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Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Gopalkrishna Gandhi read English Literature at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. A civil servant and diplomat, he was Governor of West Bengal, 2004-2009. He is currently Distinguished Professor of History and Politics at Ashoka University

Articles by Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Champaran to Singhu: A tale of two satyagrahas

To assuage the protesting farmers, the Centre must suspend the Acts indefinitely, refer demands to the Inter-State Council; and call a Parliament session

The British Raj responded as it did in Champaran 104 years ago. Swaraj must do likewise and enter its 75th year with the glow of the health and happiness of farmers on its forehead. This is its “indigo moment”. (Sameer Sehgal/HTPhoto)

opinion

Published on Jan 13, 2021 07:47 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Five lives from the land of five rivers

These five Sikh Indians have tilled historical and cultural truths with the hoe of faith

If the protest remains peaceful and does not get co-opted into other agendas, it can be a landmark in India’s agrarian history(PTI)

columns

Updated on Dec 07, 2020 08:22 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

For Joe Biden, from the Jawaharlal Nehru of 1945

President-elect Joe Biden’s burden is about the world’s safety — from errors and terrors, nuclear, chemical, biological. It is also about the world being made safe from its own globe-warming, globe-infecting ways. He will be helped by an India that speaks not in terms of “nationalist individualism” but of world safety.

In the Ahmednagar prison in 1945, an altogether new activity bound Jawaharlal Nehru with Sardar Patel — gardening(HTPhoto)

columns

Updated on Nov 13, 2020 08:50 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Are any socialists left in Indian politics?

Socialists were once austere, uninterested in personal power, free-spirited. The era is gone

Narendra Deva, Jayaprakash Narayan (above), Kamaladevi, Ram Manohar Lohia and their colleagues were hugely attractive personally but also hugely fragile politically(HTPHOTO)

columns

Updated on Oct 13, 2020 06:16 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

When India and China talked

The history of peace is much longer than the history of discord. There are common challenges

After the 1962 war, the two neighbours had withdrawn their ambassadors. When the positions were resumed, in 1976, Narayanan was chosen as the ambassador of India to the People’s Republic of China(HT ARCHIVES)

columns

Updated on Sep 15, 2020 09:17 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

For the Mahatma, the meaning of Independence, nation and religion

Healing divisions as India turned free, Gandhi was clear a nation could have no religion or sect

When asked for a message to the nation for August 15, Gandhi said he had no message. Eventually, he did reflect on the day, as one of both rejoicing and mourning(Universal Images Group via Getty)

columns

Published on Aug 14, 2020 04:00 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

The Congress is not meant to die or wither away. It must change |Opinion

Proposing an alternative leadership is not disloyalty. There is an opportunity now

The Congress has given the country six PMs, three of whom have come from the Nehru-Gandhi family. But leadership is not patented; it must pass from one deserving hand to another(ANI)

columns

Updated on Jul 18, 2020 05:50 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

When Gandhi battled an epidemic

His directives on how to contain the South African plague can be useful for Covid-hit India

Gandhi spelt out the responsibilities of individuals and society as well as that of the municipality (National Gandhi Museum)

columns

Updated on Jun 04, 2020 07:39 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Recognise the centrality of states in defeating Covid-19, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Federalism has been at work in the best sense. The states have worked with limited resources and within constraints

A word here is needed on a state beyond states in India: Migrant workers. They form a floating Union Territory that requires full statehood, not territorially but civilisationally(AP)

columns

Updated on May 07, 2020 07:15 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

What would Gandhi have done today?

In times of a health crisis, he showed exceptional care and extreme sternness. India is doing it now

columns

Updated on Jun 04, 2020 07:37 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

India must bow its head to Maharashtra on this day

Three Marathas — Shivaji, Tilak and GK Gokhale — made their mark on history in different ways on February 19

To GK Gokhale, politics meant civility and courage, the civility to acknowledge one’s own limitations and the courage to cross them in humility for the greatness of the country. This was the only honourable path.(HT Photo)

columns

Updated on Feb 19, 2020 12:00 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

What Abide With Me means to India , writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi

The authorities must not be impervious to the hymn’s aesthetic, spiritual and human appeal

Beating Retreat has been an eclectic event, bringing military and civilian sensibilities together in a unique ceremony(Mohd Zakir/HT PHOTO)

columns

Updated on Jan 22, 2020 06:20 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

TN Chaturvedi: A scholar in bureaucracy and politics| Opinion

An exceptional IAS officer, a truly non-partisan governor, TNC was engaged with ideas and books till the very end

As governor, there was universal respect for Chaturvedi in Karnataka, universal faith in his impartiality(HT Photo)

columns

Published on Jan 12, 2020 07:35 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

The wisdom in CJI Bobde’s words

Vengeance can lead to pre-institutional disarray, fixing over due process, haste over efficiency

When diligence is out and dramatics in, the character of justice is imperilled. Justice Bobde’s words come as a balm(PTI)

columns

Updated on Dec 10, 2019 06:29 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

The core of the Ayodhya judgment | Opinion

Work simultaneously for both parties, ensure tangible action, and answer questions on funding

The most important “far-sight” in the judgment was the court’s recognition that the Muslims were wronged in 1992(Biplov Bhuyan/HT PHOTO)

columns

Updated on Nov 12, 2019 06:59 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Gandhi and Savarkar’s Bharat Ratna

There is a Savarkar who deserves it. There is a Savarkar on whom it will sit deeply troubled

The court acquitted Savarkar in the Gandhi murder trial. But he did inspire those who think the assassins were right(HT Photo)

columns

Published on Oct 22, 2019 04:34 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

A newspaper with a view

MK Gandhi’s English daily, ‘Young India’, helped shape educated Indians’ thoughts and world view for the duration of its lifetime. It still has a thing or two to teach us in a world saturated with buzzing websites.

Gandhi editing Young India on his day of silence, April 25, 1921, under a tree on the banks of the Indus, Sind, Pakistan.(Photo: National Gandhi Museum)

india news

Updated on Oct 01, 2020 06:13 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Gandhi’s lost gem

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi decided, in the same year that Harilal was born — and in the face of several adverse circumstances — to go to London to become a barrister.

Harilal Gandhi, 1910. Wikimedia Commons/ Nizil Shah

india news

Updated on Jun 30, 2020 10:09 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Kasturba, on her own terms

Mohandas described his departure for London: “…Last but not least, came the leave-taking with my wife. It being contrary to custom for me to see or talk to her in the presence of friends, I had to see her in a separate room.

Kasturba Gandhi, 1915. Courtesy National Gandhi Museum.

india news

Updated on Sep 17, 2019 01:10 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Nazir Ali’s story: A life bigger than nationalities

Ratan Kumar was his screen name. The home-given name of this boy, born in 1941, in Ajmer, was Syed Nazir Ali Rizvi. And just as Bombay turned Mohammad Yusuf Khan into Dilip Kumar, Mahjabeen into Meena Kumari, it morphed Nazir Ali into Ratan Kumar.

With the family moving to Bombay, little Nazir made it to cinema. Success swooped on him instantly. His innocence and his voice both unbroken, he had everything that child-stardom needs(File Photo)

columns

Published on Jul 13, 2019 07:01 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

EC has a formidable reputation to maintain – or to lose

If candidates have a symbol, the EC has a symbol too, its logo. The poll panel should remember that it is in the fourth colour, the blue of dharma, that its dynamism lies, its vitality and its momentum. And the bharosa, aitbar and vishvas of the people.

The Election Commission has received jolts, shocks, but has not been shaken. It stands in dire danger today.(REUTERS)

columns

Updated on May 16, 2019 07:01 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Opinion | Converting valour to votes is simply not done

“Dedicate the votes to the air force and to jawans”? Did they perform their duty, lay down their lives for someone to ask someone for votes? That sentence meant – who will deny it? – “dedicate your vote to me”. “Not done”, I said to myself. “Simply, simply not done”. Here are brave hearts laying their lives on the line for our country and their daring, their training, their striving, is used to seek votes.

Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh DFC would have turned 100 years today(SANJEEV VERMA/HT)

columns

Updated on Apr 15, 2019 08:55 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Leaders must draw from New Zealand PM’s courage and wisdom

By saying “they are us” while referring to the 49 victims of the massacre, she reverses the us-them binary

Non-refoulement could not have been defined better than in Jacinda Ardern’s words. The darkness of that massacre has met the only light that can dispel it(REUTERS)

columns

Updated on Mar 18, 2019 11:56 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

In the cause of peace, Kulbhushan Jadhav must not die

His hanging will not serve any end of justice. But such an act will definitely mutilate the ends of peace

Judges at the International Court of Justice during the final hearing in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case in the Hague, the Netherlands, February 18(REUTERS)

columns

Updated on Feb 25, 2019 08:14 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Opinion | Alok Verma has rekindled our sense of dharma

Alok Verma’s demand for a dignified exit, not accommodation or sops, has given our institutions an unexpected dignity.

Let there be no doubt that the committee which, by an inelegant majority vote ordered Alok Verma’s(Ravi Choudhary/HT PHOTO)

columns

Updated on Jan 15, 2019 08:58 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

There was something in Vajpayee that marked him out as his own person

He would think and plan and strategise as part of the saffron family. But he would feel, empathise with, smile, lament and – most importantly – share the silence of reflection with those outside the saffron family, no less than with those within it

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, born on this day in 1924 in any clime, culture would have been shaped by that environment, moulded by its mores(HC Tiwari/HT Photo)

analysis

Updated on Dec 25, 2018 01:17 PM IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Gandhi did not want and does not need statues

India should see the removal of Gandhi’s statue in Ghana as the decision of a sovereign people having a say in the design of their political architecture and their public spaces.

September 2016 photo of Gandhi’s status in the University of Ghana(AP)

columns

Updated on Dec 18, 2018 11:48 AM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Farmers march: A spontaneous outpouring of agony

In India’s farmers and their distress, India’s democratic parties have found a loan of strength that can and should be their fuel for the coming test. But be it noted that this loan of a wave is not going to be waived. India’s farmers will recover it, with interest, as is their due.

The farmers’ rally of November 30, 2018 will go down in the history of mass protests, like the silent trek of 35,000 farmers from Nashik to Mumbai, last March, to protest the cynical disregard by the authorities of their felt real-life needs, travails(Vipin Kumar /HT PHOTO)

columns

Updated on Dec 03, 2018 05:30 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Twist in the tale: The dilemma that Maneka Gandhi faces

Her response to the orchestrated killing of a tiger in Maharashtra shows that her forbearance has hits limits

This picture taken on November 3, 2018 the body of the man-eating tigress T1 at a post mortem room at Gorewada Rescue Centre in Nagpur.(AFP)

analysis

Updated on Nov 09, 2018 05:38 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

Resigning gracefully may lead to finding a new role from within oneself

History is replete with examples of many men who gave up office, power and pelf to redeem themselves

Resignations, however, are more extreme. They are not rehearsals, but the genuine article itself. Especially, when they are not willed, when they are demanded, forced upon the person resigning by incontrovertible truths or by irresistible opinion, with the two combining. In fact, resignations are like death sentences being carried out(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

columns

Updated on Oct 18, 2018 05:55 PM IST

ByGopalkrishna Gandhi

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Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Gopalkrishna Gandhi read English Literature at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. A civil servant and diplomat, he was Governor of West Bengal, 2004-2009. He is currently Distinguished Professor of History and Politics at Ashoka University

To assuage the protesting farmers, the Centre must suspend the Acts indefinitely, refer demands to the Inter-State Council; and call a Parliament session

These five Sikh Indians have tilled historical and cultural truths with the hoe of faith

Socialists were once austere, uninterested in personal power, free-spirited. The era is gone

The history of peace is much longer than the history of discord. There are common challenges

Healing divisions as India turned free, Gandhi was clear a nation could have no religion or sect

Proposing an alternative leadership is not disloyalty. There is an opportunity now

His directives on how to contain the South African plague can be useful for Covid-hit India

Federalism has been at work in the best sense. The states have worked with limited resources and within constraints

In times of a health crisis, he showed exceptional care and extreme sternness. India is doing it now

Three Marathas — Shivaji, Tilak and GK Gokhale — made their mark on history in different ways on February 19

The authorities must not be impervious to the hymn’s aesthetic, spiritual and human appeal

An exceptional IAS officer, a truly non-partisan governor, TNC was engaged with ideas and books till the very end

Vengeance can lead to pre-institutional disarray, fixing over due process, haste over efficiency

Work simultaneously for both parties, ensure tangible action, and answer questions on funding

There is a Savarkar who deserves it. There is a Savarkar on whom it will sit deeply troubled

MK Gandhi’s English daily, ‘Young India’, helped shape educated Indians’ thoughts and world view for the duration of its lifetime. It still has a thing or two to teach us in a world saturated with buzzing websites.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi decided, in the same year that Harilal was born — and in the face of several adverse circumstances — to go to London to become a barrister.

Mohandas described his departure for London: “…Last but not least, came the leave-taking with my wife. It being contrary to custom for me to see or talk to her in the presence of friends, I had to see her in a separate room.

Ratan Kumar was his screen name. The home-given name of this boy, born in 1941, in Ajmer, was Syed Nazir Ali Rizvi. And just as Bombay turned Mohammad Yusuf Khan into Dilip Kumar, Mahjabeen into Meena Kumari, it morphed Nazir Ali into Ratan Kumar.

If candidates have a symbol, the EC has a symbol too, its logo. The poll panel should remember that it is in the fourth colour, the blue of dharma, that its dynamism lies, its vitality and its momentum. And the bharosa, aitbar and vishvas of the people.

By saying “they are us” while referring to the 49 victims of the massacre, she reverses the us-them binary

His hanging will not serve any end of justice. But such an act will definitely mutilate the ends of peace

Alok Verma’s demand for a dignified exit, not accommodation or sops, has given our institutions an unexpected dignity.

He would think and plan and strategise as part of the saffron family. But he would feel, empathise with, smile, lament and – most importantly – share the silence of reflection with those outside the saffron family, no less than with those within it

India should see the removal of Gandhi’s statue in Ghana as the decision of a sovereign people having a say in the design of their political architecture and their public spaces.

In India’s farmers and their distress, India’s democratic parties have found a loan of strength that can and should be their fuel for the coming test. But be it noted that this loan of a wave is not going to be waived. India’s farmers will recover it, with interest, as is their due.

Her response to the orchestrated killing of a tiger in Maharashtra shows that her forbearance has hits limits

History is replete with examples of many men who gave up office, power and pelf to redeem themselves

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