New Delhi: Almost 60 years after his demise, Mahatma Gandhi continues to be the strongest symbol of non-violence and peace world over in the 20th century. But then it remains the biggest intrigue as to why he was never selected for the Nobel Peace Prize.
For the record, Gandhi was nominated as many as five times for the coveted award of the Nobel Foundation. Thrice he made it to the shortlist, but every time he was left out in the last count. Nobody knows why.
In the later years, though, members of the Nobel Committee have publicly regretted the omission. On at least one occasion, the Nobel Foundation, in fact, came very close to admitting a lapse, when awarding the Peace Prize to Dalai Lama in 1989, the chairman of the committee said this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi."
The Nobel Foundation has never commented on the speculations as to why Gandhi was not awarded the prize. But, writing on the official website of the Nobel Foundation (http://nobelprize.org), Oyvind Tonnesson, Nobel e-Museum Peace Editor during 1998-2000, provides very intricate details about the circumstances under which Gandhi's name came up for consideration at the Nobel Committee.
Tonnesson's account broadly points to three factors that might have gone against Gandhi every time his name went into the shortlist -- Chauri Chaura, Partition and the 1947 India-Pakistan conflict, and lastly the absence of a true inheritor to receive the award posthumously.
Other speculative accounts say it is possible that the horizon of the Norwegian Nobel Committee was too narrow at that point of time to appreciate the struggle for freedom among non-European peoples or maybe the committee members were afraid to make a prize award which might be detrimental to the relationship between their own country and Great Britain.
Tonnesson also points out that up to 1960, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded almost exclusively to Europeans and Americans.
Here is what Tonnesson's account says about the inside processes of the Nobel Committee.
> In 1937, a member of the Norwegian Storting (Parliament), Ole Colbjornsen (Labour Party), nominated Gandhi for that year's Nobel Peace Prize, and he was duly selected as one of 13 candidates on the Nobel Peace Prize shortlist.
Source : IBNLIVE
For the record, Gandhi was nominated as many as five times for the coveted award of the Nobel Foundation. Thrice he made it to the shortlist, but every time he was left out in the last count. Nobody knows why.
In the later years, though, members of the Nobel Committee have publicly regretted the omission. On at least one occasion, the Nobel Foundation, in fact, came very close to admitting a lapse, when awarding the Peace Prize to Dalai Lama in 1989, the chairman of the committee said this was "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi."
The Nobel Foundation has never commented on the speculations as to why Gandhi was not awarded the prize. But, writing on the official website of the Nobel Foundation (http://nobelprize.org), Oyvind Tonnesson, Nobel e-Museum Peace Editor during 1998-2000, provides very intricate details about the circumstances under which Gandhi's name came up for consideration at the Nobel Committee.
Tonnesson's account broadly points to three factors that might have gone against Gandhi every time his name went into the shortlist -- Chauri Chaura, Partition and the 1947 India-Pakistan conflict, and lastly the absence of a true inheritor to receive the award posthumously.
Other speculative accounts say it is possible that the horizon of the Norwegian Nobel Committee was too narrow at that point of time to appreciate the struggle for freedom among non-European peoples or maybe the committee members were afraid to make a prize award which might be detrimental to the relationship between their own country and Great Britain.
Tonnesson also points out that up to 1960, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded almost exclusively to Europeans and Americans.
Here is what Tonnesson's account says about the inside processes of the Nobel Committee.
> In 1937, a member of the Norwegian Storting (Parliament), Ole Colbjornsen (Labour Party), nominated Gandhi for that year's Nobel Peace Prize, and he was duly selected as one of 13 candidates on the Nobel Peace Prize shortlist.
Source : IBNLIVE
