Gandhi and other glaring omissions by the Nobel committee
In 2006, the former director of the Nobel Institute, Geir Lundestad, said that the greatest omission in the prize's history was never awarding the peace prize to the Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi, whose campaigns of non-violent direct action significantly contributed to the liberation of India from the violent British colonial rule.
According to Lundestad, Gandhi was shortlisted five times (twice before World War II, then in 1946, 1947 and 1948), but the committee's Euro-centric viewpoint and its failure to support national liberation struggles in colonies prevented Gandhi from receiving the award.
"Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace Prize. Whether the Nobel committee can do without Gandhi, is the question," said Lundestad.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Moreover, the Nobel Prize committee has failed to award numerous profound authors and playwrights, despite the quality of their works and their influence on literature and culture.
Writers who have never received the Nobel Prize for Literature include James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Marcel Proust, Henrik Ibsen, Mark Twain, George Orwell, Arthur Miller, and Jorge Luis Borges.
Furthermore, as celebrated and groundbreaking filmmaker and auteur Jean-Luc Godard once observed, there are no Nobel Prizes for painting, music, and cinema despite the cultural and philosophical significance of these activities.
