Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Early career

Gokhale was educated at Elphinstone College in Bombay and took up teaching at Fergusson College in Pune, where he came under the influence of Mahadev Govind Ranade, the reformist judge and scholar widely regarded as the intellectual founder of Indian economic and social liberalism. Gokhale absorbed Ranade's gradualist, constitutionalist approach to political change and became one of its principal exponents within the Congress.

Political work

As a member of the Imperial Legislative Council from 1902, Gokhale used his position to press for administrative and economic reform through petition, detailed budget speeches, and statistical criticism of British fiscal policy, rather than through mass agitation. His annual critiques of the government's budget were regarded as among the most rigorous delivered by an Indian member in the Council. In 1911 he introduced a bill proposing free and compulsory primary education for Indian children, which the government declined to pass. He traveled to England repeatedly to lobby members of Parliament and the India Office on Indian grievances, and opposed the 1905 Partition of Bengal through constitutional protest rather than boycott. In 1905 he founded the Servants of India Society, a body of trained members committed to public service and social reform, intended to build a cadre of disciplined workers for India's political and social advancement outside party politics; the Society continued its welfare and educational work well after his death.

Moderates and extremists

Gokhale led the moderate wing of the Congress in its dispute with the more assertive, self-reliance-oriented "extremist" faction associated with Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Lal Bajpai Rai. The disagreement, over methods rather than ultimate goals, came to a head at the 1907 Congress session at Surat, which split the party into rival factions for several years. Gokhale continued to favor constitutional agitation, administrative reform, and cooperation with sympathetic British officials over boycott and confrontation.

Influence on Gandhi

Gokhale met Gandhi during the latter's visits to India from South Africa, where Gandhi was then leading protests against discriminatory laws affecting the Indian community, and became his acknowledged political mentor; Gandhi later described him as his guru in politics and credited him with shaping his early understanding of Indian public life and methods of constitutional agitation. Gokhale visited South Africa in 1912 to observe conditions there and to support Gandhi's campaign. On Gokhale's advice, Gandhi spent roughly a year traveling India to familiarize himself with conditions in the country before taking up political work on his return; Gokhale died in 1915, shortly before Gandhi's own rise to Congress leadership.