Gulf Times: Not honouring Gandhi was mistake - Nobel Prize panel

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pays homage at the Mahatma Gandhi memorial in New Delhi yesterday

NEW DELHI: The Nobel Foundation has admitted that it was a “mistake” not to have honoured Mahatma Gandhi, whose birth anniversary yesterday was celebrated as International Day of Non-Violence.
Gandhi was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize but the Norwegian Nobel Committee believed that he could not be selected as he was “neither a real politician nor a humanitarian relief worker.”
Talking to an Indian TV news channel, Michael Sohlman, executive director of the Nobel Foundation in Sweden, said missing out on the Mahatma was a mistake by the Norwegian Peace Committee.
“We missed a great laureate and that’s Gandhi. It’s a big regret,” Sohlman 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 added.
Nobel Museum curator Anders Barany said the irony was that eminent personalities, who were guided by the Gandhi’s teachings, were awarded the Nobel in later years though the apostle of peace and non-violence himself did not figure on the list of awardees.
“Mahatma 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. I think they could have made up for that little difference,” Barany said.
The Nobel Committee made amends to some extent by not awarding the peace prize to anybody in 1948 - the year Gandhi was assassinated.
According to the rules in existence then, only those who were living as on February 1 in the given year could be considered for nomination, but Gandhi was killed on January 30. The committee then skipped the award, saying there was no suitable living candidate.
Meanwhile, India and the international community paid rich tributes to Gandhi, celebrating his 138th birth anniversary with peace marches, hymns and pledges, and recalling his credo of non-violence in an era of marked violence.
At the United Nations in New York, the world community leaders dedicated the day as the International Day of Non-Violence, pledging its annual observance.
In New Delhi, many solemn ceremonies were held at Gandhi’s memorial Raj Ghat and elsewhere, and President Pratibha Patil launched a nationwide campaign to save the girl-child.
People from all walks of life thronged Raj Ghat after Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh paid floral tributes early in the morning.
“For as long as there is temptation to resort to violence in the human mind, the Mahatma’s message of non-violence will tug at our hearts. The fact that the international community has today come to observe this day as the International Day of Non-Violence in memory of Mahatma Gandhi, should ensure that generations to come would never forget the eternal message of the Mahatma,” the prime minister said.
Several dignitaries and hundreds of common people visited Raj Ghat to offer floral tributes. The memorial was decorated with flowers and Gandhi’s favourite hymns were played in the backdrop. A large number of foreigners also turned up.
Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, along with her father Deepak Pandya and other family members, also visited the memorial. “I respect Gandhiji. He stood for entire humanity and is eternally relevant,” Williams said as she came out of Raj Ghat along with veteran Gandhian Nirmala Deshpande, after paying floral tributes.
“Mahatma Gandhi’s message lay in some key words associated with him — tolerance, truth, transparency, non-violence and self-respect,” the prime minister said. He stressed that Gandhi was not some “lofty saint” but a great “political leader”. “He was regarded as a Mahatma because he practised what he preached. Because he cared for the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak,” Singh said.- IANS

[ Link ]