India's Nobel Prize Nominators and Nominees

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The Nobel Prizes are one of the best known awards in the world. With a few exceptions in the past, they are awarded every year, since their inception in 1901. According to Alfred Nobel’s testament, the Prize in awarded for achievements in the fields of Chemistry, Physics, Medicine or Physiology, Literature and Peace. According to the official record of the Nobel Foundation, before 1964, there were 131 Indian nominees and 115 nominators. If we consider these numbers for all 94 countries in the list of the Foundation; India is in the 20th place with maximum number of “nominators” and “nominees”. The present book highlights: - India’s Nobel Prize nominators and nominees for the five Nobel Prizes. - The praxis of nomination of the Indian nominees in national and international context. - The geographical distribution of Indian nominees and nominators within India.

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Rajinder Singh

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A. H. Compton C. V. Raman C.C. Bose G. N. Ramachandran G. S. Aurobindo H. Hammarskjöld India Jawaharlal Nehru Literature M. C. Davar M. N. Saha Mahatma Gandhi Mitra N. R. Dhar Nobel Prize

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The Nobel Prize is considered as the highest award of human endeavor in the field of science, culture and humanitarian services. Obviously there is a curiosity among people to know how the prize is awarded. Controversies and debates about a particular award is also not uncommon. Documents related to selection of Nobel Prize awards were kept secret until 1974. It is only in 1974 that the Nobel Foundation decided to allow documents related to a prize open for public scrutiny which are older than fifty years. This decision opened up a new vista for historians of science to research and analyze the prize giving mechanism in a variety of ways. As noted in the Foreword of the book “the first ten years after 1974 historians like Elisabeth Crawford and Robert Marc” researched over the available documents from different angles to understand the complex procedures starting from nominations till the award of the prize. This book is India-centric, focused primarily on the Indian Nobel Laureates, Indian nominators and nominees in the field of science, literature and peace. Rajinder Singh, who is a well-known historian of science and is passionate about exploring information related to India and Indians, analyzed documents to present India’s position in a global scale in terms of prizes, nominations submitted and nominators during the period 1901 – 1964. The book, in a sense, is an almanac of Indian Nobel prize nominators and nominees over the period 1901, the year when the award of Nobel Prize started, till 1964, the year upto which Nobel Foundation released documents to be used for research work. The documents have been structured nicely in categories in which the prizes are offered, and the nominators and nominees from all countries have been presented in a tabular form which lets you understand the position of each country at a glance. India so far has won 6 Nobel Prizes; one in literature (Rabindranath Tagore, 1913), one in physics (C.V. Raman, 1930), one in economics (Amartya Sen, 1998), and three peace prizes (Mother Teresa, 1979; The 14th Dalai Lama, 1989; Kailash Satyarthi, 2014). As noted in the book, only 94 countries of the world have either nominees or nominators for the Nobel Prize and it is satisfying to note that India is one of them. Total number of nominees referred for the prize from the USA was the highest (4560) and from India was the lowest (131). It is to be noted that 131 “Indian Nominees” means 131 proposals were placed before the Nobel Committee. The book revealed some interesting facts to ponder upon. For Chemistry Nobel Prize ten Indian chemists were asked by the Nobel Committee to nominate candidates for the award. They nominated 23 candidates of which 12 were Europeans and the rest were Americans. G.N. Ramachandran was the only Indian nominated for Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1964. In Physics, five Indians (C.V. Raman, M.N. Saha, H.J. Bhabha, S.N. Bose and G.N. Ramachandran) were nominated for Nobel Prize of which only C.V. Raman got the prize. C.V. Raman was nominated by all foreigners, M.N. Saha was nominated by two Indians (D.M. Bose and S.K. Mitra) and one American (A.H. Compton), H.J. Bhabha was nominated by all non-Indians, S.N. Bose was the only Indian who was nominated by all Indians. C.V. Raman never nominated any Indian except G.N. Ramachandran. Bhabha also never nominated any Indian. In Physiology and Medicine, 18 proposals were sent from India, of which 7 were for foreigners who were working in India. In a sense U.N. Brahmachari was the ‘true’ Indian nominated for the Prize in 1939 and in 1942 and nominated by all Indians. In literature, 8 Indians were nominated of which only Rabindranath Tagore received the Nobel Prize. Of all these nominees, only Tagore, S. Radhakrishnan and Sri Aurobindo Ghosh were nominated from abroad and others were nominated by Indians. The book contains many such interesting information one can tinker with. This information presented in the book is important to understand where we stand in terms of Nobel Prize contest when considered in a global scale. The book is an eye-opener for Indian scientists and Indians in general to comprehend why Indians are shy of nominatingtheir fellow Indians for the award. Is it because the work done by Indians is not upto the mark to deserve a Nobel Prize or is it the colonial hangover that impels us to nominate foreigners instead of Indians? I recommend the book to be read by every Indian who is cognizant of his/her own country. S.C. Roy Quelle: NCE AND CULTURE, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER, 2016 / Seite 332
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Rajinder Singh started his journey as Historian of Science by working on his Ph.D. thesis: “Nobel Laureate CV Raman’s work on Light Scattering”. Presently, he is working as a Post-doctoral Fellow in Physics Education, History and Philosophy of Science Research Group of University of Oldenburg, Germany. The monograph under review is the tenth volume in the series on Nobel Prize Winners/Nominees/Nominators from India. According to author: “There is not a single book which exclusively deals with Indian nominators and nominees in all five Nobel Prizes – Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, Literature and Peace. This book intends to fill the gap as it has been compiled in an attempt to find out: Who nominated Indians; and who was nominated by the Indians? Did Indian nominators prefer their own countrymen? How is the geographical distribution of Indian nominators and nominees within India”? The author has taken lot of pains to collect and collate information extracted from archives of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, and Norwegian Nobel Institute, Oslo. Until 1974, the procedure around the selection of the winners of Nobel Prizes was strictly confidential as described by Henry Nielsen in the Foreword of this volume. But in 1974, Nobel Foundation decided to grant access to all archival material relating to Prizes more than 50 years old. India was almost ignored by the Nobel Committee for many years as a serious contender for the Nobel Prize but the situation is surely going to change after publication of Rajinder’s monograph under review. In the Introduction to this volume, the author mentions his modus operandi for writing this monograph. Tables 1 & 2 present the data on Nominees and Nominators, respectively. Surprisingly, India is ahead of all other developing countries of the world and occupies 20th position in both the Tables. USA has maximum number of nominees for Nobel Prizes in Table 1, while Germany is ahead of USA in number of nominators, who recommend names of nominees for the Nobel Prize. Indian contribution is rated modest by the author; India has won 12 Nobel Prizes, out of which only six are listed under India and the other six won by Indians working in other countries. I think this situation prevails in most of the developing countries, including China. The monograph has been divided into 5 Sections based on each subject for sake of convenience. The Chemistry Nobel Prize section brings out many surprises. Out of a dozen Indian nominators, none has nominated any Indian for Nobel Prize in Chemistry except CV Raman, who nominated GN Ramachandran in 1964 for his brilliant work on Crystallography in structure determination. But he failed to win the Prize. In all ten Indian Chemists were asked to send proposals by the Nobel Committee and they nominated 23 foreign scientists, considering work of Indian colleagues not worth the Nobel Prize. The situation in Physics has been much better. CV Raman won the Physics Nobel Prize in 1930 and he received ten nominations from abroad including some Nobel Laureates of Europe. That shows significance of his discovery which won him reputation in the international arena. However, when Nobel Committee asked two Bengali physicists to send their proposals for the Physics Prize in 1930, they ignored CV Raman and instead nominated MN Saha, another Bengali, for 1930 Physics Nobel Prize. If one wants to read between the lines, it clearly shows a cultural bias of the Bengali intellectuals! HJ Bhabha was nominated 5 times for the Physics Prize by a French nominator but he failed to make the grade. SN Bose was nominated three times but only by Indians. In my opinion, SN Bose deserved the Prize but his popularity was no match with that of CV Raman; although many Scientists have won Nobel Prizes working on his hypothetical ideas. The situation in Physiology or Medicine Nobel Prizes resembles the one in Chemistry. No one could win the Prize despite the fact that L. Rogers was nominated eight times starting with first nomination in 1907. The only Indian who was nominated for Medical Prize was UN Brahmachari. However, two Indian born scientists, Ronald Ross (1902, UK) and Hargobind Khorana (1968, USA), have won this Prize. Rabindra Nath Tagore won the Literature Nobel Prize in 1913 based on single nomination from UK. In all 8 nominees from India were nominated for Literature Prize but only Tagore was found suitable. The maximum number of proposals (48) were made for 14 candidates nominated for Peace Nobel Prize from India. However, none of the nominees was found suitable for the Prize, despite the fact that Mahatma Gandhi was considered the best bet for this Prize internationally. Author has written a book on this fascinating topic exploring all angles of the story of Mahatma Gandhi. The monograph under review consists of 33 data Tables. The author took pains to classify data in a systematic way to remove some discrepancies in the listing of nominators from India under Pakistan and Bangladesh. If we consider the geographic distribution of Indian nominees and their Indian nominators, the credit definitely goes to Calcutta Presidency. Madras, Bombay, Allahabad and Delhi find some mention but Calcutta is head and shoulder above other Indian cities. The only nominator from Lahore in the undivided Punjab was Bawa Kartar Singh, a renowned chemist. So far as the India’s women nominators/nominees are concerned, there role is almost negligible. Considering the present scenario in Indian Universities, one hopes there will be better role to be played by Indian women in future. Hardev Singh Virk, Visiting Professor, SGGS World University, Fatehgarh Sahib, India.
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