Freedom Fighter, Parliamentarian, Writer: N.G. Gore Wore Many Hats

This article is part of a series by The Wire titled ‘The Early Parliamentarians’, exploring the lives and work of post-independence MPs who have largely been forgotten. The series looks at the institutions they helped create, the enduring ideas they left behind and the contributions they made to nation building.

Narayan Ganesh Gore, popularly known as NG Gore, was a renowned social worker, freedom fighter, socialist, trade unionist, distinguished writer, parliamentarian, secularist and a diplomat.

The son of Ganesh Govind Gore, NG Gore was born in Hindala village, Deogad taluka, Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra on June 15, 1907. He belongs to the Chitpavan or Kokanastha caste of Marhatta Brahmins.

Gore was brought up in the city of Poona. He was educated at New English School and Fergusson College, Poona, and Bombay University. He passed the matriculation examination in 1925, graduated in 1929 and took his LLB in 1935. He was married to Sumati, a child-widow.

Gore was a social worker and among those who started a branch of the Youth League in Maharashtra in 1928. As a young man he came under the influence of M.K. Gandhi’s teachings and actively participated in the forest satyagraha movements and salt satyagraha campaign in the 1930s.

Besides being a Member of the All India Congress Party, he was a founder-member of the Congress Socialist Party from 1934 and was member of its national executive till it was dissolved in 1948. He was joint secretary of the Socialist Party in 1948 when it severed its connection with the Congress and general secretary of the Praja Socialist Party in 1953-54.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

His associates being Acharya Narendra Deva, Jayaprakash Narayan, Minoo Masani, Achyut Patwardhan and S.M. Joshi, Gore participated in the several satyagraha movements under Gandhi’s leadership and courted arrest on a number of occasions. He took part in a satyagraha at Gulbarga in the former Hyderabad State and was kept in confinement. He also participated in the ‘Quit India’ movement of 1942. After the historic 1942 resolution of the Congress he joined the mass movement. He was  continuously in jail from 1941 to 1946, except for an interval of four months when he participated in the underground movement against the British.

While an underground activist, he worked with prominent personalities like Annasaheb Sahasrabuddhe and Achyut Patwardhan. Gore was an important preacher of the cause of the Congress Socialist party. On February 20, 1947, he presided over an informal meeting at Pen, Kolaba district, and briefed the volunteers to expand the socialist party through the agency of 'Rashtriya Seva Dal'.

Most of his pronounced participation in politics was dedicated to the peasants. In the Cawnpore (Kanpur) session of the Congress Socialist Party, Gore moved a resolution to form independent kisan organisations in districts and talukas to convene taluka and district conferences to take steps to redress the grievances of peasants. Gore's idea was to build local-level organisations, potent for uniting the peasants and starting a struggle.

In 1947, during the sensitive time of separation of the socialists from the Congress party, Gore played the role of messenger to pacify any talk about a bitter rift in the opinions of both parties. He was a flagbearer of the new socialist party on April 6, 1947. In a meeting of about one thousand people, he explained the aims and objectives of the new socialist party. He addressed the question of removal of the word 'congress' from the party's name and denied having any quarrel with Congress.

In the post-independence period, he was always in the ranks of the leftists, though he never got on well with the communists in spite of his respect for Marx and Lenin. Gore also took part in the satyagraha movement for the liberation of Goa from Portuguese imperialist domination and was an inmate of the Aguada Jail for some time. He led the first batch of satyagrahis in Goa in May 1955. He was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment by the Portuguese government and was released in February 1957. Even after Goa was liberated, he paid several visits to Goa and supported his colleague Peter Alvares there.

As a patriot and a nationalist, he had a broad outlook and regarded India’s freedom as only a step towards universalism and a world federation of nations. He has progressive views on social reform and education which became even stronger as a result of his visit to England and Europe in 1959.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

Gore was an extensively well-read person. Notable among his favourite writers were Lenin, Marx, Ruskin and Mao Tse-tung, besides other distinguished men of letters. He does not believe in caste, untouchability and religion. He was almost an atheist and confirmed rationalist. He became a Congressman under M.K. Gandhi’s influence but was closer to Jawaharlal Nehru in his political and economic views.

Gore held many offices in public life. He was the secretary, Poona District Congress Committee, a member of the All India Congress Committee, a member of the National Executive of the Congress Socialist Party, the general secretary of the Praja Socialist Party and later the chairman of the PSP in 1970.

He worked as the president of the Sakhar Kamgar Federation (Sugar Workers Federation), president of Poona Electric Supply Company's Employees Union, President, Hind Oil Kamgar Sabha (H.M.S.) and Oil Companies Depot Superintendents Association, India. 

As parliamentarian

He was elected to the Poona Municipal Corporation and was Mayor of Poona for one term. He was a member of the second Lok Sabha from 1957 to 1962 from Poona City, having defeated N.V. Gadgil, a Congress stalwart. Gadgil was the official Congress candidate and Gore was a candidate of the Samyukta Maharashtra All Party Organisation. He was a Member of Rajya Sabha, 1970-76, and India’s high commissioner to Britain, 1977-79.

Gore was a prolific and yet considerate and thoughtful writer. He wrote mostly in Marathi, though he could write in English also equally competently. He was a regular contributor to the Sadhana, a socialist weekly, and served as the editor of the weekly from January 26, 1981 to January 12, 1984.

He  has written a score of books, most of them collections of his essays and short stories. But for general political education of the people and for the propagation of the socialist ideas he has written some books which are more notable. He commands a chaste and dignified style in writing Marathi.

One of his works,'Amerikechya Sangha Rajyacha Itihasa’, is a history of the United States of America in Marathi.

He translated Jawaharlal Nehru’s Autobiography into Marathi. He wrote a book on socialism and another called Gandhinchen Vividha Darshanee (Gandhi’s Many Aspects). He also wrote a book on imperialism and another on his jail experiences. In all, he wrote more than 25 books.

Gore passed away on May 1, 1993 at the age of 86 in Pune.

Qurban Ali is a trilingual journalist who has covered some of modern India’s major political, social and economic developments. He has a keen interest in India’s freedom struggle and is now documenting the history of the socialist movement in the country.

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