Nobel Prize: Surprises Galore

Obscurity is the flavour of this Nobel prize season. Everyone waited with bated breath as to who will win Nobel prize for literature. In the run up to be prize announcement Japanese writer Haruki Murakami emerged as hot favourite, followed by Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o. Murukami's name has  been doing rounds for the past few Nobels and it was expected that the widely translated bestselling author will finally pocket the coveted prize this year.

However when the results came on October 9 we had people tut-tutting in shock and disbelief. Patrick Modiano a French author hardly known outside his country's shores, emerged as the proverbial dark horse. This Jewish author has Nazi occupation, Jewishness and loss of identity as recurrent themes in his novels. He is, however, well known in France and is often clubbed with Marcel Proust. For Modiano it was 'weird' to have won the prize, though he was elated.

But for the next day the Nobel authorities had even bigger surprise up their sleeves. For peace prize it announced an Indian and a Pakistani as winners, thus quite literally dropping a peace bomb among two countries which are currently having a confrontation along the border.

While the Pakistani winner Malala Yousafzai is quite well known, for braving Taliban bullets to promote education among girl children in Swat valley, the Indian winner, Kailash Satyarthi, was as anonymous as children working in hazardous factories and restaurants, on whose behalf he has been fighting for the last three decades.

Now the question arises as to how Nobel prize committee spotted and nominated him. It is quite well known that the list of Nobel nominees is often a long one and the selection process is rigorous and not immune to lobbying pressures. However, a Wikipedia search reveals that Satyarthi is not exactly an unknown identity and had won a slew of human rights awards abroad, regrettably none within our shores. In fact in his own country he had to battle stiff opposition from strong industrial and business lobbies in his crusade against child labour.  

After the Nobel announcement it has become quite clear that his was a classic case of blackout by the Indian media. Some guilt-ridden journalists have now come out with confessions of how they chose to ignore his press conferences and instead chose to pursue far more 'happening' upmarket and cool topics than rescue of children from bonded labour. One journalist admitted he had some 30-odd emails sent by Satyarthi's organisation Bachpan Bachao Andolan over past three years, which he did not even bother to open, let alone read.

Another journalist also lamented that newspapers these days can't do without party pictures and Page 3 personalities and often nudge other news to inside pages. But he later puts the onus on readers for not demanding 'meaningful' news and wallowing in trivia and non-serious stuff!

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