Indian Nobel Legacy
India was awarded the Nobel Prize many times starting from 1913 to 2014. In several fields, India has this prestigious honour.
Rabindranath Tagore
India’s first Nobel laureate was the legendary poet, philosopher, and writer Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He was awarded the prize for his deeply spiritual and lyrical poetry, particularly for his work Gitanjali (“Song Offerings”), a collection of poems that reflect his meditations on life, God, and humanity.
In addition to his literary achievements, Tagore was a key figure in the Indian cultural renaissance, a strong advocate for social reform, and an early supporter of India’s independence movement. He wrote India’s and Bangladesh’s national anthems and was instrumental in reshaping Bengali literature and music.
C.V. Raman
C.V. Raman was an Indian physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for his discovery of the Raman Effect, a phenomenon where light changes its wavelength when it passes through a material, revealing information about the material’s molecular structure. This groundbreaking work laid the foundation for Raman spectroscopy, a widely used technique in chemistry and physics for identifying substances.
Raman’s discovery was crucial because it provided a new way to study the molecular composition of matter, offering insight into vibrational, rotational, and other low-frequency modes in a system. His work revolutionized physics and had broad applications across various scientific fields. For his pioneering work, C.V. Raman became the first Asian scientist to receive a Nobel Prize in science.
Mother Teresa
In 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her tireless work to help the poor, the sick, and the dying, particularly through the Missionaries of Charity, the religious congregation she founded in Kolkata, India. The Nobel Committee honored her for “bringing help to suffering humanity,” praising her efforts to alleviate poverty and bring dignity to those living in extreme conditions.
During her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Mother Teresa emphasized love, compassion, and the importance of small acts of kindness. She spoke about the need for peace and how it begins at home, with family and individual care for each other. One of her key messages was that “peace begins with a smile,” emphasizing the power of human connection and empathy in overcoming suffering.
Instead of the traditional Nobel banquet, she asked that the $192,000 prize money be donated to the poor in India. Mother Teresa’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize underscored her commitment to serving humanity and reinforced her belief that poverty and suffering are not only economic or social problems but also moral and spiritual challenges that require a compassionate response.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, an Indian-American astrophysicist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his groundbreaking work on the structure and evolution of stars. He shared the prize with American physicist William A. Fowler.
Chandrasekhar’s most significant contribution to astrophysics was the Chandrasekhar Limit, a theoretical discovery made in the 1930s. This limit defines the maximum mass (about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun) that a white dwarf star can have before it collapses under its own gravity. If a star exceeds this limit, it will collapse further, potentially becoming a neutron star or a black hole. His work on this theory laid the foundation for much of our understanding of stellar evolution and the life cycle of stars.
Amartya Sen
Amartya Sen, an Indian economist and philosopher, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics and his work on social choice theory, economic inequality, and poverty. His research has had a transformative impact on the fields of development economics and human rights.
One of Sen’s most influential contributions is the development of the “capability approach,” which focuses on individuals’ abilities to lead the kinds of lives they value, rather than simply assessing their economic wealth or resources. According to this framework, poverty should not be measured solely by income but by the deprivation of basic capabilities—such as education, health, and access to resources—that allow people to lead fulfilling lives.
His book “Poverty and Famines” (1981) is a seminal work in which Sen demonstrated that famines are not caused solely by a lack of food but by inequalities in food distribution and access. He used historical examples, like the Bengal Famine of 1943, to show that political and economic factors often play a more significant role in causing famines than food shortages themselves.
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Venkatraman “Venki” Ramakrishnan, an Indian-born British-American structural biologist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 along with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath for their groundbreaking research on the structure and function of the ribosome.
Ramakrishnan’s Nobel-winning work focused on mapping the atomic structure of the ribosome, a complex molecular machine found in all living cells that plays a crucial role in synthesizing proteins. Proteins are the building blocks of life, and the ribosome reads genetic information from messenger RNA (mRNA) to produce them. By using X-ray crystallography, Ramakrishnan and his colleagues were able to visualize the ribosome at the atomic level, providing crucial insights into how it functions.
Kailash Satyarthi
Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights activist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, sharing it with Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai. Satyarthi was honored for his lifelong work to end child labor, exploitation, and slavery, as well as for advocating for the universal right to education for all children.
Satyarthi founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement) in 1980, an organization that has rescued tens of thousands of children from forced labor, trafficking, and slavery in India and beyond. He has also been a key figure in global efforts to raise awareness of child labor, advocating for changes in both policy and corporate practices to ensure children are not exploited for economic gain.
One of his key initiatives was the Global March Against Child Labour, a worldwide movement he started in 1998 to bring attention to the plight of millions of children forced into labor. The march led to the adoption of the International Labour Organization’s Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (No. 182), which is now one of the most widely ratified international labor treaties.