List of Indian Nobel laureates

The Nobel Prize is a set of annual international awards bestowed on "those who conferred the greatest benefit on humankind" in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences,^{[upper-alpha 1][2]} instituted by Alfred Nobel's last will, which specified that a part of his fortune be used to create the prizes. Each laureate (recipient) receives a gold medal, a diploma and a sum of money, which is decided annually by the Nobel Foundation.^[3] The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel; the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; the Swedish Academy awards the Nobel Prize in Literature; and the Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize. They are widely recognised as one of the most prestigious honours awarded in the aforementioned fields.^[4]

Rabindranath Tagore was the first person of Indian origin and also first Asian to be awarded with the Nobel Prize.^[1] He received the prize for Literature in 1913.

First instituted in 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to a total of 989 individuals (930 men and 59 women) and 30 organisations as of 2022^[update].^[5] Among the recipients, 12 are Indians of which 5 are Indian citizens and 7 are 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.^[6] 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.^[7][8]

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).^[9] In 2006, Geir Lundestad, the Secretary of Norwegian Nobel Committee, cited it as "the greatest omission in our 106-year history".^[10][11][12]

Laureates

The following are the Nobel laureates who were residing in India at the time they were awarded the Nobel Prize.^{[13][upper-alpha 2]}

Year	Laureate		Field	Rationale	Ref.
1913		Rabindranath Tagore	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."	[15]
1930		C. V. Raman	Physics	"For his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him."	[16]
1979		Mother Teresa [upper-alpha 3]	Peace	"in recognition of [her] work in bringing help to suffering humanity"	[17][18]
1998		Amartya Sen	Economic Sciences	"For his contributions to welfare economics."	[19]
2014		Kailash Satyarthi [upper-alpha 4]	Peace	"For their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."	[20]

Overseas citizens of Indian origin

The following are not Indians, but rather Nobel laureates born in British India or laureates who are of Indian origin but subsequently non-citizens of India; however, they are still often included in lists of Indian Nobel laureates.

Year	Laureate		Country of residence	Field	Rationale	Ref.
1968		Har Gobind Khorana [upper-alpha 5]	United States (born in Raipur,Punjab, British India, now Pakistan)	Physiology or Medicine	"For their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis."	[21]
1983		Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar	United States (born in Lahore,Punjab, British India, now Pakistan)	Physics	"For his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars."	[22]
2009		Venkatraman Ramakrishnan	United Kingdom /  United States (born in Chidambaram, India)	Chemistry	"For studies of the structure and function of the ribosome."	[23]
2019		Abhijit Banerjee	United States (born in Mumbai, India)	Economics	"For his experimental approach to alleviating Global Poverty"	[24]

Other

The following are Nobel laureates with Indian linkages – foreigners who were born in India, those who are of Indian ancestry and those who were residents in India when they became recipients of the Nobel Prize.

Year	Laureate		Country of residence	Field	Rationale	Ref
1902		Ronald Ross	United Kingdom (born in Almora, British India)	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."	[25]
1907		Rudyard Kipling	United Kingdom (born in Bombay, British India)	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."	[26]
1989		14th Dalai Lama	India (born in Taktser, Republic of China)	Peace	"For his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty."	[27][28]
2001		V. S. Naipaul	United Kingdom (born in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago)	Literature	"For having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories."	[29]

See also

• List of Nobel laureates
• List of Nobel laureates by country
• List of Asian Nobel laureates

Notes

1. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences is an additional prize that was established in 1968 by the Bank of Sweden and was first awarded in 1969. Although not technically a Nobel Prize, it is identified with the award and the winners are announced with the Nobel Prize recipients, and the Prize in Economic Sciences is presented at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.^[2]
2. Per Indian nationality law, Article 9 of the Indian Constitution says that a person who voluntarily acquires citizenship of any other country is no longer an Indian citizen. Also, according to The Passports Act, a person has to surrender his Indian passport; it is a punishable offence under the act if he fails to surrender the passport. Hence, citizenship exclusively includes jus sanguinis (citizenship by right of blood).^[14]
3. Born in Skopje, Ottoman Empire
4. shared with Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan
5. Awarded along with Robert W. Holley and Marshall W. Nirenberg

References

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