MillenniumPost
Opinion

Questioning the Nobel?

Mixing the most revered, sought-after and exalted symbol of professional recognition with a partisan or political flavour is sheer disrespect of the prize and its winners

The Prime Minister had done well to nip the unnecessary quibbling over Abhijit Banerjee's well-deserved achievement in winning the Nobel Prize. Abhijit joins the magnificent list of Indian geniuses that includes the likes of Rabindranath Tagore, CV Raman and Mother Teresa amongst others, who are revered for their profundity, sincerity and acknowledged scholarship that personified their respective callings.

Like Kailash Satyarthi, who won the Nobel for Peace in 2014 for 'their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education', Abhijit Banerjee shared the Nobel for Economic Sciences along with his wife Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for 'their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty'. The Prime Minister nailed the professional accomplishment over partisan concerns that had hijacked the airwaves surrounding the Indian-born's honour by tweeting, 'His passion towards human empowerment is clearly visible' and added, 'India is proud of his accomplishments'.

The Nobel Prizes especially in the field of Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Economics), as opposed to Peace or even Literature, is given to individuals for their functional expertise that is bereft of any partisan slant. However, even the Nobel laureates in the field of Sciences have been occasionally questioned on their individual deservedness on account of those who were left out (some with multiple nominations like Gaston Ramon who received 155 nominations between 1930 to 1953, without success) or even for discoveries/inventions that were subsequently bettered. But these awardees are rarely ever questioned for any political import on their announcement. Whereas the Nobel's for Peace and Literature can be political as it naturally pitchforks the individual's work towards a political position with their body of work. However, the Nobel in the field of Sciences could also stray into political controversy on account of their personal and unrelated political preferences, the applicability of their professional output that suits a certain political thought or on account of taking a subsequent position that militates against a topical situation.

Another Indian-born US citizen, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel for Chemistry in 2014 had courted controversy inadvertently when he commented on the state of Indian Science Congress. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan had bluntly called a spade a spade when he had slammed the jamboree as overtly political and non-serious in scientific content. This can be contrasted with instances where some speakers had talked about the Indian Vedic age replete with the technology of guided missiles, test-tube fertilisation and stem cells! Venkatraman Ramakrishnan's well-meant observations that politics and religious ideologies should not be mixed with Science did not go down well with some as he refused to attend the same in future and described it as a 'circus' which led to the initial cheer of an Indian-born Nobel laureate soon fading away. Pre-empting similar concerns of the brewing political queries led Abhijit Banerjee to state that he was 'non-partisan in economic thinking'. This is an important functional-consideration whilst questioning an awardee who has won about his/her or their organisation's 'outstanding contribution towards humanity'.

Like all awards, Nobel has its share of controversies and none greater in the Indian context, than that concerning the apostle of peace, Mahatma Gandhi. He was nominated multiple times (1937-39, 1947 and days before his assassination in 1948), however, the fact that Nobel is not accorded posthumously had led to the same to be described as "the greatest omission" by Geir Lundestad, Secretary of Norwegian Nobel Committee in 2006, who befittingly added, "Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace Prize. Whether the Nobel committee can do without Gandhi is the question". Similarly in the field of literature, questions abound about denying giants like Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, Anton Chekov, Mark Twain, etc., whereas others like Winston Churchill and more recently, songwriter Bob Dylan made the cut for 'having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition'!

The most contentious of all Nobel laureates remains the category of those who won for Peace – ostensibly 'to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses'. Henry Kissinger won in 1973 despite his proven role in US's deadly bombing of Cambodia, Yasser Arafat as the head of Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) had partaken in bombings, hijackings, assassinations, etc., and that of Barack Obama who got the same within 12 days of stepping into the Presidential office.

Despite a few questionable though well-intended nominations in its 118-year history, the Nobel Prize remains the most revered, sought-after and exalted symbol of professional recognition. It is to its credit that it has not been lured or intimidated into straying towards blatantly undeserving candidates, prima facie. US President Donald Trump has blatantly claimed that he could get a Nobel for 'a lot of things'. His desperation to pitch himself had led him to state that the Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe had given "the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize!" China, despite its obvious concerns pertaining to the recent nomination of 'people of Hong Kong' or earlier with Dalai Lama and Liu Xiaobo, remains obsessed with winning the Nobel awards as a sign of emerging superpower.

In this context, to question the merit of a Nobel laureate, especially in the field of Sciences, on account of attributing partisan context diminishes the intellectual culture, standing and lofty aspirations of a country. Pakistan did so to Professor Abdus Salaam on account of a wholly unrelated matter of his belonging to the Ahmadiyya faith, a regressive outlook that subsequently bore the fractious and restive fate that Pakistani society today suffers. We cannot allow our imagined concerns on unrelated matters like faith, marriage, partisan aspersions, etc., to diminish the much-needed scientific-temper and creativity.

Lt General Bhopinder Singh (Retd) is a former Lt Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry. Views expressed are strictly personal

Next Story
Share it