Is the Nobel Prize not so noble? The question pops up almost every year, as the awardees—often in the peace and literature categories—are criticised for being less deserving, or because they are seen to serve some political agenda of the West by design.
Whatever the squabble, it is undeniable that like the Oscars, there is a special charm in the awards that take names to the stratosphere of global recognition.
The truth of the awards lies perhaps between the recognition of excellence and socially useful work on the one hand, and some debatable values in a world where the shadow of Western imperialism still looms.
But it takes a Donald Trump to make the Nobels rise skyhigh in the controversy stakes.
In the US president we have the rare phenomenon of a public figure not-so-subtly lobbying about him deserving the award, utterly unmindful of the understated elegance of some of its winners—including Bob Dylan, who faced criticism for not deserving the literature prize and then coolly refused to show up for the award ceremony.
On current reckoning, the Nobel’s monetary value is about 11 million Swedish Kronas, or a bit more than ₹10 crore.
A nouveau-riche denizen of the National Capital Region may snigger about the award being worth less than the prize of a fancy apartment in Gurugram, where a penthouse sold for `190 crore last year.
But it is what it is: something money can’t buy, even if you are the man who owns Trump Towers. “I’m not politicking for it,” Trump said when a peace agreement was signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“I have a lot of people that are.” He must have got lost somewhere in the yawning space between a peace broker and a real estate broker.
The awards season brings back memories of a pleasant summer afternoon at the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm, where I noted with awe the details of some of the most deserving winners and personal souvenirs bequeathed to the museum.
I stepped out to find a military band playing ABBA hits. It couldn’t get more Swedish. Not all find the mostly Swedish award (the peace prize is given by Norway) ennobling.
After all, Alfred Nobel instituted the awards in 1895 after inventing dynamite. Some explosive conversations are naturally in order.
Besides Dylan, controversial Nobel winners include chemistry laureate Fritz Haber, who invented chemical weapons used in the First World War, economist Milton Friedman for being in bed with Chile’s military dictators, and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who won the peace prize while the Vietnam War was raging.
It’s no surprise that a latter-day Republican who dodged the Vietnam draft has been coveting the honour amid allegations of being a war abettor.
Beyond the controversies, it is undeniable that the Nobel honours scientists who quietly usher in magnificent social revolutions and would be largely unsung in public were it not for the award.
I must doff my hat to this year’s winners, who include path-breakers in immunology in quantum computing, and numerous others who make Stockholm’s Hall of Fame a genuine one.
The $50,000 (₹44 lakh) Ramon Magsaysay award, named after a late Philippine president, and sometimes called ‘Asia’s Nobel’ is far more controversial than the Swedish one because it is said to serve US geopolitical interests.
Winners of the award set up by a fund founded by the American Rockefeller family include journalist Ravish Kumar and musician T M Krishna, considered anti-establishment by conservative critics. Notably, communist K K Shailaja, Kerala’s former health minister lauded for her work during the pandemic, declined the award after consulting her CPI(M) colleagues, who did not like Magsaysay’s anti-communist history.
Last year, Sandeep Pandey returned the award he received in 2002 to protest against American support for Israel in the Gaza conflict.
A far less controversial honour, the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called an alternative to the Nobel, offers roughly €50,000-100,000 (₹0.5-1 crore) each to three winners every year for their work related to health, education, sustainable development, and human rights; another awardee gets an honorary prize without the money.
Instituted in 1980 by German-Swedish philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull, the honour’s Indian winners include social reformer Asghar Ali Engineer and environmentalist Vandana Shiva.
That brings me to the dubious-yet-honourable Ig Nobel awards, a satirical take on the original that carries no monetary compensation, but is given to research that makes people laugh.
The list is long, amusing and annoying in equal parts. It includes someone who analysed bacteria found in chewing gum stuck to sidewalks, two psychologists who concluded that people who believe they were kidnapped by aliens probably were, and a mathematician who calculated the precise odds that Mikhail Gorbachev is the Antichrist.
Too many West-decided prizes? It’s time newly-minted billionaires from emerging economies like India stepped up with a reverse swing and set up prizes that might well shift the world’s focus elsewhere.
Of what good is a touted ‘Asian century’ when its coveted honours are still rooted in the Occident? Deserving awards must defy geographical constraints.
Madhavan Narayanan | REVERSE SWING |
Senior journalist (Views are personal)
(On X @madversity)