| Name |
Awarded in |
| Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888 - 1975) |
1954 |
| Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari (1878 - 1972) |
1954 |
| Dr.Chandrasekhar Venkatraman (1888 - 1970) |
1954 |
| Dr.Bhagwan Das (1869 - 1958) |
1955 |
| Dr.Mokshagundam Viswesvaraya (1861 - 1962) |
1955 |
| Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 - 1964) |
1955 |
| Govind Vallabh Pant (1887 - 1961) |
1957 |
| Dr.Dhondo Keshav Karve (1858 - 1962) |
1958 |
| Dr.Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882 - 1962) |
1961 |
| Purushotham Das Tandon (1882 - 1962) |
1961 |
| Dr.Rajendra Prasad (1884 - 1963) |
1962 |
| Dr.Zakir Hussian (1897 - 1969) |
1963 |
| Dr.Pandurang Vamman Kane (1880 - 1972) |
1963 |
| Dr.Lal Bahadur Shastri (Posthumous) (1904 - 1966) |
1966 |
| Indira Gandhi (1917 - 1984) |
1971 |
| Varaha Giri Venkata Giri (1884 - 1980) |
1975 |
| Kumaraswami Kamaraj (Posthumous) (1903 - 1975) |
1976 |
| Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa) (1910-1997) |
1980 |
| Acharya Vinoba Bhave (Posthumous) (1895-1982) |
1983 |
| Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890 - 1988) |
1987 |
| M.G.Ramachandra (Posthumous) (1917 - 1987) |
1988 |
| Dr.B.R.Ambedkar (Posthumous) (1891 - 1956) |
1990 |
| Dr.Nelson Mandela (1918) |
1990 |
| Morarji Desai (1896 - 1995) |
1991 |
| Rajiv Gandhi (Posthumous) (1944 - 1991) |
1991 |
| Sardar Vallab Bhai Patel (Posthumous) (1875 - 1950) |
1991 |
| J.R.D. Tata (1904 - 1993) |
1992 |
| Satyajit Ray (1922 - 1992) |
1992 |
| Moulana Abul Kalam Azad (Posthumous) (1888 - 1958) |
1992 |
| Aruna Asaf All (Posthumus) (1909 - 1996) |
1997 |
| Gulzarilal Nanda (Posthumous) (1898 - 1997) |
1997 |
| A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (1931) |
1997 |
| M.S.Subbulakshmi (1916 - 2004) |
1998 |
| C.Subramaniam (1910 - 2000) |
1998 |
| Jayaprakash Narayan (Posthumous) (1902 - 1979) |
1999 |
| Dr.Amartiya Sen (1933) |
1999 |
| Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920) |
1999 |
| Gopinath Bordoloi (Posthumous) (1890 - 1950) |
1999 |
| Latha Mangeshkar |
2001 |
| Bismilla Khan |
2001 |