Why did Mahatma Gandhi never won the Nobel Prize for Peace when his followers MLK did?

Gandhi was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and, finally, a few days before he was murdered in January 1948. The prize was not awarded in 1948 because of "no suitable living candidate" which most people took to mean they would have given it to Gandhi. The reason he was not selected on the earlier dates was because of a European bias on the committee and/or because it would have look like taking his side in a political controversy, in the thirties against Britain and in 1947 against Muslims.