[30][31] Though of noble origin as descendants of chieftains from the Peshwai, the family was relatively impoverished,[32] and in 1933, Gogte's father abandoned his medical practice to establish a flour mill.
[38][39] While a guest at his maternal first cousin Laxman "Rajabhau" Bhave's residence in Mumbai in 1936, Gogte became acquainted with Ushatai Chiplunkar.
His defense got them acquitted, but Gogte's failure to secure the fees for his service led the women to offer him two Rampuri knives they had made as payment.
[47][48] This incident, alongside the moniker the two women addressed him with (Raosaheb) was widely circulated in legal circles and press, resulting in the colloquial name by which he would be known the rest of his professional and personal life.
[54] When the Motor Vehicles Act was amended in 1939, he was appointed to be the Honorary Secretary of the Bus Operators' Union of Belgaum by Keshavrao Gokhale of the Bombay Legislative Assembly,[55] where he was involved in several cases of accident insurance, route allocation, and interstate road tax negotiations with the Princely States of Sangli and Kolhapur.
[56][57] During such a time, when negotiations for route allocations crossing interstate lines, between the union and the Princely States came to an impasse, Gogte was warranted for arrest by the Chief Minister of the Kolhapur State, but evaded arrest by boarding a train bound for Miraj dressed as a woman, after being informed by the private secretary of Shivaji VII, the Maharaja of Kolhapur at the time.
[60][61] By 1943, Gogte was engaged as chief counsel for cases between bus operators' unions in Belgaum, Pune, Nashik and Ahmedabad and their respective Regional Transport Authorities.
[62][65] When India's involvement in the Second World War led to petrol rationing, he decided to emulate a British company in Madras, and establish a Gas-fired power plant that used charcoal to generate fuel for his trucking vehicles.
[70] The need to preserve the catch, led him to seek investment from the Raja of the Princely State of Kurundwad (Junior) for the installment of an ice factory in Belgaum, which was inaugurated by Morarji Desai, then Chief Minister of Unified Bombay.
[71] On the suggestion of Bombay's Superintendent of Fisheries, Gogte travelled to Aberdeen to study flash freezing in order to set his own plant up for the venture, but was ultimately unsuccessful.
[79][80] When contractors began demanding higher rates, he commissioned two self-propelled barges for the transport of the ore, which were inaugurated by Yashwantrao Chavan and his wife Venutai.
[85][86][87] Between 1959 and 1960, he further secured funding from the Bank of Baroda to import sophisticated mining equipment from the United States,[88] having exported 92,798 tonnes of crude iron ore within that financial year.
[100] In 1977, Gogte was the subject of a festschrift,[101][102] and in 1978, tried to establish a paper mill in the Chandrapur district with the help of Vasantdada Patil, but the venture was unsuccessful.
[110][111] Under the advisement of S. M. Krishna, he pursued to obtain a license from the Government of Karnataka under Gundu Rao,[112] to set up a textile mill in Kakti, acquiring 100 acres for the venture and ordering weaving machinery from Switzerland.
[113][114] After promises of financial encouragement from the Ministry of Industry fell through, Gogte appealed to R. N. Malhotra at the Reserve Bank of India for provision of working capital.
[115][116] In 1981, Gogte was elected to the first of three terms as chairman of the National Institute for Training in Industrial Engineering (NITIE),[117][118] and in 1982, he became the subject of a biography in Marathi by D. K.
[121][122] In 1980, Gogte went on to become president of the Indo-Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and worked on developing the Konkan region with Saudi Arabian investment.
[132][133] A patron of the arts and sciences,[134] he organised several concerts in Belgaum for Bal Gandharva and Lata Mangeshkar, alongside scientific patronages to the research of Bhalchandra Nilkanth Purandare.