sailors a lot of questions. When he explained the lesson he knew exactly what he was talking about and Nelson’s naval feats came alive to his students. This was why Gopal Krishna Gokhale was one of the most popular teachers in the school. Later, when this teacher became a leader of the national movement, he brought this same meticulous and caring diligence to the cause.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale was born the youngest son of a poor Brahmin family on 9 May 1866, in the village of Kotluk in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. His father Krishna Rao worked as a clerk and died when Gokhale was only thirteen. Gokhale went to school in Kolhapur and faced a lot of financial hardships as his older brother Govind Rao struggled to support the family on a meagre salary. Gokhale never forgot those days of struggle and it gave him a deep sympathy for the travails of the poor. All his life he was not only involved in the political struggle for freedom but also passionately dedicated to the reform of society so that really deprived people—the poor peasants, the untouchables and women—could have better lives.

As a student, Gokhale worked very hard in school and he had such a sharp memory that he amazed his friends by effortlessly remembering long passages from the textbooks. The other boys used to place bets on how many mistakes he would make while recalling the text but then discovered that at one paisa per mistake they did not make much money! Gokhale won a scholarship and graduated from Elphinstone College in Bombay. It was here that he developed a lifelong love of English literature and a deep admiration for western philosophy. He also enjoyed mathematics and that too came of use later when he spoke in Parliament, carefully analyzing the budget of the government.

Gokhale was nineteen when he became a teacher at the New English School in Poona started by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal Ganesh Agarkar, a progressive thinker and social reformer. Gokhale taught English and Mathematics, and he wrote a popular textbook for arithmetic that was translated into many Indian languages. Later when Tilak started Fergusson College, Gokhale began to teach there. He also wrote in newspapers like the Mahratta, and edited Sudharak. However, much more than teaching, it was political and social work that attracted him. He joined public service organizations like the Sarvajanik Sabha and the Deccan Education Society.

Gokhale was against foreign rule, but he also acknowledged that Indians were responsible for much of their misery. He admired western democracy but knew that Indians had to be educated first before they could govern themselves. There was no true equality in a society divided by caste and religion, with the untouchables and women having no rights at all. As most of the people were uneducated, he felt that one of the most important requirements was free primary education, schools for women and the removal of purdah. He got involved in all issues that affected the daily life of the people, like improving sanitation, water supply and irrigation for agricultural land.

Gokhale’s mentor and inspiration was the great social reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade. He was a judge in the Poona High Court and, with his wife Ramabai, faced both the opposition of the government and the anger of conservative Hindu society as they started schools for women, encouraged widow remarriage and helped farmers out of the clutches of moneylenders by starting a rural bank. Gokhale so idolized Ranade that he always carried a scarf that Ranade had given him. Once, while on a visit to South Africa, he showed the scarf to Gandhi who offered to get it washed and ironed. Gokhale smiled and said, ‘I can trust your capacity as a lawyer but not as a washerman.’ Gandhi insisted and later won praise for a washing job done well.

Gokhale knew that it was the younger generation that could bring change in society and often spoke to students about doing social work. His advice was always sensible and practical: once he told the graduates of Bombay University that they should start public service by first dusting the books in the Royal Asiatic Society Library.

He formed the Servants of India Society where he wanted the members to work for all the social causes that were important to him. He gathered a band of dedicated young people who vowed to live simply and work for society. They worked among the poor in cities, travelled to villages to help farmers and tribal people, and were in the forefront during natural calamities like famines and floods. In this group were men like the educationist Srinivasa Sastri and A.V. Thakkar, who became a beloved social worker people called ‘Thakkar Baba’. Gokhale was called ‘Mahatma’ for his welfare work and this was many years before Gandhiji was given that title.

Gokhale’s greatest contribution to national life was as a member of the Indian National Congress. He became the secretary of the Congress at the age of twenty-nine and was elected the president ten years later. In those days the Congress was led by Pherozeshah Mehta, Surendranath Banerjea and Gokhale, and their effort was to gain more self-government for Indians. They wanted more Indians in the Indian Civil Service, and also tried to make the British government aware of the unjust policies and high-handed actions of officials through ‘prayer, petition and protest’. Gokhale spoke in the legislative assembly and even travelled to Britain to influence public opinion there.

In 1897 he spoke before the Welby Commission, and while facing tough questions from the panel, he used carefully gathered facts and figures to prove that India was being impoverished by colonization. He told the Commission that more Indians should be allowed to join the administrative services like the ICS because British officers came to India only for a few years and then a huge amount of money was spent on their pensions. When someone pointed out how India had benefited economically from the introduction of the railways, Gokhale told them about how village industries like textiles were ruined because cheaper foreign goods were available everywhere.

In 1902, after he retired from Fergusson College, he became even busier with his social work at the Servants of India Society and his work as a parliamentarian. As a member of the Legislative Council he was famous for his budget speeches where he would analyse the budget figures with ruthless logic and prove that the government was failing to improve the economic condition of the people. Once when the Finance Member was being praised for having a surplus in the budget, Gokhale proved how it had come from taxing people into extreme poverty. He had the data to show how taxes went up even during a famine and how India was paying for wars Britain fought elsewhere. His budget speeches became so popular that people waited eagerly every year to read them in the papers. Even the viceroy Lord Curzon acknowledged that Gokhale was a formidable speaker and a powerful advocate of the nationalist cause.

Then at the Congress session of 1905 at Benaras, Gokhale was elected the president; he was only thirty-nine. At this session the hottest topic of debate was the partition of Bengal and it brought into focus the contrasting styles of two leaders from Poona—Gokhale and Tilak. Gokhale felt that the country was not ready for any mass movement, that people had to be educated to understand their responsibilities as citizens, and also that Indians had to become more liberal and egalitarian before they could demand self-government. He wanted the campaign for Swaraj to be a constitutional one—through work in the legislatures and petitions to the government.

Tilak had no patience with a policy of petitions and prayers, and felt that the time was ripe for a mass protest. He was convinced that the government would listen only if people marched out into the streets, boycotted foreign goods, and refused to pay taxes, work in the administration or join the army, making it impossible for the government to operate. Tilak wanted self-government immediately; Gokhale thought the country was not yet ready for such a big step.

They also differed in their attitude to social reform. Gokhale, a truly enlightened and humane person like his mentor Ranade, felt that social and political reform had to go hand in hand. If society was still steeped in untouchability and purdah, and the untouchables and women had no rights, then it was not ready to govern itself. Tilak was convinced that social reform could wait till Indians had gained Swaraj and he was also deeply suspicious of any attempt to change social customs as he thought it was an attack on his religion.

In 1907 there was a virtual split in the Congress at its annual session in Surat between the Moderates and the Extremists. Soon after, Tilak was jailed and deported to Burma and for a while the party went into decline. However, Gokhale’s parliamentarian work continued, especially during the time when the Minto–Morley Reforms were being drafted as he tried hard to obtain greater participation of Indians in government. When these reforms, known as the Government of India Act, were finally announced, he was disappointed with the government’s refusal to give more power to Indians and also deeply distressed when Muslims were given separate electorates so that only Muslims could vote for the candidates for Muslim seats. He knew it was the government’s policy of divide and rule at work here, aimed at weakening the nationalist movement.

After a life spent in relentless work Gokhale died on 19 February 1915 when he was only forty-nine. If today we have a working democracy with a constitution that is respected, it reflects Gokhale’s deep faith in the constitutional path to self-government. Unlike leaders like Tilak, he was not a flamboyant mass leader who could give inspiring speeches that stirred people. His was a quieter and much more long-lasting role of constructive work to build a better nation. He was a man much ahead of his times and among the earliest leaders who were firmly of the belief that India had to be a secular democracy where every citizen had equal rights irrespective of caste or gender. Today we take our rights for granted, but in the nineteenth century when Gokhale was talking about equality, this was not such a popular view.

At the time when Gokhale died, a new leader was appearing on the horizon with his revolutionary plan of Satyagraha. Gokhale was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s mentor and adviser during his early years. They met first when Gokhale went to South Africa and offered his support for Gandhi’s campaign against racism. There was an immediate meeting of minds, and later when Gandhi returned to India, he was again drawn to the vision that Gokhale had of the future and to his kind and generous nature. He called Gokhale his ‘Rajguru’ and later wrote about the leaders he met at that time, ‘Sir Pherozeshah (Mehta) had seemed to me like the Himalayas, the Lokmanya (Tilak) like the ocean. But Gokhale was the Ganges. One could have a refreshing bath in a holy river … the Ganges invited one to its bosom.’

In many ways Gandhi’s future strategy was a combination of what Tilak and Gokhale had initiated. Like Tilak, he realized that only a mass movement could succeed in making the government listen to their demands, that just petitions would not work. Like Gokhale, he knew that India could not become a true democracy without equality for all and that social reform was as important as the more dramatic political battle. It was Gokhale who had suggested that before he started anything Gandhi should first travel across the country to understand the realities of the people. So when Gandhi took his political and social message to the villages, he was following Gokhale.

There was one difference between Gandhi’s and Gokhale’s vision of the future. Whereas Gandhi was keenest on village economies and village crafts, Gokhale knew a dream of simple living and weaving of khadi was not going to make India prosper. We had to compete with the world and for that just as we needed prosperous villages, we also needed modern industries, science and technology. As he said, ‘Remember that, though there is certain scope for small village industries, our main reliance now—exposed as we are to the world competition—must be on production with the aid of steam and machinery.’

A great scholar and intellectual, Gokhale was a modern man who refused to dwell in the greatness of the past. He was thoughtful and compassionate and cared deeply about people. A true democrat, he looked for progress through a parliamentary system where the will of the people was respected. As the historian Bipan Chandra writes, he was one of our greatest parliamentarians and ‘as a speaker he was gentle, reasonable, courteous, non-flamboyant and lucid. He relied primarily upon detailed knowledge and the careful, cool and logical marshalling and analysis of data.’ For Gokhale mere oratory did not solve any problems; you had to work for a lifetime to make a difference. As he once said, he was a practical man.