Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former West Bengal Governor and author, of ‘India and Her Futures’, on Sunday (January 18, 2026) said that while Tamil Nadu is advancing brilliantly into the modern world, he is unsure whether the baggage, luggage, the waste and the garbage of the old is dropped.
In conversation with carnatic singer and author, T.M. Krishna at The Hindu Lit For Life 2026, Mr. Gandhi, while speaking about the Tamil communities in Sri Lanka and India, said that religion would have naturally yielded its place where commerce, industry, science and technology is booming.
“But, in Tamil Nadu, it has not done so. It has found that religion, industry, commerce, science are becoming one. That is an interesting development. That makes me somewhat distant from what is happening. I don’t know where it will go. Tamil Nadu is advancing brilliantly into the modern age with religion. The change I am noticing is not from the Old into the New but into the New with the Old. But, to complete my answer, I am not sure whether what should be dropped in the Old is being dropped as we move into the New. We seem to be carrying the baggage, the luggage, the waste and the garbage of the Old into the New,” he said.
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Mr. Gandhi said that the two Tamil communities in Sri Lanka are distinct and both these communities would make anyone with a Tamil connection proud.
“Those in the North and East of Sri Lanka are hugely literate. Jaffna is one of the most amazing towns in its architecture, cleanliness and sanitation. The hierarchy of caste in India doesn’t exist in Tamil communities in Sri Lanka. Everyone has progressed: Christianity and Buddhism have played their role. Which is why the cult of violence that has been forced onto them is unnatural. Malayaga Tamils’ skills in plantation work are amazing. I am sad to say if politics has introduced violence and terror in the North, the Sinhala domination in villages has made them a very self-conscious community. The plantations are isolated. Former PM Nehru said famously when Sinhala extremists said that they should go back to India, his exact words were ‘Tamil plantation workers in Sri Lanka…should be or are citizens of Sri Lanka’. But this changed. An agreement was signed between two countries, in which I had to play a part and a large number of them had to come back to India,” he said.
Nuclear disarmament
On a question about nuclear disarmament and threat of nuclear war, Mr. Gandhi said that it is a delusion to ask why one should be worried about the nuclear tests despite there being no nuclear explosion in a combat situation ever since atomic bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945.
Mr. Gandhi said, “After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was in August 1945, there has been no nuclear explosion anywhere in a combat situation. So, why are you worried? That is a delusion. The fact that 100s of tests have been conducted, the word tests masks the reality of those tests. Every test is a “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” outside a human target. But, every test weakens the geology of the area and makes the possibility of another explosion in combat that much more real.”
Mr. Gandhi further added, “Today, the number of atomic weapons in terms of missile-deliverable war heads is in 4 digits (thousands). India has about 160 nuclear warheads. This is a danger because we know what happened after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. An extraordinary calibration of restraint and retaliation was shown by India. But, one more act of horror…and who knows on which side the temptation to press the nuclear button would have occurred? We were this close to nuclear war.”
Mr. Krishna said that Mr. Gandhi always brings the present in every one of his essays in an incredibly subtle and sophisticated manner. “The reader has to engage…to listen to the subtext, not just read, but listen to the subtext, and it is truly quite beautiful to see how his commentary, just passes on and smudges the past, present and futures and looks at possibilities and ideas beyond just specificities.”
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Published – January 18, 2026 11:35 am IST
