Gopi gandhi biography

Indian actor, playback singer, television presenter and politician (born 1958)

In this Indian name, the name Gopi is a patronymic, and the person should be referred to by the given name, Suresh.

Suresh Gopi (born 26 June 1958) is an Indian actor, playback singer, television presenter and politician who is currently serving as the Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas and the Minister of Tourism since June 2024. He was elected as a Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha in the 2024 general election from Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency, becoming the first BJP MP from Kerala, marking the party’s first-ever victory in a Lok Sabha election in the state. He is also serving as the President of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute from September 2023.

He works predominantly in Malayalam cinema and has also appeared in some Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Bollywood films. Suresh made his acting debut as a child in the 1965 film Odayil Ninnu and as an adult in 1986 and has since acted in more than 250 films. In 1998, he won the National Film Award for Best Actor and Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in Kaliyattam.

He served as a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India from 2016 to 2022. Additionally, he is also a philanthropist, social worker, and advocates for environmental protection.

Early life and education

Suresh Gopi was born on 26 June 1958 at Alappuzha, Kerala to K. Gopinathan Pillai, a film distributor, and V. Gnanalekshmi Amma, as their eldest son. His parents hail from Kollam.

After his birth, Gopi's family moved to his father's house in Kollam where he was raised. He has three younger brothers: Subhash Gopi and twins Sunil Gopi and Sanil Gopi. His ancestral

Yesterday, I removed the portrait of Gandhi from my wall and hung it upside down. The black and white photograph was purchased in Lima, Peru, some 25 years ago when I roamed the world as a marine engineer. There is an inscription in Spanish at the bottom of the portrait. It translates to, “The truth must manifest in our words, thoughts and actions”. The implication of upturning the portrait on the wall has turned my life upside down too. Why am I being so dramatic?

Growing up in India, I basked in the God like aura of this great man. He was beyond politics, almost every Indian town has a road named after him, a Gandhi statue is the standard adornment to public squares, and one cannot escape the ubiquitous Gandhi portrait with his trademark glasses smiling beatifically from the walls of every government building. Such is the esteem he is held in that we never mentioned his name without the honorific ‘Mahatma’ or the respectful suffix ‘ji’. It was either Mahatma Gandhi or Gandhiji for us, never Gandhi on its own. When I was 15 years old, my father offered me 100 rupees to read Gandhi’s autobiography, ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’. I don’t remember much of it. However, the fundamental beauty of the concepts of truth and ahimsa (non-violence) remained with me. Gandhi was my idol and I strived all my life to follow his principles. 

Everything changed for me with the murder of Geroge Floyd and the worldwide agitation that followed. I chanced upon an article on the BBC website, “Was Gandhi a racist?” The article was about a controversial new book[1] by two South African academicians of Indian ethnicity. Reading the book was equivalent to falling into a bottomless chasm. The edifices of my life came tumbling down, Gandhi’s antics in South Africa and his approach to race relations shocked and appalled me. His unrestrained contempt for the native African population left me reeling in disappointment. I had never, even remotely,