Why did not Gandhi win the nobel peace prize? (war, general, European)

[other99]

He was an major figurehead in non violent resistance movement in his time and very much anti war. Why was he not awarded the Nobel peace prize, but others that have obtained it at their time endorsed killings of their enemies and sanctioned war such as Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin?

[j_k_k]

Maybe they were afraid he'd show up to accept it in his dhoti, and they had a dress code.

[majoun]

He got assassinated before he could pick up the award and make a speech.

As a result, no one got the Nobel Peace Prize that year.

[TropicalAussie]

Mahatma Gandhi, the Missing Laureate

[Frank_Carbonni]

Originally Posted by other99

He was an major figurehead in non violent resistance movement in his time and very much anti war. Why was he not awarded the Nobel peace prize, but others that have obtained it at their time endorsed killings of their enemies and sanctioned war such as Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin?

Because the Nobel Peace Prize is an overrated "peace" (yes, pun intended) of junk.

[other99]

Originally Posted by HomesickAussie

Mahatma Gandhi, the Missing Laureate

Thanks for that, and if he was alive in 1948 he would have likely to have been awarded with it then.


However nominations for the Nobel Prizes can only be made for living persons. However, should a person die after their nomination, they can still be awarded a Nobel Prize. This has occurred two times, most recently in 1961 when Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General of the United Nations, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously, after dying in a plane crash in Africa.

12 Things You May Not Know About the Nobel Prizes

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by Frank_Carbonni

Because the Nobel Peace Prize is an overrated "peace" (yes, pun intended) of junk.

Sadly that wasn't always the case.

The recent politicalization of the committee (Gore and Obama's selections) is obvious. Carter deserved his but even in awarding it the Nobel comittee mentioned how the award should be considered a swipe at Bush. I felt this was insulting to Carter since he deserved it and then they made it out like, hey we are giving you this to make Bush mad.

Nothing I say can make the peace prize look worse than awarding it to Obama for continuing the troop levels and policies of Bush with regards to Afghanistan, Iraq, N. Korea and Israel\Palestine.

[noetsi]

I also think the judges were prone to vote for people of European descent at the time.

From the link:

Up to 1960, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded almost exclusively to Europeans and Americans. In retrospect, the horizon of the Norwegian Nobel Committee may seem too narrow. Gandhi was very different from earlier Laureates. He was no real politician or proponent of international law, not primarily a humanitarian relief worker and not an organiser of international peace congresses. He would have belonged to a new breed of Laureates.

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by noetsi

I also think the judges were prone to vote for people of European descent at the time.

From the link:

Agreed. Let's not forget that he was a brown-skinned Indian man and it was still the 1940's.

[Irishtom29]

The Indian independence movement not only resulted in Indian and Pakistani independence but the death at the time of hundreds of thousands of people and Ghandi was part and parcel of that.

Now if they had a Nobel "father of independence prize" he'd deserve it but a peace prize? I'm not so sure.

Note that Ghandi used non violent methods because he understood that they'd work against the British of his time who being a modern democratic people were susceptible to guilt. How Ghandi would've dealt with true despots like the Germans or Japanese (or the Raj of 80 years earlier) makes for interesting speculation.