Name
| Awarded
| Notes
|
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
| 1954
| Second President, First Vice President, Philosopher.
|
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari
| 1954
| Last Governor-General, Freedom Fighter.
|
Sir C. V. Raman
| 1954
| Nobel-prize winning Physicist
|
Bhagwan Das
| 1955
| Literature, Freedom Fighter
|
Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya
| 1955
| Civil Engineer
|
Jawaharlal Nehru
| 1955
| First Prime Minister, Freedom Fighter, Author.
|
Govind Ballabh Pant
| 1957
| Freedom Fighter, Home Minister
|
Dhondo Keshav Karve
| 1958
| Educationist, Social Reformer, Awarded in his birth centenary year.
|
Dr. B. C. Roy
| 1961
| Physician, Politician, Former Chief Minister of West Bengal
|
Purushottam Das Tandon
| 1961
| Freedom Fighter, Educationist
|
Dr. Rajendra Prasad
| 1962
| First President, Freedom Fighter, Jurist
|
Dr. Zakir Hussain
| 1963
| Former President, Scholar.
|
Pandurang Vaman Kane
| 1963
| Indologist and Sanskrit scholar
|
Lal Bahadur Shastri
| 1966
| Posthumous, Second Prime Minister, Freedom Fighter
|
Indira Gandhi
| 1971
| Former Prime Minister
|
V. V. Giri
| 1975
| Former President, Trade Unionist.
|
K. Kamaraj
| 1976
| Posthumous, Freedom Fighter, Chief Minister-Tamil Nadu.
|
Mother Teresa
| 1980
| Nobel Laureate (Peace, 1979).
|
Acharya Vinoba Bhave
| 1983
| Posthumous, Social Reformer, Freedom Fighter.
|
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
| 1987
| First non-citizen, Freedom Fighter.
|
M. G. Ramachandran
| 1988
| Posthumous, Chief Minister-Tamil Nadu, Actor.
|
B. R. Ambedkar
| 1990
| Posthumous, Architect-Indian Constitution
|
Nelson Mandela
| 1990
| Second non-citizen and first non-Indian, Leader of Anti-Apartheid movement.
|
Rajiv Gandhi
| 1991
| Posthumous, Former Prime Minister
|
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
| 1991
| Posthumous, Freedom Fighter, First Home Minister of India.
|
Morarji Desai
| 1991
| Former Prime Minister, Freedom Fighter.
|
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
| 1992
| Posthumous, Freedom Fighter, First Education Minister of India
|
J. R. D. Tata
| 1992
| Industrialist and philanthropist.
|
Satyajit Ray
| 1992
| Film Director ,Oscar winner
|
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
| 1997
| Former President, Scientist.
|
Gulzarilal Nanda
| 1997
| Freedom Fighter, former Prime Minister.
|
Aruna Asaf Ali
| 1997
| Posthumous, Freedom Fighter.
|
M. S. Subbulakshmi
| 1998
| Classical singer.
|
Chidambaram Subramaniam
| 1998
| Freedom Fighter, Minister of Agriculture (Father of Green revolution).
|
Jayaprakash Narayan
| 1998
| Posthumous, Freedom Fighter, Social Reformer.
|
Pandit Ravi Shankar
| 1999
| Classical sitar player.
|
Amartya Sen
| 1999
| Nobel Laureate (Economics, 1998), Economist.
|
Gopinath Bordoloi
| 1999
| Posthumous, freedom fighter
|
Lata Mangeshkar
| 2001
| Play back singer.
|
Ustad Bismillah Khan
| 2001
| Classical Shehnai Maestro
|
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