India, Oct. 18 -- This was no ordinary selection. It required guts. And a sense of history.

The Nobel Committee in Oslo deciding on the Peace Prize has shown guts in the past, to the world's applause. It has also shown a lack of this, to the world's disappointment.

It has often shown a sense of history, especially of history-in-the-making - in its 1964 choice, Martin Luther King Jr., and in its 2014 choice, the 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai. These instances have affirmed the world's sense of rightness.

At the same time, its total lack of such sense and capability has often caused the world to groan: The absence of Mahatma Gandhi from the Nobel Peace Prize list has been written about far too much to bear any repetition. In any case, it d...