There is no contest that Nobel Prize whose winners will be announced in a few days from now – starting from October 2 – for their outstanding contributions in various fields of knowledge is the most cherished and coveted of all awards one can think of. Out of the sale of dynamite which came to be the most effective tool in killing and maiming countless number of people in wars, Alfred Nobel, its inventor made a fortune. But despite amassing wealth, he became contrite for being responsible for so many deaths, almost like Ashoka the Great, many millenniums ago after the Kalinga War. To make amends, Nobel, who was once nicknamed “The Merchant of Death”, endowed the peace prizes which bore his name.
Even if you beat your mother, so says an old saying, your action would bring about two opinions – one approving of the action and the other disapproving. Nobel Prize award – notably for literature, peace and economics – has always been an apple of serious discord.
It is a truism that influences of various sorts were brought to bear on the decisions of Nobel Committee in selecting awardees. A few examples can be cited to corroborate this. Late British philosopher Bertrand Russell got it for literature and not for peace, though he richly deserved the latter too. His crusades against Vietnam War antagonised him to the US and her allies. It was his steadfast support to Vietnam’s struggle against the US for freedom that had got him the American goat.
Boris Pasternak and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, undoubtedly were great Russian writers. They were selected, it was alleged, for the prize because they had run afoul of the authorities in their country. Western influence is quite ostensible here. Both America and Russia were at loggerheads with each other in those cold war years. What suited the US was not agreeable to Russia and vice versa.
Again, other writers of high caliber, Leo Tolstoy, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov, Proust and several Indian novelists and poets – it is an extensive list – were passed over by the Nobel Committee. Pressures from political leaderships – both American and Russian – have made some of the writers refuse the awards. Often the Academy’s selection process is said to be shrouded in mystery.
Though the Nobel Committee has always denied these allegations, there is undoubtedly more to the award selection process than meets the eye.
The prize eluded many deserving men, notably the founders of Non-Alignment Movement, which steadfastly stood for world peace, such as Nehru, Nasser, Tito, Nkrumah, and Sukarno. Aside from them, politicians and leaders of national movements – notably Gandhiji, the apostle of nonviolence – have not received the award. Gandhiji was nominated for the peace prize four times. Naturally, we Indians were indignant about his omission but the Mahatma was the last person to rue the oversight.
