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This chapter details the early life of Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Gokhale was born on 9 May 1866, in the little village of Kotluk in the Ratnagiri district of, what was then, the Bombay Presidency. In 1881, he joined the Rajaram College at Kolhapur. The college did not have arrangements for the full BA course because of which he had to go to Poona to continue his studies at the Deccan College. For the final year of his degree, he joined Elphinstone College in Bombay. Not much is known about his college days, but it seems he was exceedingly ambitious with an almost obsessive desire to excel. In January 1885, Gokhale joined the New English School in Poona as an assistant master at a paltry salary of Rs 35 a month.

This chapter focuses on the resurgence of Gokhale’s political career. It seems that for years, Gokhale had cherished the ambition of a parliamentary career at heart, but was reluctant to avow it. In 1896, having been pushed off the political stage in Poona by the rival party, a legislative career may have seemed beyond his grasp. In 1897, his hopes had risen dramatically and then been dashed. Not until 1899 did his luck turn. Gokhale first took his seat in the Bombay Legislative Council in January 1900. Gokhale’s meteoric rise during 1899–1901 was not only due to luck and Pherozeshah’s patronage, but also to his own determination and shrewdness which helped him to outwit his rivals.

This chapter illustrates how the development of an associational culture relates to the shaping of Indian society and the conceptualization of the Indian ‘nation.’ The author discusses the views of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Annie Besant, and Madan Mohan Malviya regarding the importance of social service organizations in the consolidation of Indian civil society, and the raising of political awareness among the young. The author emphasizes that the patriotism inherent in social service contributed to Indian nation building. He describes how, because of these associations, M.K. Gandhi was able to mobilize vast numbers of patriotic students and youth in protests against British rule. How institutionally disparate Hindu and Muslim volunteer organizations often worked together is also described. The author concludes by stating that the proliferation of social service institutions in early twentieth century India assumed greater and greater control over national life, and ‘hollowed out’ the colonial state from within, thus diminishing its authority and legitimacy.

This chapter describes Lord Hardinge’s distrust of Gokhale. This distrust was not new. It had been entertained not only by Hardinge, but by his predecessors, Minto and Curzon, who had reacted to Gokhale with a peculiar mixture of admiration, suspicion, and irritation. At the end of 1913, Hardinge had reasons to be annoyed with Gokhale because of the strongly nationalist line he was taking on the Public Services Commission. The Commission was inquiring into the methods of recruitment, systems of training, and terms and remuneration of imperial and provincial services in India. To Gokhale, and to all politically conscious Indians, the Commission was not merely an instrument for securing a few more posts or slightly better terms for their countrymen, but a potential weapon for breaking the British monopoly of the higher levels of administration in India.

This chapter describes the tributes to Gokhale after his death and reviews his many achievements during his career. The Statesman reported on 21 February 1915 that ‘Mr Gokhale was the greatest leader that India has ever produced, perhaps her greatest man’. At a memorial meeting in London, Sir Krishna Gupta, a member of the India Council, referred to Gokhale as the greatest Indian of his time. Obituaries and memorial tributes often need to be discounted, but there is no doubt that at the time of his death, and indeed for nearly a decade before it, Gokhale occupied a unique place in the Indian public life. He had forged his way to the forefront of Indian politics by 1902, but from 1905, when he presided over the Benares Congress, until his death in 1915, he was the ‘First Moderate’.

This chapter studies the Moderate leadership, specifically Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who was considered the ablest exponent of political moderation. Gokhale was also considered to be more than qualified to lead a constitutional agitation. It first shows how Gokhale expressed the different hopes, illusions, and sentiments of the first generation of Congressmen. It then examines the direct conflict between the Extremists and the Moderates, which was apparent at the Benares session in December 1905. Next, it looks at Motilal’s term as Chair of the first Provincial Conference of the United Provinces. This conference considered the need to supplement the efforts of the Indian National Congress with ‘small Congresses’, defined and defended the Moderates’ creed, and denounced the Extremists’ tactics and programme.

This chapter focuses on Gokhale’s career at Fergusson College, where he taught English literature and mathematics. The study of mathematics was a useful discipline for Gokhale; it gave a statistical bias to his study of economic and financial problems, and lent clarity and trenchancy to his criticisms of official policies. The close reasoning and the great precision, which were to characterize his writings and speeches on economic matters, may have owed something to his training in mathematics in his youth. Gokhale was an exceedingly conscientious teacher. He was well liked by his students, who found him accessible and helpful. They were also spellbound by his clear and eloquent exposition in the classroom.

This chapter focuses on the meetings between M.K. Gandhi, a young barrister practising at Durban, and Gokhale. It details their very brief first meeting on 12 October 1896, which has been graphically described by Gandhi in his autobiography. They met again five years later, when after the Boer War, Gandhi decided to leave Natal and practise law at Bombay; again in December 1901, he was in Calcutta to attend the annual Congress session. With Gokhale’s support, Gandhi succeeded in piloting his resolution on the plight of ‘British Indians’ in South Africa through the Subjects Committee and the plenary session of the Calcutta Congress. Both Gandhi and Gokhale were, however, too intelligent and honest not to be aware of their intellectual and temperamental differences.

This chapter describes Gokhale’s participation in the Indian National Congress. His maiden speech on the Congress platform was delivered on 27 December 1889. He spoke in support of an amendment moved by Tilak to a resolution on the reform of the Governor-General’s Legislative Council. It was an uninspiring performance, but on the following day, when Gokhale criticized the Government of India’s action on the report of the Public Service Commission, he gave ample proof of his gifts as a speaker. The young professor–politician was developing his style as a speaker: mastery of facts; marshalling of arguments; a repertoire of literary and historical allusions; and a felicitous English style which was calculated to fascinate a generation of educated Indians. His diction was elegant, but he did not hesitate to call a political spade a spade.

This chapter focuses on Gokhale’s speech during the budget debate of the Imperial Council on 26 March 1902. Gokhale pointed out how, in the preceding sixteen years, the income tax, the salt tax, the excise duty, and the cotton duties had gone up; even the collections of land revenue had registered an upward trend at a time when drought and famine afflicted large parts of the country. He called for a relief in tax burdens, for a cut in the salt duty, and an increase in the taxable minimum for income tax to Rs 1,000 a year. The speech had an electrifying effect upon the Indian intelligentsia. Congratulatory letters poured in from his friends and admirers. Thoughtful Europeans, not blinkered by racial prejudice, were quick to perceive the talents of the youngest member of the Council.

The relationship between Gokhale and Sir William Wedderburn, who became chairman of the British Committee of the Indian National Congress in 1889, is explored in this chapter. For the following thirty years, the British Committee was the pivot of the Congress propaganda in Britain. Sir William Wedderburn was its moving spirit, and the journal India, its mouthpiece. It is impossible to understand the course of Gokhale’s political career without understanding the personality and politics of Sir William Wedderburn.

By 1904, it was clear to Gokhale that the Indian National Congress was losing its influence in India, and its branch in England, the British Committee, was on the verge of insolvency and collapse. Many of the Congress leaders were well-meaning and patriotic, and some of them were able and eloquent, but they tended to treat politics as an occasional diversion from their personal and professional preoccupations. This chapter focuses on Gokhale’s plans to set-up the ‘Servants of India Society’ in early 1905. The Society was aimed at training young men for public life. The preamble to the constitution of the Servants of India Society, drafted by Gokhale, was a confession of his political faith.

Western education directed the thoughts of Poona’s rising generation of Chitpavan Brahmans towards greater participation in the government of their own country through representative institutions. With its small but vocal educated élite, Poona enjoyed a political prestige which rivalled that of the presidency towns in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. For more than twenty years, the town was served by a remarkable institution and by a remarkable man. This institution was the Sarvajanik Sabha, and the man, Mahadev Govind Ranade. This chapter describes how Ranade acquired a pivotal position in the public life of Poona and his role as mentor to Gokhale.

This chapter describes the famine of 1896–7 in India, followed by the spread of the bubonic plague, which added to the rigours of the famine. The impact of the shooting of Mr W.C. Rand and Lt O.E. Ayerst on 22 June 1897 at midnight in Poona is also discussed. The news of the Poona murders was serious enough to earn headlines and editorial comment in the British press. However, a public enquiry into the Poona affairs was ruled out. Hostile critics seized upon that part of Gokhale’s indictment which was the most difficult to prove: the alleged violation of women by British soldiers. The major issues of the conduct of plague-operations in Poona and the justification for a public enquiry were relegated to the background, and Wedderburn and Gokhale became the chief targets of a scathing press campaign.

An account of the steady rise of Gokhale’s political career is provided in this chapter. From 1902, Gokhale spent the best part of the winter not in Poona, but in Calcutta. Calcutta was the seat of the provincial and central governments, and the heart of commerce of the ‘Indian Empire’. The gulf between the Indians and the Europeans was much wider in Calcutta than in Bombay. Gokhale’s privileged position as a member of the Imperial Council gave him access to the highest official quarters, but there were hardly any Europeans with whom he could be friends with. It was in the Indian—or rather in the Bengali—society of Calcutta where he received respect, warmth, and affection.

In the last months as viceroy, Curzon had so thoroughly alienated large sections of the Indian opinion that almost any viceroy succeeding him would have been popular. Lord Minto did not have Curzon’s dominating personality, intellectual stamina, or demoniac energy, but he was also free from his predecessor’s flamboyance, conceit, and irascibility. Soon after his arrival in India, the new viceroy stumbled upon the key to popularity which had eluded Curzon for six years. This chapter describes Minto’s dealings with Gokhale. It also details Gokhale’s trip to England in 1906.

This chapter focuses on the perception of Gokhale as ‘Leader of the Opposition’. Towards his Indian colleagues, even those who toed the official line, Gokhale did not adopt a superior or self-righteous attitude. In his private correspondence with the Secretary of State, Minto referred to Gokhale as the ‘leader of the non-officials in the Legislative Council’. Ali Imam, a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, once described Gokhale as the ‘Leader of the Opposition’ on the floor of the House. Though there was no organized ‘Opposition’, Gokhale realized that even the moral influence, which the handful of elected members could exercise, depended upon their ability to hold together. Gokhale did his best to keep clear of communal and regional controversies.

This chapter focuses on Gokhale’s visit to England to canvass support for his Education Bill. It also describes his speech about the inevitability of Indian self-government. Lord Crewe, who was the Secretary of State, had ridiculed that school of political thought in India which cherished the dream of dominion self-government. Gokhale’s friendship with Edwin Montagu, the youthful Under-Secretary of State for India, who seemed to be brimming over with energy and ideas, is spoken about in this chapter. Gokhale’s appointment to the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India also finds mention here. Gokhale could hardly have imagined the deep distrust and even dread with which some of the members of the Government of India regarded him, but he knew he was no favourite of the Raj.

This chapter considers the Indian problem in South Africa. The hope that Gokhale’s visit to South Africa would be a turning point in the solution of the Indian question proved illusory. The improvements which Gokhale and Gandhi had expected in the Immigration Regulation Bill were not realized. Nor was there any relaxation in the rigorous administration of the discriminatory laws against the Indians. It was not the official envoy of the Viceroy but Gokhale’s personal envoy, C.F. Andrews, who was to take a hand in the negotiaitions which culminated in the Gandhi–Smuts agreement. On 25 January 1914, Gandhi cabled to Gokhale that the provisional agreement with Smuts had been reached and passive resistance was to be suspended pending legislation in the next session of Parliament.