When Nobel winner Rabindranath Tagore became Nobel nominator for Anglo-Irish writer | Kolkata News

KOLKATA: Twenty-two years after he won the Nobel prize for literature, Rabindranath Tagore himself had nominated a writer for the award. He was the nominator for Anglo-Irish writer, playwright and editor James H Cousins, for Nobel prize in literature in 1935. Cousins was also one of the first 93 permanent members of the Visva-Bharati karma-samiti (executive council).
But no prize for literature was awarded that year; the reasons was never disclosed.

Cousins was an associate of Annie Besant, a supporter of Irish and Indian self-rule. He left Dublin in 1915 and came to India to join Besant’s New India magazine as its literary sub-editor. In 1916, Tagore met Cousins in Kolkata. In 1921, Cousins and his wife spent around two weeks in Santiniketan and in 1922, in the first meeting of the Visva-Bharati Samsad, he became one of the first members of its executive council. “This long familiarity and trust might have prompted Tagore to nominate Cousins for the prestigious prize,” said academic Pabitra Sarkar.
Every year, scores of people are nominated for Nobel prize. Those who can submit the nominations include members of academies, university professors, scientists, members of “parliamentary assemblies” and previous Nobel laureates.
In the first 70 years since the inception of Nobel prize in 1901, no fewer than 10 persons from Bengal had been nominated for the award. Till now, the list of the nominees and nominators up to 1971 have been made public. According to the Nobel nomination archive rules, “names of the nominees and other information about the nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later”. Of those from Bengal whose names are on the list, physicist CV Raman had got the maximum number of nominations – he had been nominated by 12 dignitaries in 1929 and 1930. He was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1930. His nominators included, among others, Niels Bohr.
Raman was followed closely by physicists Satyendranath Bose and Meghnad Sahaboth of whom had been nominated seven times. Philologist Sanjib Chaudhuritoo, had got seven nominations. Upendranath Brahmachari, who was behind the invention of the medicine for kala azar, had been nominated six times – from 1929 to 1942. Hari Mohan Banerjee, president of United Mission, had been nominated six times. Sri Aurobindo had been nominated twice – for the literature prize in 1943 and for peace prize in 1950.
Tagore had got only one nomination. In 1913, he had been nominated by Thomas Sturge S Mooremember of the Royal Society of Literature, UK.