{"id":48550,"date":"2014-10-13T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T11:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=48550"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:29:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:29:39","slug":"why-didnt-mahatma-gandhi-ever-get-the-nobel-peace-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/10\/why-didnt-mahatma-gandhi-ever-get-the-nobel-peace-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Didn\u2019t Mahatma Gandhi Ever Get the Nobel Peace Prize?"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 60 years after his death, Mahatma Gandhi,<\/a> the leader of India\u2019s independence movement, continues to be one of the strongest symbols of peace and non-violence across the world.<\/p>\n

The question still remains \u2013 why was he not bestowed with the world\u2019s greatest accolade for peace despite being nominated five times and shortlisted three times for the Nobel Prize?<\/p>\n

The subject came up again on Friday [10 Oct 2014] when India\u2019s Kailash Satyarthi, a children\u2019s rights activist, was awarded the prize jointly<\/a> with Pakistan\u2019s Malala Yousafzai.<\/p>\n

Oivind Stenersen, a Norwegian historian and Nobel Peace Prize expert, told The Wall Street Journal that awarding Mr. Satyarthi the peace prize was a \u201cvery smart move by the committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always had a guilty conscience because Gandhi didn\u2019t get the prize and we know the committee has been looking for an Indian for quite some time,\u201d Mr. Stenersen said.<\/p>\n

On the official website of the Nobel Peace Prize<\/a>, the selection committee has given a host of reasons why Mr. Gandhi never received the coveted prize:<\/p>\n

During Mr. Gandhi\u2019s first nomination in 1937, the selection committee\u2019s adviser Jacob Worm-Muller was critical about him: \u201cHe is, undoubtedly, a good, noble and ascetic person \u2013 a prominent man who is deservedly honored and loved by the masses of India,\u201d he had said, according to the Nobel Foundation.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Mr. Worm-Muller wrote, there are \u201csharp turns in his policies, which can hardly be satisfactorily explained by his followers. He is a freedom fighter and a dictator, an idealist and a nationalist. He is frequently a Christ, but then, suddenly, an ordinary politician.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Gandhi, he said \u201chad many critics in the international peace movement\u2026 He was not consistently pacifist and that he should have known that some of his non-violent campaigns towards the British would degenerate into violence and terror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Worm-Muller also believed Mr. Gandhi was too much of an Indian nationalist: \u201cOne might say that it is significant that his well-known struggle in South Africa was on behalf of the Indians only, and not of the blacks whose living conditions were even worse,\u201d he said in his report to the selection committee.<\/p>\n

One of the committees was also of the view that Mr. Gandhi was not a \u201creal politician or proponent of international law, not primarily a humanitarian relief worker and not an organizer of international peace congresses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Gandhi was nominated for the award again in 1938 and 1939 but was shortlisted a second time only in 1947 when the Nobel Peace Committee Advisor Jens Arup Seip was less critical of Mr. Gandhi than Mr. Worm-Muller had been.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was rather favorable, yet not explicitly supportive,\u201d selection committee chairman Gunnar Jahn wrote in his diary, according to the Nobel Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it is true that he (Gandhi) is the greatest personality among the nominees \u2013 plenty of good things could be said about him \u2013 we should remember that he is not only an apostle for peace; he is first and foremost a patriot. Moreover, we have to bear in mind that Gandhi is not naive. He is an excellent jurist and a lawyer,\u201d Mr. Jahn wrote.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gandhi was shortlisted the third time in January 1948, just days before his assassination, which prompted the selectors to think whether the award could be given posthumously.<\/p>\n

According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation at the time, the award could, under certain circumstances, be awarded posthumously. \u201cThus it was possible to give Gandhi the prize. However, Gandhi did not belong to an organization, he left no property behind and no will; who should receive the Prize money?\u201d the committee said according to the Nobel Foundation.<\/p>\n

Finally, the committee decided not to award the prize at all that year, saying that \u201cthere was no suitable living candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________<\/p>\n

Kjetil Malkenes Hovland contributed to this post.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wsj.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHe is a freedom fighter and a dictator, an idealist and a nationalist\u2026 Mr. Gandhi was not consistently pacifist and should have known that some of his non-violent campaigns towards the British would degenerate into violence and terror… He was not a real politician or proponent of international law, not primarily a humanitarian relief worker and not an organizer of international peace congresses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nobel-laureates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}