Gopal Krishna Gokhale - Indian National Congress and Rivalry With Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Indian National Congress and Rivalry With Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Gokhale became a member of the Indian National Congress in 1889, as a protégé of social reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade. Along with other contemporary leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Dadabhai Naoroji, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai and Annie Besant, Gokhale fought for decades to obtain greater political representation and power over public affairs for common Indians. He was moderate in his views and attitudes, and sought to petition the British authorities by cultivating a process of dialogue and discussion which would yield greater British respect for Indian rights. Gokhale had visited Ireland and had arranged for an Irish nationalist, Alfred Webb, to serve as President of the Indian National Congress in 1894. The following year, Gokhale became the Congress’s joint secretary along with Tilak. In many ways, Tilak and Gokhale’s early careers paralleled – both were Chitpavan Brahmin (though unlike Gokhale, Tilak was wealthy), both attended Elphinstone College, both became mathematics professors, and both were important members of the Deccan Education Society. When both became active in the Congress, however, the divergence of their views concerning how best to improve the lives of Indians became increasingly apparent.

Gokhale’s first major confrontation with Tilak centered around one of his pet projects, the Age of Consent Bill introduced by the British Imperial Government, in 1891-92. Gokhale and his fellow liberal reformers, wishing to purge what they saw as superstitions and abuses from their native Hinduism, wished through the Consent Bill to curb child marriage abuses. Though the Bill was not extreme, only raising the age of consent from ten to twelve, Tilak took issue with it; he did not object per se to the idea of moving towards the elimination of child marriage, but rather to the idea of British interference with Hindu tradition. For Tilak, such reform movements were not to be sought after under imperial rule when they would be enforced by the British, but rather after independence was achieved when Indians would enforce it on themselves. The bill however became law in the Bombay Presidency. In 1905, Gokhale became president of the Indian National Congress. Gokhale used his now considerable influence to undermine his longtime rival, Tilak, refusing to support Tilak as candidate for president of the Congress in 1906. By now, Congress was split: Gokhale and Tilak were the respective leaders of the moderates and the "extremists" (the latter now known by the more term, 'aggressive nationalists') in the Congress. Tilak was an advocate of civil agitation and direct revolution to overthrow the British Empire, whereas Gokhale was a moderate reformist. As a result, the Congress Party split into two wings and was largely robbed of its effectiveness for a decade. The two sides would later patch up in 1916 after Gokhale died.