| 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 |