Did Rabindranath Tagore really return Nobel Prize? Debate rekindled after 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Laszlo Krasznahorkai
After Laszlo Krasznahorkai won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, the debates about Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel candidacy and Amitav Ghosh’s candidacy are on the agenda again.
Rabindranath Tagore received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel ‘Gitanjali’.
Did Rabindranath Tagore return his Nobel Prize in Literature to protest British rule? Didn’t the poetry anthology ‘Gitanjali’ deserve the award? Did the British Empire and its ruler, King George V, help Tagore, whose empire he repeatedly praised and tacitly supported, win the Nobel Prize in Literature? These and many other questions surfaced after the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai. Indian author Amitav Ghosh, known for his novels such as The Shadow Lines and The Glass Palace, has been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature. Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb sparked controversy when he said that Rabindranath Tagore returned the Nobel Prize in Literature in protest against British rule in India. This is not the truth. The truth is that Tagore gave up his knighthood in 1919, almost six years after receiving the Nobel Prize, in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Did King George V help Tagore win the Nobel Prize?
But Rabindranath’s Nobel Prize was actually mired in controversy for other reasons. Marxist essayist Nityapriya Ghosh suggested in 1983 that the Nobel committee’s decision to award Tagore the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 was influenced by political pressure from the Swedish crown prince, Prince William. He said that as Tagore praised the British Empire and appreciated it for its educational and enlightenment work in India, British monarch King George V was happy and wanted to help him win the award. Ghosh claimed that King George persuaded the Swedish crown prince to give the award to Tagore.
However, other researchers and academics were of the view that there were some “gray areas” in the lead-up to the 1913 Nobel Prize. They expressed interest in exploring Swedish sources to provide greater clarity. This theory was later rejected.
