Happy Birthday, Bapu

Hindustan Times
New Delhi, October 02, 2007

As the country marks the 138th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation, the Nobel Foundation has regretted not giving the peace prize to Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and finally a few days before he was shot dead in January 1948.

The apostle of peace was nominated five times for the Nobel but the Norwegian Nobel committee believed that he could not be given the honour as he was "neither a real politician nor a humanitarian relief worker".

However, the Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation in Sweden Michael Sohlam says the decision not to extend him the prize was a mistake.

"We missed a great laureate and that's Gandhi. It is a big regret," he told CNN-IBN.

"I usually don't comment on what the Nobel Committees or prize awarding institutions decide. But here, they themselves think he is the one missing," he said.

Gandhi was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and finally a few days before he was shot dead in January 1948.

In 1948, the Nobel Committee declined to award a prize on the grounds that "there was no suitable living candidate that year".

Nobel Museum curator Dr Anders Barany told the channel that "Mahatama Gandhi is the one we miss the most at the Nobel museum. I think that's a big empty space where we should have had Mahatma Gandhi. I think it was a mistake," he said.