Gokhale, Gopal Krishna

Gokhale, Gopal Krishna (gōpäl krĭsh`nə gōkä`lā), 1866–1915, Indian nationalist leader. A Brahman from Maharashtra, he was educated in India and became involved in the nationalist movement when he was quite young. A moderate, he stressed negotiation and conciliation rather than non-cooperation or violence. He was elected to the Bombay Legislative Council in 1899 and to the Imperial Legislative Council in 1902. The conflict of Gokhale's moderate views with the more militant ideas of Bal Gangadhar Tilak led to a breach in the Indian National Congress that nearly immobilized it from 1907 to 1916. Gokhale was instrumental in founding the Servants of India Society, a nationalist organization whose members, sworn to poverty and obedience, were enlisted to serve as volunteers for the social, political, and economic welfare of India.

Bibliography

See biography and collected works by J. S. Hoyland (1948); M. K. Gandhi, Gokhale, My Political Guru (1955); S. Wolpert, Tilak and Gokhale (1962); D. B. Mathur, Gokhale, a Political Biography (1966).

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Gokhale, Gopal Krishna 

Born May 9, 1866, in Kolhapur Maharashtra; died Feb. 19, 1915, in Poona. A leader of the national liberation movement in India at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.

Gokhale was one of the most important leaders of the moderate wing of the Indian National Congress (INC). He graduated from Elphinstone College in Bombay in 1884 and was a professor of history and political economy in a college in Poona until 1902. He was a leader of the Citizen’s League of Poona, an organization of the nationalists’ moderate wing in Maharashtra. He became a member of INC in 1889 and of the Legislative Council of Bombay in 1899. In 1902 he became a member of the Central Legislative Council to the English viceroy in India. He was elected president of the INC in 1905. In 1905 he founded the Servants of India society, which advocated social reforms, and was its leader until 1915.

T. F. DEVIATKINA