Why Gandhi ji never recieved a Nobel for Peace ?

Mentioned below is the list of all the Nobel Laureates of Indian origin. While Rudyard Kipling, Ronald Ross and V.S Naipaul primarily belonged out of country, there roots can be traced back to India.

List of all Nobel Laureates of Indian origin

However, you will be greatly surprised to know that instead of his Universally accepted struggle for Peace, Mahatma Gandhi was never given any Nobel for Peace. He was nominated 5 times and was shortlisted even 3 times. On the official website of the Nobel Peace Prize, the selection committee has given a host of reasons why Mr. Gandhi never received Nobel:

During Mr. Gandhi’s first nomination in 1937, the selection committee’s adviser Jacob Worm-Muller was critical about him: “He is, undoubtedly, a good, noble and ascetic person – a prominent man who is deservedly honored and loved by the masses of India,” he had said, according to the Nobel Foundation. Mr. Gandhi, he said “had many critics in the international peace movement… 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.”

Mr. Worm-Muller also believed Mr. Gandhi was too much of an Indian nationalist: “One 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,” he said in his report to the selection committee.

One of the committees was also of the view that Mr. Gandhi was not a “real politician or proponent of international law, not primarily a humanitarian relief worker and not an organizer of international peace congresses.”

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.

“It was rather favorable, yet not explicitly supportive,” selection committee chairman Gunnar Jahn wrote in his diary, according to the Nobel Foundation.

“While it is true that he (Gandhi) is the greatest personality among the nominees – plenty of good things could be said about him – 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,” Mr. Jahn wrote.

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.

According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation at the time, the award could, under certain circumstances, be awarded posthumously. “Thus 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?” the committee said according to the Nobel Foundation.

Finally, the committee decided not to award the prize at all that year, saying that “there was no suitable living candidate.”

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