List of Indian Nobel laureates
First instituted in 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to a total of 989 individuals (930 men and 59 women) and 30 organizations as of 2022.[1] Among the recipients, 12 are Indians (five Indian citizens and seven of Indian ancestry or residency). Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian citizen to be awarded and also first Asian to be awarded in 1913. Mother Teresa is the only woman among the list of recipients.[2] Sri Aurobindo, the Indian poet, philosopher, nationalist and developer of Integral yoga, was nominated unsuccessfully for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1943 and for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.[3][4]
On 1 December 1999, the Norwegian Nobel Committee confirmed that Mahatma Gandhi was nominated unsuccessfully for the Peace Prize five times (from 1937 to 1939, in 1947 and a few days before he was assassinated in January 1948).[5] In 2006, Geir Lundestad, the Secretary of Norwegian Nobel Committee, cited it as "the greatest omission in our 106-year history".[6][7][8]
Laureates
Two of the Nobel laureates (Tagore and Raman) were citizens of British India at the time they were awarded while two also were of foreign origin (Ross and Kipling). Three of the laureates were citizens of India (Mother Teresa, Sen, and Satyarthi) and four were Indian by birth (Khorana, Chandrasekhar, Ramakrishnan, and Banerjee) but subsequently non-citizens of India. One (Naipaul) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born British Nobel laureate of Indian origin.
Year | Image | Laureate | Born | Died | Field | Citation | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Citizens of the British India | |||||||
1913 | Rabindranath Tagore | 7 May 1861 Kolkata, West Bengal |
7 August 1941 Kolkata, West Bengal |
Literature | "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West."[9] | ||
1930 | Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman | 7 November 1888 Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu |
21 November 1970 Bangalore, Karnataka |
Physics | "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him."[10] | ||
Citizens of India | |||||||
1979 | Teresa Bojaxhiu, M.C. | 26 August 1910 Skopje, North Macedonia |
5 September 1997 Kolkata, West Bengal |
Peace | "for her work for bringing help to suffering humanity."[11] | ||
1998 | Amartya Kumar Sen | 3 November 1933 Santiniketan, Bolpur, West Bengal |
— | Economics | "for his contributions to welfare economics."[12] | ||
2014 | Kailash Satyarthi | 11 January 1954 Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh |
— | Peace | "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."[13] (awarded together with Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai) | ||
Diaspora[lower-alpha 1] | |||||||
1968 | Har Gobind Khorana | 9 January 1922 Raipur, Punjab |
9 November 2011 Concord, Massachusetts, United States |
Physiology or Medicine | "for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis."[14] (awarded together with American biochemists Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley) | ||
1983 | Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar | 19 October 1910 Lahore, Punjab |
21 August 1995 Chicago, Illinois, United States |
Physics | "for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars."[15] (awarded together with American astrophysicist William Alfred Fowler) | ||
2001 | Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul | 17 August 1932, Chaguanas Borough Corporation, Trinidad and Tobago | 11 August 2018, London, United Kingdom | Literature | |||
2009 | Venkatraman "Venki" Ramakrishnan | 1 April 1952 Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu |
— | Chemistry | "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome."[16] (awarded together with American biochemist Thomas A. Steitz and Israeli crystallographer Ada Yonath) | ||
2019 | Abhijit Banerjee | 21 February 1961 Mumbai, Maharashtra |
— | Economics | "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty" (awarded together with his wife Esther Duflo and American economist Michael Kremer) | ||
Expatriates | |||||||
1902 | Ronald Ross | 13 May 1857 Almora, Uttarakhand |
16 September 1932 London, United Kingdom |
Physiology or Medicine | "for his work on malaria, by which he has shown how it enters the organism and thereby has laid the foundation for successful research on this disease and methods of combating it."[17] | ||
1907 | Joseph Rudyard Kipling | 30 December 1865 Malabar Hill, South Mumbai, Maharashtra |
18 January 1936 London, United Kingdom |
Literature | "in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author."[18] |
Nominees
Image | Laureate | Born | Died | Years Nominated | Citation | Nominator(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Peace | ||||||
Nicholas Roerich | 19 October 1874 in Saint Petersburg, Russia | 13 December 1947 in Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, India | 1929 | "for his dedication to the cause of preserving art and architecture during times of war."[19] | Georges Chklaver[lower-alpha 2] (1897–1970) Switzerland | |
1933 | Mikhail von Taube[lower-alpha 3] (1869–1961) Russia | |||||
1935 | Henry Pratt Fairchild (1880–1956) United States | |||||
Sol Bloom (1870–1949) United States | ||||||
Annie Wood Besant | 1 October 1847 in Clapham, England, United Kingdom | 20 September 1933 in Adyar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India | 1931 | "for having been actively involved in educational and humanitarian work in India, establishing the Indian Home Rule League and for her efforts to solve the Indian "problem", thereby securing world peace by uniting East and West."[20] | Peter Freeman (1888–1956) United Kingdom | |
Raja Mahendra Pratap | 1 December 1886 in Mursan, Uttar Pradesh, India | 29 April 1979 in Madras, Tamil Nadu, India | 1932 | "for travelling around the world to create awareness about the situation in Afghanistan and India."[21] | Nils August Nilsson (1860–1940) Sweden | |
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi | 2 October 1869 Porbandar, Gujarat |
30 January 1948 New Delhi, Delhi |
1937, 1938, 1939, 1947, 1948 | [22] |
| |
Physics | ||||||
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman | 7 November 1888 Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu |
21 November 1970 Bangalore, Karnataka |
1929, 1930 | "for his work in the field of light scattering and the discovery of a modified scattering called Raman effect."[23] |
| |
Meghnad Saha | 6 October 1893 Dhaka, Bangladesh |
16 February 1956 New Delhi |
1930, 1937, 1939, 1940, 1951, 1955 | "for developing the Saha ionization equation, used to describe chemical and physical conditions in stars."[24] |
| |
Arthur Edwin Kennelly* | 17 December 1861 Colaba, Mumbai, Maharashtra |
18 June 1939 Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
1935 | "for his contributions to the theory of electrical transmission and to the development of international electrical standards."[25] |
| |
Homi Jehangir Bhabha | 30 October 1909 Mumbai, Maharashtra |
24 January 1966 Mont Blanc, Alps, France |
1951, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956 | "for his discovery of the cascade process of cosmic radiation and Bhabha Scattering in quantum electrodynamics."[26] | Jacques Hadamard (1865–1963) | |
Satyendra Nath Bose | 1 January 1894 Kolkata, West Bengal |
4 February 1974 Kolkata, West Bengal |
1956, 1959, 1962, 1968, 1969 | "for developing the foundation for Bose statistics and the theory of the Bose condensate in quantum mechanics."[27] |
| |
Robert Hanbury Brown* | 31 August 1916 Aruvankadu, Tamil Nadu |
16 January 2002 Andover, Hampshire, United Kingdom |
1965, 1966 | "for developing the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect leading to the creation of intensity interferometers."[28][29] |
| |
Richard Quinn Twiss* | 24 August 1920 Shimla, Himachal Pradesh |
20 May 2005 Sydney, Australia | ||||
Chemistry | ||||||
Roger John Williams* | 14 August 1893 Ooty, Tamil Nadu |
20 February 1988 Austin, Texas, United States |
1960 | "for his work on vitamins, particularly on discovering and isolating vitamin B6, lipoic acid, and avidin."[30] |
| |
Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran | 8 October 1922 Ernakulam, Kerala |
7 April 2001 Chennai, Tamil Nadu |
1964 | "for developing the Ramachandran plot for understanding peptide structure."[31] | Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888–1970) | |
Thiruvengadam Rajendram Seshadri | 3 February 1900 Kulithalai, Tamil Nadu |
27 September 1975 New Delhi |
1966, 1968 | "for his research on oxygen heterocyclic compounds."[32] |
| |
Literature | ||||||
Joseph Rudyard Kipling* | 30 December 1865 Malabar Hill, South Mumbai, Maharashtra |
18 January 1936 London, United Kingdom |
1903, 1904, 1905, 1907 |
[33] |
| |
Rabindranath Tagore | 7 May 1861 Kolkata, West Bengal |
7 August 1941 Kolkata, West Bengal |
1913 | [34] | Thomas Sturge Moore (1870–1944) | |
Rabindranath Datta | 1 October 1883 Kolkata, West Bengal |
6 July 1917 Kolkata, West Bengal |
1916 | [35] |
| |
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan | 5 September 1888 Thiruttani, Tamil Nadu |
17 April 1975 Chennai, Tamil Nadu |
1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1952, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963 |
[36] |
| |
James Cousins* | 22 July 1873 Belfast, Northern Ireland |
20 February 1956 Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh |
1935 | [37] | Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) | |
Hari Mohan Banerjee | 1936 | [38] | Devadatta Ramakrishna Bhandarkar (1875–1950) | |||
Bensadhar Majumdar | 1937, 1939 | [39] |
| |||
Mohammad Hosain Khan (probably Mohammad Habib (1895–1971)) |
1938 | [40] | Per Hallström (1866–1960) | |||
Sanjib Chaudhuri | 1938, 1939 | [41] |
| |||
Sri Aurobindo Ghose | 15 August 1872 Kolkata, West Bengal |
5 December 1950 Pondicherry, Union Territory of Puducherry |
1943 | [42] | Francis Younghusband (1863–1942) | |
Sachidananda Routray | 13 May 1916 Gurujang, Odisha |
21 August 2004 Cuttack, Odisha |
1959 | [43] | Radhakamal Mukerjee (1889–1968) | |
Lawrence Durrell* | 27 February 1912 Jalandhar, Punjab |
7 November 1990 Sommières, Gard, France |
1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971 |
[44] |
| |
Gopal Singh | 29 November 1917 Panaji, Goa |
8 August 1990 Panaji, Goa |
1965 | [45] |
| |
Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay | 27 July 1898 Labhpur, West Bengal |
14 September 1971 Kolkata, West Bengal |
1971 | [46] | Krishna Kripalani (1907–1992) |
Notes
- Nobel laureates of Indian ancestry but having foreign citizenship.
- Chklaver nominated Roerich on behalf of several other persons (most of them were not entitled to nominate), including Mikhail von Taube (1869–1961; member of the Institute of International Law).
- Taube nominated Roerich on behalf of two persons who were not entitled to nominate.
References
- Media, Nobel (22 November 2018). "Nobel Prize facts". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 6 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
- "From 1913 to 2014: Indian Nobel Prize winners". The Hindu. 10 October 2014. Archived from the original on 21 September 2023. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
- Rajinder Singh (September 2012). "Aurobindo Gosh's Nobel nomination". Science and Culture. p. 442. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
- Media, Nobel (22 November 2018). "Aurobindo Ghosh Nomination archive". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
- Levinovitz, Agneta Wallin (2001). The Nobel Prize: The First 100 Years. London: Imperial College Press, London. pp. 181–186. ISBN 9789810246655.
- Tønnesson, Øyvind (1 December 1999). "Mahatma Gandhi, the Missing Laureate". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 2 June 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
- Ghosh, Avijit (17 October 2006). "We missed Mahatma Gandhi". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 23 May 2022. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
- Wolchover, Natalie (10 May 2011). "No Peace for Gandhi". NBCNews. Archived from the original on 7 December 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
- The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 Archived 2 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Nobel Prize in Physics 1930 Archived 17 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Nobel Peace Prize 1979 Archived 30 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1998 Archived 30 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Nobel Peace Prize 2014 Archived 1 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1968 Archived 15 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Nobel Prize in Physics 1983 Archived 17 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009 Archived 25 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1902 Archived 8 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- The Nobel Prize in Literature 1907 Archived 2 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Nicholas Roerich Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Annie Besant Archived 5 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – (Raja) Mahendra Pratap Archived 7 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=3320 Archived 18 March 2023 at the Wayback Machine
- Nomination archive – Sir Chandrasekhara V Raman Archived 6 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Meghnad N Saha Archived 31 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Arthur E Kennelly Archived 29 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Homi J Bhabha Archived 16 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Satyendra Nath Bose Archived 11 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Robert Hanbury Brown Archived 5 April 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Richard Q Twiss Archived 29 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Roger J Williams Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – T R Seshadri Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Rudyard Kipling Archived 25 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Rabindranath Tagore Archived 9 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Roby Datta Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Archived 8 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – James H Cousins Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Hari Mohan Banerjee Archived 17 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Bensadhar Majumdar Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Mohammad H Khan Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Sanjib Chaudhuri Archived 18 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Sri Aurobindo Archived 8 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Sochi Raut Roy Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Lawrence Durrell Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Gopal Singh Archived 30 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org
- Nomination archive – Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay Archived 26 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine nobelprize.org