Gandhi146;s death denied him Nobel Peace Prize

8220;For the first four, majority opinion made sure he did not come by the prize. But then, at the end of 1947, the Nobel Committee finally reached a unanimous decision that, in 1948, the Indian nationalist leader would be the recipient of the prize,8221; he told The Daily Star.

But, Mjos said, as events were to turn out Gandhi was assassinated in January 1948 upsetting the Nobel Committee plan at the last moment.

The committee website shows that nobody was awarded the prize in 1948.

The Nobel Committee chief was asked why Gandhi 8212; the man from whom Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela learnt about non-violence 8212; was never deemed qualified to be a Nobel laureate.

Asked why he could not have been honoured posthumously in the way former UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjoeld was in 1961, Mjos did not give a clear answer. However, he said that the posthumous honour for Hammarskjoeld was 8220;a one-time affair and is not likely to be repeated.8221;