Nobel Prize shows confidence in Obama

Incredible’, ‘left gasping’, ‘too premature’, ‘politicised ‘and ‘thumbs up’ — these are some of the reactions heard from the news breaks that US president Barack Obama was chosen to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The peace prize seems to be a show of early confidence in Obama’s policies to rid the world of nuclear weapons, stabilise Afghanistan and control global warming. He has promised to end the Iraq war and has launched deadly anti-terror strikes in Pakistan.

According to a member of the five-member Norwegian jury, he was picked from among the 174 entries that were received by them. His nomination was singled out because of his aims to create a nuclear-free world and set out new cooperative diplomatic collaborations.

When you look at what the Nobel committee had to say about the myth that the Nobel Prize is given only to achievers, it seems to justify the early confidence shown in Obama’s promises to create world peace. They clarified that it was also about creating a momentum for peace. Obama’s acceptance statement “I will accept this award as a call to action” reflects the current philosophy of the committee.

However, the screening out of the greatest icon of peace of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi, who was nominated five times to the Nobel Peace Prize, is a great omission. Whether the Norwegian radar for selection was too narrow or whether Norway took a political stand not to annoy the British by selecting Gandhiji, this exclusion appears to have come back to haunt them now. Awarding the Dalai Lama, who is of Indian residency, can be considered an honour to the philosophy of non-violence propagated by Mahatma Gandhi.

Till date, several celebrated Indians have done us proud by winning and being nominated for the Nobel Prizes, besides Gandhiji. To name a few, Mother Teresa, Rabindranath Tagore, CV Raman, Amartya Sen and Rudyard Kipling.

Indian-American Venkatraman Ramakrishnan sharing one third of the Nobel Prize for chemistry for 2009 for studies in the structure and function of the ribosome, along with Thomas A Steitz and Ada E Yonath. This is indeed a matter of pride for Indians worldwide.

One of the vision elements for India in the coming years is to see that many more Indians receive Nobel laureates and gold and silver medals at the Olympics. Ramakrishnan has taken us one step closer to this vision. Gujarat and Baroda University where Ramakrishnan studied physics in 1971 can proudly claim a share of this credit, although the lion’s share of his work goes to Cambridge University.

While some Indians have been awarded the Nobel Prize, others equal deserving like JC Bose, for his work in wireless communication, and Narendra Singh Kapany, considered the father of optic fibres, have been left out. Indian scientists and technocrats are able to excel in Western countries because of the high focus and resource allocation that the West has towards academic research.

The Nobel Prizes have assumed so much importance in the world because they are only awarded to people who do great deeds. They are viewed from the contributions that laureates have made to improve the quality of society or for the benefits of mankind.

One of the principles of this award is that it is given without the cloud of government interference. The exclusion of Gandhiji or the early and premature recognition of president Obama’s nomination should be seen as an exception since many former American leaders like Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger and Theodore Roosevelt have won the Nobel Peace Prizes in the past.