Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Gopal Krishna Gokhale

▪️Gopal Krishna Gokhale was born on May 9, 1866, in the village of Kotluk in present-day Maharashtra (then part of the Bombay Presidency).

▪️He studied at Rajaram College in Kolhapur and Gokhale graduated from Elphinstone College in the year 1884.

▪️Gokhale worked towards social empowerment, expansion of education and Indian freedom struggle for three decades and rejected the use of reactionary or revolutionary methods.

▪️He was a member of the Bombay Legislative Council from 1899 to 1902 and served in the Imperial Legislative Council from 1902 to 1915.

▪️While working in the Imperial Legislative Council, Gokhale played an important role in formulating the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909.

▪️In the year 1889, Gopal Krishna Gokhale became a member of the Indian National Congress. In many ways, the early careers of Tilak and Gokhale had similarities. Both were Chitpavan Brahmins, both studied at Elphinstone College, both became professors of mathematics and both were important members of the Deccan Education Society.

▪️This was the time when wide differences had arisen between the 'moderates' and the 'extremists' led by Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and others. In the Surat session of the year 1907, these two groups separated.

▪️Despite ideological differences, in 1907 he campaigned for the release of Lala Lajpat Rai, who was imprisoned by the British in Mandalay Jail in Myanmar.

▪️In the year 1905, choose the field of his political career with the post of President of the Indian National Congress.

▪️For the expansion of Indian education, on June 12, 1905, he established the Servants of India Society in Pune, Maharashtra. The Society launched several campaigns to promote education, sanitation, health care and fight untouchability and social discrimination, alcoholism, poverty, oppression of women and domestic abuse.

▪️He was also associated with 'Sarvajanika Sabha Patrika' started by Mahadev Govind Ranade.

▪️In the year 1908, Gokhale established the 'Ranade Institute of Economics'.

▪️He started the English weekly newspaper 'The Hitvad'.

▪️As a moderate nationalist, Mahatma Gandhi considered Gokhale as his 'political guru'.

▪️Mahatma Gandhi wrote a book 'Dharmatma Gokhale' dedicated to Gopal Krishna Gokhale in Gujarati language.

▪️Gokhale died on February 19, 1915.