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Gokhale, Gopal Krishna : (1866-1915); (1) S.L. Karandikar: Gokhale was born in a Maratha Brahmin family at Kolhapur. In 1882, when Tilak (1856-1920) was on trial in Barve defamation case, Gokhale was one of the students of Kolhapur who staged a play to raise funds for his defence. The Sārvajanik Sabhā was started in 1867 by M.G. Ranade, Gokhale, Tilak, & other leading social reformists of Pune to act as bridge between Govt. & people. Gokhale, its Secretary since 1891 resigned at its annual meeting on 14 August 1896 as a first step towards starting the Deccan Sabhā with Ranade that October, filling it with pensioners dependent on Govt. doles. The two Sabhā’s remained at loggerheads on the question of loyalty to the Govt. The real master-mind behind the creation of Deccan Sabhā, the Govt., derecognised the Tilak-led Sārvajanik Sabhā as ‘public body’ in 1897 in the middle of the unprecedented calamity [famine plus perilous plague plus homicidal Brit Plague Commissioners] that had hit Bombay presidency & most severely Pune (see Rand below). [Lōkamānya B.G. Tilak – The Hercules & Prometheus of Modern India, 1957:98, 132-34] (2) P. Sitāramayyā: When in 1896 Gandhi visited Poona...he saw Lōkamānya Tilak &, on his advice, Gokhale as well. Gandhi’s estimate of the two is worth recalling. Tilak appeared to him like the Himalayas – great & lofty – but unapproachable, while Gokhale appeared like the Holy Ganges in which he could confidently take a plunge. Tilak & Gokhale were both Mahārāshtrian… belonged to the same Chitpāvan sect…. But their temperaments were widely different from each other…. G’s plan was to improve the existing constitution; T’s was to reconstruct it. G had necessarily to work with the bureaucracy; T had necessarily to fight it. G stood for co-operation wherever possible & opposition wherever necessary; T inclined towards a policy of obstruction. G’s prime concern was with the administration & its improvement; T’s supreme consideration was the Nation & it’s upbuilding. G’s ideal was love & sacrifice; T’s was service & suffering. G’s methods sought to win the foreigner, T’s to replace him. G depended upon others’ help, T upon self-help. G looked to the classes & the intelligentsia, T to the masses & the millions. G’s arena was the Council Chamber; T’s forum was the village mandapa. G’s medium of expression was English; T’s was Marathi. G’s objective was Self-Government for which the people had to fit themselves by answering the tests prescribed by the English; T’s objective was Swaraj which is the birth right of every Indian & which he shall have without let or hindrance from the foreigner. G was on the level with his age; T was in advance of his times. [The History of the Indian National Congress, P. Sitāramayyā, 1935, Reprinted 1946: p.99.] (3) S.L. Karandikar: In March in 1897, a Royal Commission was set up in London under Lord Welby’s chairmanship to enquire into the condition of Indian finance. Messrs D.E. Wacha & Gokhale were invited to present their evidence. In his submission, Gokhale also noted that “the financial loss entailed by the practical monopoly by Europeans of the higher branches of the services in India is not represented by [their] salaries only. .... There is a moral evil which, if anything, is even greater. A kind of dwarfing or stunting of the Indian race is going on under the present system.... The full height to which our manhood is capable of rising can never be reached by us under the present system. The moral elevation which every self-governing people feel cannot be felt by us.” A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, eager to correct English public opinion on the Ganeshkhind murders (see Rand), interviewed Gokhale who had prolonged his stay in England. Relying on letters he had received from responsible gentlemen of Pune, Gokhale, in the course of the interview with the paper, attributed the tragedy to the unpopular plague-administration in Poona. He added that women had been humiliated in open streets & that soldiers on duty had violated some of them, one of whom had committed suicide. This interview set a fresh storm blowing. As angry questions were tabled in the Parliament, relying on the information he received from his officers in Bombay the Secretary of State stated in Parliament that the allegations made by Gokhale were unwarranted & unfounded. The entire English Press indulged in a campaign of condemning Gokhale who had returned to India. Deciding to save Gokhale, Tilak complained publicly in the Kesari that out of our nearly 300 complaints submitted to him, Rand had investigated hardly two or three. Tilak went on to invite the erstwhile complainants to record their complaints anew & send them on to him. His editorial in the Kesari on 6th July 1897 was dangerously outspoken: “Persons in seats of power must absolutely guard themselves against the charge of vindictiveness.”.... Gokhale’s bold statements published by Manchester Guardian, the storm in England that followed, Tilak’s open sympathy for Gokhale, the certainty that if left free Tilak was likely to see Gokhale immediately after his return & was sure to persuade him not to tender an apology, & that would prevent even Gokhale’s humiliation – these steps logically led to his arrest. Barely an hour before his arrest on 27th July at 10 pm, Justice Ranade sent a messenger inviting him to meet him. Ranade had that morning received a letter from Motilal Ghose, the Calcutta journalist, requesting him to intervene & get Gokhale & Tilak to tender apologies to the Govt. But Tilak’s refusal to apologise provoked Govt. to prosecute him vindictively in Tai-Maharaj case. That was the period Saralā Devi Chaudhurani had her meeting with Tilak…. Prof Gokhale landed in Bombay on 30th July, 1897. Mr Vincent, the Commissioner of Police, Bombay, saw him even before he had landed & the two held consultations for a long time. Gokhale tried to ascertain whether any of his friends would substantiate his statements in their letters to him & help him to face the situation boldly. Finding that they were unwilling to run that risk, he decided to tender an unqualified apology to Lord Sandhurst. An extract of his letter of apology: “I also feel most keenly that while a few Englishmen at last in the country have been not only just but even generous in judging me, I have been much less than just to their countrymen, the soldiers, engaged in the plague operations & have made, grave, unwarranted charges against them.... I once more tender an unqualified apology to H.E. the Governor, to the members of the Plague Committee & to the soldiers engaged in plague operations.” [Opus Cited] (4) Prof. S. Bhattacharya: Gokhale began his career as a Professor of History & Economics at Fergusson College, Poona; he became a member of the Bombay Legislative Council in 1902 & was then elected to represent its non-official members in the Viceregal Legislature. In 1905 he founded at Poona the Servants of India Society who took vows of poverty & life-long service to their country in a religious spirit. [A Dictionary of Indian History, University of Calcutta, 1972, pp.396-97] (5) R.C. Majumdar: How the policy of the Moderates was influenced by Morley, is very clearly revealed in the following extract from a letter by Morley to Minto, dated August 2, 1906: “Yesterday I had my fifth & final talk with Gokhale.... ‘For reasonable reforms in your direction,’ I said to him, ‘there is now an unexampled chance. You have a Viceroy entirely friendly to them; you have a Secretary of State in whom the Cabinet, the House of Commons, the press of both parties, & that small portion of the public that ever troubles its head about India, reposes a considerable degree of confidence. The important & influential Civil Service will go with the Viceroy. What situation could be more hopeful? Only one thing can spoil it: the perversity & unreason in your friends. If they keep up the fuss in Eastern Bengal they will only make it hard, even impossible, for Government to move a step.... If your speakers or your newspapers set to work to belittle what we do, to clamour for the impossible, then all will go wrong....’ He professed to acquiesce very cordially in all this & assured me that immediately after my Budget speech he had written off to his friends in India & pitched a most friendly & hopeful note.” It is important to note that when Gokhale agreed ‘cordially’ to remove the only obstacles to reforms by putting down the Extremists, he could have no illusion as to the British policy towards India. In course of that very talk Morley had already plainly told him, in respect of his ultimate hope of India’s attaining the status of a self-governing colony, “that for many a long day to come – long beyond the short space of time that may be left to me – this was a mere dream.” ― That the Moderates rallied round the Govt. even with this knowledge explains the basic difference between them & the Extremists.... Gokhale’s tacit agreement with Morley explains the strong opposition of the Moderates to the resolution in the Congress session of 1906 supporting the Boycott advocated by the Extremists. It also explains the sudden outburst of bitter controversy between the Moderates & the Extremists after the Congress Session of 1906 & its continuance throughout the year 1907.... ― Later, after a second Deputation, Minto wrote to Morley: “Gokhale was very reasonable. He passed of course for increased representation & amendments to the Budget, on the ground that there is at present an utter want of reality in the Budget discussions. He asked for two Native Members on the Viceroy’s Council & three on the Secretary of State’s. He says that the whole younger generation of India is going over to the extremists’ side; that they are quite unreasonable & attracted by the idea of getting rid of British rule, which is the doctrine preached to them: that the glamour of the British Raj, which in the old days fascinated the people, has departed, & that the only way to recover our moral control is to do something that will appeal to the Native imagination. ― After all this it is difficult to believe that the invisible hands of Morley & Minto did not pull the strings from behind the scene when the great split between the Moderates & the Extremists took place at the Surat session of the Congress. It would not be unreasonable to infer from what has been said above about the Surat Congress, that the Moderates deliberately provoked a quarrel with the Extremists & threw away every reasonable chance of compromise. This is fully supported by the following extract from the letter of Morley to Minto, dated 31 October, 1907: “One of the most interesting things that have come my way this week is a letter from Gokhale, dated October 11. The one absorbing question, he says, is how the split in Congress, now apparently inevitable, is to be averted.... A party manager, or for that matter any politician aspiring to be leader, should never whine. Gokhale is always whining.... Now, if I were in Gokhale’s shoes I should insist on quietly making terms with the bureaucracy on the basis of Order plus Reforms. If he would have the sense to see what is to be gained by this line, the ‘split’ when it comes should do him no harm, because it would set him free to fix his aims on reasonable things, where he might get out of us sixty or seventy per cent of what he might ask for. ― The first annual session of the Muslim League was held at Karachi on 29Dec.1907. The choice of the site was an indication of the new nationalism which was growing among the Muslims, &, as in the case of the Hindus, it was based on religion & historical traditions of past glory & greatness. Karachi, the chief town of Sindh, was chosen because, as a League publication put it, “Sindh is that pious place in India, where Muhammad Bin Qasim came first, with the torch of religion & the gift of Hadis. No other place could appeal to our elders.” More significant still was the remark of the President: “If a handful of men under a boy could teach Kalima to the territory of Sindh & promulgate the law of true shariat of God & His Rasul, can seven crores of Mussalmans not make their social & political life pleasant?” Like the Congress the Muslim League appointed its British Committee in England under the Presidentship of Syed Ameer Ali. During the discussion of the Morley-Minto reform proposals, the League put its whole in favour of Morley. By holding up the bogey of Muslim League Minto succeeded in stifling the voice of Morley. A very small section of the Muslims raised their voice in favour of Joint Electorate, but it was drowned amidst the vociferous cry of the overwhelming majority. [History of the Freedom Movement in India, Vol. II, pp. 214-7, 330-31] (6) Extract from Tilak’s article “The Country’s Misfortune” in his Kesari of 12th May 1908: …it is indisputable that two innocent white ladies having fallen victims to a bomb at Muzaffarpur.... However, the desire of the people gradually to obtain the rights of Swarājya is growing stronger & stronger. If they do not get rights by degrees, as desired by them, then some people at least out of the subject population, being filled with indignation or exasperation, will not fail to embark upon the commission of improper or horrible deeds recklessly. The Hon. Mr Gokhale himself had…given a hint of this very kind to our Government in presence of the Viceroy Minto.... (7) S. Bhattacharya: In the enlarged Viceregal Legislature set up in 1910 Gokhale was the commanding figure & became the most effective critic of the Govt. He specialised as a critic of Indian official finance & was particularly brilliant in his handling of the annual budgets. He sponsored a bill for compulsory primary education which was rejected on account of the opposition of the Govt. of the day. [Opus Cited] (8) B.R. Nanda: Jinnah was elected to the Bombay Legislative Assembly in 1909, & in 1910 elected from a Mohammedan constituency in Bombay Presidency (under Morley-Minto’s Constitutional Reforms Act of 1909) to Viceroy’s Central Legislative Council. There he met his second mentor Gokhale by then the 2nd most powerful Congress leader. They conferred with Dadabhai, Viṭhaldās Patel, Sassoon David, & Mazhar-ul-Haq “the desirability of organisation & division of work in the Council” among themselves. Besides Jinnah, veteran Nawab Syed Mohammad Bahadur from Madras, Bhupendra Nath Basu from Bengal, R.N. Mudholkar from Berar, & Sachchidananda Sinha & M.M. Malaviya from U.P., shared Gokhale’s political outlook. Gokhale’s high regard for Jinnah’s integrity, intellect & moderation is reflected in the sobriquet he coined for him, “best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity”. Jinnah was among those who mourned the death of Gokhale. …. Encouraged by the British who “realised that the pendulum had swung too far in favour of the Muslim”, the Aga Khan & Gokhale decided to hold a Hindu-Muslim conference “to do something to mitigate the antagonism between the two communities” & “discuss the questions in which they might loyally work together”. The conference was held at Bombay on 1 January, 1911, with William Wedderburn in the chair. Attended by about a hundred delegates (about 40 of them Muslim delegates from the League), it appointed a committee to resolve contentious issues such as communal representations, Urdu-Hindi, cow killing, music before mosques & became “the precursor of the many ‘unity conferences’ which were to follow during the next 30 years”. The same month, in the Imperial Council, Gokhale opposed Mālaviyā’s resolution to correct the communal imbalance in the Act of 1909, pleading with his “Hindu brethren to make the best of the situation in the larger interest of the country”. In April, Gokhale asked members of his Servants of India Society “to devote themselves to…the promotion of harmony between Hindus & Muhammedans”. [Gokhale: The Indian Moderates & the British Raj, OUP, Delhi, 1979:283, 358, 378, 471, 368-70, 379] (9) R.C. Majumdar: After the reforms of 1909, the Hindu leaders believed that as the Muslims had now secured all that they wanted, they would be in a mood to come to an amicable settlement with the Hindus. Accordingly, a Hindu-Muslim Conference met at Allahabad on 1 January 1911, attended by about 60 Hindus & 40 Muslims. It achieved nothing of importance. The oft-repeated public declaration of Hindu leaders, that no political progress was possible in India without an understanding between the Hindus & Muslims, had an inevitable tendency to raise the Muslim demands higher & higher. When Gokhale asked the Allahabad Conference to remember that the Muslim fears of being dominated by the Hindu majority should not be lightly treated, he put his seal of approval on all that the Aligarh Movement stood for in politics. But the most significant was an utterance of Gandhi, reported in the Indian Review of October, 1909. He said: “As a man of truth I honestly believe that Hindus should yield up to the Mahommedans what the latter desire & that they should rejoice in so doing. We can expect unity only if such mutual large-heartedness is displayed.” The first sentence is one of those pro-Muslim sayings which bore the special trademark of Gandhi & did incalculable harm to the Hindu-Muslim unity by putting a premium on Muslim intransigence. It was repeated in 1947, when Gandhi made the proposal, which astounded even his devoted followers that Jinnah should be supreme ruler in India with a cabinet of his own choice, which might consist of only Muslim ministers. The word ‘mutual’ in the second sentence is meaningless, as Gandhi never dared make similar request to the Muslims & they never showed the slightest intention of doing any such foolish thing. Gandhi’s attitude did not change even after the creation of Pakistan. [Opus Cited Vol. II: 330-31] (10) M.V. Ramana Rao: “The Congress run by the Moderate element, after the Surat split, the Nationalists remaining aloof, had not been able to keep pace with the movement for ampler freedom for which psychological forces had been released by the war…. The Congress had to be revivified & reunited by fresh leadership…. The old guard represented by Naoroji, Gokhale, Pherozshah Mehta, Surendra Nath Bonnerjea, Rash Behari Ghose, Bhupendra Nath Basu, Pt. Madan Mohan Mālaviya, & others… had either retired or had become too weak…. The atmosphere was congenial for a new & vigorous leadership & Tilak who had just been released from prison & Annie Besant… provided that leadership. [Throughout] 1915, attempts were made, specially, to bring about a rapprochement between the Moderates… & Lōk. Tilak & his nationalist adherents…. But he could not be admitted to the Congress under the Constitution unless he subscribed to Article I, which defined the goal of the Congress as Colonial Self-Government. The election of delegates was exclusively controlled by Moderate Associations which subscribed to this creed. Tilak was not amenable to joining… through the goodwill of Moderates. He wanted an enlargement of the scope of election & a change in the creed to enable him & his friends to come into the Congress. The Congress Secretary, N. Subba Rao & Mrs Besant made serious attempts, meeting Gokhale & Mehta both of whom had not agreed to amend the constitution, to enable the re-entry of Tilak & his compeers…. [M.V. Ramana Rao (official in Indira’s AICC), A Short History of the Indian National Congress, S. Chand & Co., 1959; pp.67-69] (11) S. Bhattacharya: Gokhale’s last public duty was to serve as a Member of the Indian Public Service Commission (1912-15) which recommended a substantial increase in the Indian personnel in the Services. His death in 1915 greatly weakened the constitutional party in India. He was one of the best of the old school of Congress politicians before the age of non-cooperation. [Opus Cited] (12) M.V. Ramana Rao: The Congress met in Bombay in Dec 1915, Sir S.P. Sinha presiding… condolences over the deaths of G.K. Gokhale, P.M Mehta, Sir Henry Cotton & Keir Hardie.… The A.I.C.C. was asked to frame a scheme of reforms & programmes of continuous work, educative & propagandist, & to confer with the Committee of the All-India Muslim League for the same purpose [the result was the Lucknow Pact ]... two noteworthy features of that Bombay Session…. One was the defeat of Mahatma Gandhi at the Subjects Committee election.... The second was the amendment of the Constitution suitably to enable Tilak & his party to be elected delegates to the Congress.” [Opus Cited]