Gopal Krishna Gokhale

Founder

Photo: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA)

Gopal Krishna Gokhale is the founder of Servants of India Society (1905)[1], an Indian non-profit working on education, tribal welfare and rural & agriculture from Pune.

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (9 May 1866 – 19 February 1915) was an Indian political leader, educationist and social reformer, and the founder of the Servants of India Society. A senior figure in the Indian National Congress and leader of its moderate wing, he argued for self-government and social reform pursued through existing constitutional institutions. He was the political mentor of Mohandas Gandhi.

Early life and education

Gokhale was born on 9 May 1866 in the village of Kotluk in Ratnagiri district, Bombay Presidency, in present-day Maharashtra. He studied at Rajaram College in Kolhapur and graduated from Elphinstone College, Bombay, in 1884.

Career

Gokhale worked as a professor of mathematics and joined the Indian National Congress in 1889. He was a member of the Bombay Legislative Council from 1899 and of the Imperial Legislative Council from 1901 to 1903, and was president of the Congress in 1905. He supported the Age of Consent Bill of 1891–92 against child marriage, and campaigned against the indentured labour system, contributing to the ending of indentured migration to Natal in 1910.

In 1905, during his Congress presidency, Gokhale founded the Servants of India Society at Pune, together with G. K. Devadhar, A. V. Patwardhan and N. A. Dravid. Its purpose, in his words, was to train men prepared to devote their lives to the service of the country in a religious spirit. Members underwent a five-year probation and served on modest salaries. The Society ran mobile libraries, schools and night classes for workers, and became one of the first secular Indian organisations dedicated to famine and emergency relief, literacy, and work among rural and tribal communities. It continues to operate from Pune.

Later life and legacy

Gokhale died in Bombay on 19 February 1915, aged 48. Gandhi, who regarded him as his political teacher, described him as pure as crystal and gentle as a lamb. Institutions named after him include Gokhale Hall in Chennai and the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune.[2][3][4]

Servants of India Society

Founded on 12 June 1905 in Pune by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the Servants of India Society trained 'young missionaries of Indian nationalism' to devote their lives to the country's cause, playing a critical role in the independence movement, famine relief, cooperatives and the uplift of tribal and depressed communities. One of India's oldest secular service societies, it still runs primary schools, hostels, a rural development centre and educational institutions for tribal and underprivileged communities across several states from its historic Pune headquarters.

Servants of India Society reports the following, on its own site: