Mahatma Gandhi, the pacifist icon who never won the Nobel Peace Prize

Questions about why the iconic leader of India’s non-violence movement, Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), was left out of the laureates with the Nobel Prize of peace are revived this October 2, like every year on the anniversary of the birth of the great pacifist of the 20th century.

“Remembering Mahatma Gandhi the night before his 154th birthday. Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on 12 occasions.”the Nobel Prize organization published on the social network

This omission is controversial when Martin Luther King Jr, who recognized Gandhi as his mentor, and Albert Luthuli, who applied the Indian leader’s principles of non-violent struggle in South Africa, did receive recognition.

Nominated multiple times, “and he never received it,” Indian writer and London Metropolitan University academic Sunny Singh responded with a message, arguing that “This omission still discredits the Nobel Prize but had little impact on Gandhi.”

According to the Nobel Prize organization, Gandhi was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and finally a few days before he was assassinated in January 1948. Although several members of the Nobel Committee have regretted this decision, the institution has not offered a position clear about why Gandhi did not receive the award.

According to the records, which are revealed decades after the nominations, the symbol of the non-violence struggle of the 20th century shared a candidacy in 1948 with the Soviet leader Josef Stalin (1879-1953).

In fact, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on two occasions, 1945 and 1948, “for his efforts to end World War II.”

Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi that year, two days before the nomination list closed.

“No one had ever received the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. But, according to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation in force at that time, Nobel Prizes could, under certain circumstances, be awarded posthumously.noted an article published by the institute under the title, “Mahatma Gandhi, the lost laureate.”

The committee attempted through numerous deliberations to make a posthumous recognition for the first time, but the responses were negative; The Swedish institutions that award the awards considered that “Posthumous prizes should not be awarded unless the winner died after the Committee’s decision had been made.”

That year, almost ten months after Gandhi’s assassination, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided not to award the prize, claiming that “there was no suitable living candidate.”

“Mahatma Gandhi is more than just a person, he is an emotion, an inspiration. And his Ahimsa ideology, Satyagrah (force of truth, term applied to Gandhi’s non-violent struggle) needs to be remembered, amidst all the chaos and meaningless noise”a young activist wrote today to respond to the publication made by the Nobel Prize institute.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, better known as “mahatma” (“great soul”) Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in the Indian city of Porbandar, located in the current region of Gujarat.

Although some of his ideas have been questioned, the figure of Gandhi continues to arouse passions for his attachment to moral integrity and the defense of peace and harmony in public life.