Kannada novelist K. Shivaram Karanth, who was awarded in 1968, returned his award to protest against the Emergency declared in the country in 1975. Novelist Khushwant Singh, who accepted the award in 1974 in the field of literature and education, returned it in 1984 as a notion of protest against the Operation Blue Star. Singh was later awarded with Padma Vibhushan in 2007. Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, 1986 recipient and scientist and founder-director of Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), returned his award in 2015 in protest of the Dadri mob lynching and out of concern at the "prevailing socio-politico situation" in the country.