Nobel Prize winners from India include Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913), C. V. Raman (Physics, 1930), Mother Teresa (Peace, 1979), Amartya Sen (Economics, 1998) and Kailash Satyarthi (Peace, 2014). Others were born in India but won while working abroad. They include Har Gobind Khorana, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Abhijit Banerjee.
Who counts as “Indian” depends on how you ask the question: born in India, working in India when they won, or of Indian origin. This list puts every laureate with a strong link to India into simple groups. Birthplaces, dates and prize reasons come from the Nobel Foundation’s own records. It includes the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, won by Navi Pillay, a South African born to a Tamil Indian family.
- First Indian laureate: Rabindranath Tagore, Literature, 1913
- First laureate born in India: Ronald Ross, Medicine, 1902, born in Almora
- Only India-based science laureate: C. V. Raman, Physics, 1930
- Most recent with roots in India: Navi Pillay, Peace, 2026
- Peace laureate living in India: the 14th Dalai Lama, 1989
Indian Nobel Prize winners: the full list
| Year | Laureate | Prize | Link to India |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1913 | Rabindranath Tagore | Literature | Born in Calcutta; lived in India |
| 1930 | C. V. Raman | Physics | Born in Tiruchirappalli; at Calcutta University |
| 1968 | Har Gobind Khorana | Medicine | Born in Raipur, British India; at the University of Wisconsin, USA |
| 1979 | Mother Teresa | Peace | Worked in India from 1931; born in Skopje |
| 1983 | Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar | Physics | Born in Lahore, British India; at the University of Chicago, USA |
| 1989 | The 14th Dalai Lama | Peace | In exile in India since 1959 |
| 1998 | Amartya Sen | Economics | Born in Santiniketan; at Trinity College, UK |
| 2009 | Venkatraman Ramakrishnan | Chemistry | Born in Chidambaram; at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK |
| 2014 | Kailash Satyarthi | Peace | Born in Vidisha; lived in India |
| 2019 | Abhijit Banerjee | Economics | Born in Mumbai; at MIT, USA |
| 2026 | Navi Pillay | Peace | Born in Durban, South Africa, to a Tamil Indian family |
Laureates who were in India when they won
- Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913): honoured for his “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse”. He wrote in Bengali and English.
- C. V. Raman (Physics, 1930): for his work on the scattering of light and “the discovery of the effect named after him”, the Raman effect. He was at Calcutta University. That makes him the only laureate here to win a science prize while working in India.
- Mother Teresa (Peace, 1979): “for her work for bringing help to suffering humanity”. She taught in Calcutta from 1931 and started the Missionaries of Charity there, with the Holy See’s permission, in 1950.
- Kailash Satyarthi (Peace, 2014): for the struggle against the suppression of children and for every child’s right to education. He shared the prize with Malala Yousafzai.
Laureates born in India who won while working abroad
- Har Gobind Khorana (Medicine, 1968): for interpreting the genetic code and its role in making proteins. He shared it with Robert W. Holley and Marshall W. Nirenberg.
- Amartya Sen (Economics, 1998): for his contributions to welfare economics. He was born in Santiniketan.
- Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Chemistry, 2009): for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome, shared with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath.
- Abhijit Banerjee (Economics, 2019): for testing ways to reduce poverty with real-world experiments. He shared it with Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer.
Laureates born in British India, now Pakistan or Bangladesh
Before 1947, “India” covered today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh too. That is why some lists include these laureates:
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics, 1983): born in Lahore, honoured for his studies of how stars are structured and evolve. He shared it with William A. Fowler.
- Abdus Salam (Physics, 1979): born in Jhang Maghiana, now in Pakistan. He won for work linking two basic forces of nature: electromagnetism and the weak force.
- Muhammad Yunus (Peace, 2006): born in Chittagong, now in Bangladesh, honoured with the Grameen Bank for creating development “from below”.
Other Nobel laureates with links to India
- Ronald Ross (Medicine, 1902): a British doctor born in Almora, honoured for showing how malaria enters the body. He was the first Nobel laureate born in India, 11 years before Tagore.
- Rudyard Kipling (Literature, 1907): the British author of The Jungle Book, born in Bombay (now Mumbai).
- The 14th Dalai Lama (Peace, 1989): born in Taktser, Tibet. He went into exile in India in 1959 and has lived in Dharamsala since 1960.
- Navi Pillay (Peace, 2026): a South African judge and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, honoured “for her efforts to promote peace and international law”. UN News reports she was born in 1941 to a Tamil Indian family.
Indian Nobel Prize winners by category
| Category | Laureates |
|---|---|
| Physics | C. V. Raman (1930), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1983) |
| Chemistry | Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (2009) |
| Medicine | Har Gobind Khorana (1968) |
| Literature | Rabindranath Tagore (1913) |
| Peace | Mother Teresa (1979), Kailash Satyarthi (2014) |
| Economics | Amartya Sen (1998), Abhijit Banerjee (2019) |
Nobel Prize winners from India in Hindi
भारत से जुड़े प्रमुख नोबेल पुरस्कार विजेता: रवींद्रनाथ टैगोर (साहित्य, 1913), सी. वी. रमन (भौतिकी, 1930), हर गोबिंद खुराना (चिकित्सा, 1968), मदर टेरेसा (शांति, 1979), सुब्रह्मण्यम चंद्रशेखर (भौतिकी, 1983), अमर्त्य सेन (अर्थशास्त्र, 1998), वेंकटरमन रामकृष्णन (रसायन, 2009), कैलाश सत्यार्थी (शांति, 2014) और अभिजीत बनर्जी (अर्थशास्त्र, 2019)।
Chandrasekhar spent most of his career at the University of Chicago. Read about it in our guide to the best universities in Chicago. Inspired to study? Try our study motivation tips.
Frequently asked questions
Who was the first Indian to win a Nobel Prize?
Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Ronald Ross, a British doctor born in Almora, won earlier, in 1902, so he was the first laureate born in India.
How many Indians have won the Nobel Prize?
It depends on how you count. Five laureates are usually called Indian Nobel winners: Tagore, Raman, Mother Teresa, Amartya Sen and Kailash Satyarthi. If you add laureates of Indian birth or origin who worked abroad, like Khorana, Chandrasekhar, Ramakrishnan and Banerjee, the number is nine or more.
Who was the first Indian to win a Nobel Prize in science?
C. V. Raman, who won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for the Raman effect.
Which Indian won the Nobel Prize in Economics?
Amartya Sen in 1998 and Abhijit Banerjee in 2019.
Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026?
Navi Pillay, a South African jurist and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “for her efforts to promote peace and international law”. She was born in Durban to a Tamil Indian family.
Has any Indian woman won a Nobel Prize?
Mother Teresa, who worked in India and won the 1979 Peace Prize, is the woman most closely linked to India. Navi Pillay, the 2026 Peace laureate, is South African of Indian origin.
