[5] Gopinathan Nair was born on 7 July 1922 to M. Padmanabha Pillai and K. P. Janaki Amma in Neyyattinkara, a town in the southern part of Thiruvananthapuram district of the south Indian state of Kerala.
In 1946, he became the Chief Tattwa Pracharak of the Kerala Gandhi Smarak Nidhi and conducted several courses for his colleagues as well as other students.
[1] For the next decade and a half, he set up camps for training people and carried out construction projects such as roads and sanitation facilities.
He was reported to have been a mediator during the Naxalite insurgency in Kilimanoor in 1970, the Hindu-Muslim communal riots in Thalassery, the East Bengali refugee crisis of 1971, and the Kuttanad Peace Project of 1971 to 1976.
[1] He was the chairman and patron of the Noorul Islam Civil Service Academy[11] and a member of Sree Uthradam Thirunal Institute Of Culture, Thiruvananthapuram.
[12] Nair was married to L. Saraswathi Amma, a retired State Women's Welfare officer,[1] and the couple lived in Neyyattinkara.
[20] His life has been documented in a 30-minute documentary film, directed by Rajan V. Pozhiyoor, the secretary of Thikkurissi Foundation and produced by the Media Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram.