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”.

A mistake
However, the Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation in Sweden Michael Sohlam said 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,” Michael Sohlam 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,” Michael Sohlam said.

Five times nominee

The ‘father of the nation’ was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and finally a few days before he was shot dead in January 1948.

In 1948, the Nobel Prize Committee declined to award a prize on that ground that “there was no suitable living candidate that year”.

Nobel Museum curator Dr Anders Barany said: “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,” the Nobel museum curator added.