Gokhale: The Indian Moderates and the British Raj

This is the biography of one of the pre-eminent leaders of India during its struggle for freedom from colonization. B.R. Nanda uses the life of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who was active in politics during the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, as a springboard for a coherent and detailed account of the development of the Indian National Congress and the national movement, to both of which Gokhale was crucial. The author’s clear and incisive account spans Indo-British relations during the administrations of Curzon, Minto and Hardinge. Through vignettes of eminent Indian contemporaries of Gokhale, insights into the attitudes of government officials, and vividly described popular reactions to British policies, Nanda captures the spirit of political India in the 1850s. The result is a magisterial and richly-nuanced portrait of the man as well as India at the turn of the century, engulfed in political turmoil.