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
Why the number of independent MPs is declining
The decline in the number of Independent MPs is because they do not have the infrastructural advantage and money party candidates have.
Updated on May 02, 2014 10:06 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New Delhi
India needs a thinker, not a despot on its peacock throne
Can people who showed the door even to a person as esteemed as Vajpayee, vote into office a govt headed by one who has split the country into those who worship him and those who fear him? Perhaps they can, perhaps they will, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Updated on Apr 20, 2014 03:31 PM IST
Let the new Lok Sabha be less of the nation’s costliest entertainment
The next House will be more of a House and less of the nation’s costliest entertainment. It will have more women MPs than any previous Lok Sabha. It will have no male MP who is guilty of known or unknown violence against women.
Updated on Apr 05, 2014 01:58 AM IST
Varanasi shouldn't oblige political use of its legacy
If Narendra Modi’s bull-horns do get locked in Varanasi with Arvind Kejriwal’s sharp ram-antlers, we will witness a riveting contest.Varanasi’s hospitality to the two outsiders will be following a notable tradition, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Updated on Mar 19, 2014 01:05 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Governments should use right to transfer officials judiciously
Transfers are rehearsals of retirement from service, even as retirement is, in terms of saying final goodbyes, a pre-play of death. But frequent transfers can make a person feel professionally disintegrated, personally demoralised.
Updated on Feb 22, 2014 05:55 PM IST
Pranab’s R-Day address is the most honest public expression
President Pranab Mukherjee is a political artist. His address to the nation on the eve of Republic Day, this year, was a triumph of this artistry, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Updated on Feb 10, 2014 11:10 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New Delhi
Suchitra Sen's closed door opened her life
'When I reached Kolkata as the governor in the December of 2004, there were five people I wanted to spend time with, including the legendary actress, who preferred being left undisturbed,' Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Jan 25, 2014 02:02 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Kejriwal, the name which stirs political imagination of India
Arvind Kejriwal's biggest strength is not his integrity but his independence. He should retrieve his natural role by offering himself as a candidate for the LS, like independent candidates do.
Updated on Jan 11, 2014 03:10 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New Delhi
The Republic of India is not the home for all its founders imagined
In this last week of 2013 that has seen sleaze in politics and misdemeanour of all kinds, we ought to know who and what ‘we’ are as a people. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Dec 27, 2013 10:59 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Watching every step you take
By entering the electoral portal, the Aam Aadmi Party has accepted responsibility, accountability and vulnerability to critical evaluation by the people, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Updated on Dec 13, 2013 11:21 PM IST
When Mandela taught me about India: Gopalkrishna Gandhi
For any ambassador, presenting the letters of credence to a head of state is a very intense moment. When I stood before President Nelson Mandela, in Pretoria, the moment was more than intense, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Updated on Dec 06, 2013 08:03 PM IST
Sachin should give up pursuing money and power
Your Bharat Ratna did not come, as it used to, as a pleasant surprise. It came with a “lekin…” But now, Bharat Ratna Sachin Tendulkar, surprise the nation by what you do with it. Writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Updated on Nov 27, 2013 07:58 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New Delhi
Reading between India, Bharat and Hindustan
Bharat is where we dream and Hindustan where we live and where the common man and woman faces inflation with poverty, extravagance with squalor, corruption with defeat.
Updated on Nov 16, 2013 01:51 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New Delhi
Sardar Patel, truth and hype about a leader
The Mahatma was the most respected, Jawaharlal Nehru the most loved and Subhas Bose the most longed-for. But when it came to the iron control over the political apparatus in the country, Sardar Patel stood alone. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Nov 02, 2013 03:33 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
How poll panel made elections India's pride
The phrase ‘trust deficit’ is insufficient to describe the one thing that has gone missing from our public life. Is there any leader to whom you can say “I can trust you, I know it as I look at you?" Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Oct 19, 2013 12:16 PM IST
What would the Mahatma have done with the ordinance?
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi may not have been courteous in flaying the ordinance shielding convicted lawmakers, but he has served the interests of the people. But what would the Mahatma have done? Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Oct 04, 2013 11:23 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New Delhi
Strangers in our own land
Thanks to our diversity, we all have unresolved questions about ourselves as persons and also as members of the large joint family that is India. We have never found it easy to explain ourselves to ourselves. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Sep 20, 2013 11:22 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi, New Delhi
Advisers, not courtiers
Grey is a nowhere colour. Eminence is a no-win status. Yet Karan Singh and MS Swaminathan have both managed to be great examples of eminence grise. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Sep 07, 2013 01:34 AM IST
A woman of genius
Simone Weil died 70 years ago on this day. A phrase she has left for us to ponder is the need to ‘decreate’ ourselves and our egos. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Aug 24, 2013 01:21 PM IST
Our 'Jai Hind' is feeble
India’s callous, self-serving, short-termist citizens are different only in degree from the corrupt political leaders and the unfeeling bureaucrats. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Aug 10, 2013 11:00 AM IST
No sense of pure fun
There used to be something called decency in Indian politics. Now that word has come to mean the same as naiveté. These days decency defers to cleverness. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Jul 26, 2013 11:54 PM IST
The etymology trail
New or seldom-heard words often get us thinking about their origin; and in the process we unravel a series of words that have no relation to each other and yet seem similar. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Jul 16, 2013 11:01 PM IST
None | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Caught in the line of ire
If social activists consider alternatives to an armed response to Naxalism, they are served the medicine that was given to Jayaprakash Narayan. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Jun 29, 2013 07:24 AM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Yesterday once more
Love and romance are not entirely without hope in this country. There is something to it, now gone, that makes us so long for a time gone by. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Jun 14, 2013 11:02 PM IST
None | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
A haunting memory
The BCCI chief’s son-in-law case reminds one of the Mundhra incident in which Nehru was given a moral choice by Feroze Gandhi. Nehru made the right one. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on May 31, 2013 09:21 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
When a part of you dies
Court acquittals, in the 1984 or 2002 pogroms, belong to the realm of law. It is the conscience that raises difficult questions that need to be answered, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Updated on May 17, 2013 10:29 PM IST
A patch of blue sky
The nightmarish experience of Sarabjit Singh in his Lahore prison must make us spare a thought for life in prisons, our prisons. For a civilised nation, bilateral exchange of prisoners and discharge of undertrials against bonds should be essential and not optional. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on May 04, 2013 12:24 AM IST
No beat of the tom-tom
In a country where disasters fly around like colonies of bats, there are a million messages that could be howled out. But are they being spoken of even in whispers? Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Apr 19, 2013 11:28 PM IST
Hindustan Times | Gopalkrishna Gandhi
The creativity wallahs
Novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and educationist Ahalya Chari touched thousands of lives - one with her writing and the other with her guidance of the school system. Gopalkrishna Gandhi writes.
Updated on Apr 06, 2013 07:13 AM IST
It’s not all write
The birth of letter-writing and the squelching into being of its mutant, the poison letter, must have been simultaneous. Or, almost. Just as the start of life on our planet and the arrival of the striped, spotted and sebaceous roach must have been, writes Gopalkrishna Gandhi.
Updated on Mar 22, 2013 09:18 PM IST