Most leaders of thought and action who laid the foundations of contemporary India were born in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was therefore inevitable that the second half of the present (20th) century should be an age of centenaries of pioneers in different fields — social, political, economic, religious, literary and cultural. However, of all those whose centenaries the nation has celebrated since independence or is planning to celebrate in the coming years, none perhaps is more worthy of grateful remembrance and emulation today than Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

Teacher and educationist, statesman and economist, social reformer and a true Servant of India in the best sense of the word; without vanity of any kind and yet completely free from a pathological obsession with simplicity; modern but not estranged from his people, atheistic - at least, agnostic - and yet (or, therefore?) committed to truth without any subterfuge; devoted to his country’s interests but neither a chauvinist nor lacking in moral courage when the occasion demanded frankness or, even, a public confession of error -  Gokhale stands out in the fog of Indian politics as the most important exponent of reason in public life and liberalism as the basis of a modern, democratic welfare state.