1954 in India

• President of India – Rajendra Prasad
• Prime Minister of India – Jawaharlal Nehru
• Vice President of India - Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
• Chief Justice of India –
  • until 3 Jan. – M. Patanjali Sastri
  • 4 Jan.-22 Dec. – Mehr Chand Mahajan
  • starting 23 Dec. – Bijan Kumar Mukherjea

• 22 March – Jayendra Saraswathi becomes the 70th Shankaracharya of Kanchi.
• 5 July – The Andhra Pradesh High Court is established.
• 11 August – Indian annexation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli: Portuguese forces surrender to the Indian SRP.[1]
• 6 November – Bombay Electricity Board is formed.
• 26 January - First Bharat Ratna in India.

First recipient:C Rajagopalachari Second recipient: Dr.S Radhakrishnan Third recipient:C V Raman

• 11 January - Kailash Satyarthi, Social Reformer, Co-recipient of Nobel Peace Prize 2014.
• 8 February - Shailendra Chauhan, Eminent Poet and writer - Hindi.
• 7 March – Anupam Kher, actor.
• 19 March – Indu Shahani, educationist and Sheriff of Mumbai.
• 12 May - Eddapadi K. Palanisamy, chief minister of Tamil Nadu 2018.
• 10 July - Malyadri Sriram, politician and member of parliament from Bapatla.
• 14 September – Shrikant Jichkar, politician (died 2004).
• 3 November – Laxmikant Berde, comic actor (died 2004).
• 7 November – Kamal Haasan, actor and film director.
• 9 November – Shankar Nag, actor and director (died 1990).

• 22 October – Jibanananda Das, poet, writer, novelist and essayist in Bengali (b. 1899)
• 5 December – Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, civil servant, diplomat and Governor of Bombay (b. 1891)

• Bollywood films of 1954