So finally Nobel Prize panel regrets not honouring Mahatma Gandhi!

On 2nd October, 2007, the Nation celebrated the 138th Anniversary of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. Everything went on as it has been happening for past six decades except two things. Firstly, with United Nation's consent, from this year onwards, every year 2nd October will be celebrated as “World Non-violence Day”. Secondly, Nobel Prize panel "finally" regrets not honouring Mahatma Gandhi!

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". Mahatma 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 that ground that "there was no suitable living candidate that year". They gave the award to two of his most prominent followers, Martin Luther King and Africa’s Nelson Mandela, in the later years, who considered Gandhi as their inspiration to lead their respective civil rights movements.

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.

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.

Some think one of the prime reasons for not giving the award to Gandhi may be the racial factor, at that time Nobel didn’t give any awards outside Europe and the US, but Nobel foundation disputes that. Nobel critics however say that Gandhi when he started his non-violence campaign helped only the Indians not the blacks and also his campaign was all not non-violence some of them lead to violence against the British occupiers.

The followers of Gandhi who received the Nobel Peace Prize awards are Albert Luthuli in 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964, Mother Teresa in 1979, the Dalai Lama in 1989 and Nelson Mandela in 1993.

It is obviously appalling that some one of the stature of Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired people like Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Albert Luthuli, Dalai Lama9 and this list is endless) was never honoured with Nobel Prize! What is more appalling is what took so many years for the Nobel Prize panel to accept its horrendous mistake! There is no way to commensurate such a blunder; but what can be done is that the Honorary Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded to Mahatma Gandhi posthumously or a special and official recognition of their “Regret” of not honouring Mahatma Gandhi!