Padma Bhushan Award 1959

The 1959 list of 14 recipients is best remembered for honoring Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa mountaineer who summited Everest in 1953, under the sports category, and for actor-director Sisir Kumar Bhaduri, who notably declined the award. Other honorees included Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, social reformer Hansa Mehta, and Islamic-art scholar Ghulam Yazdani. This year's mix of mountaineering fame, literary distinction and a rare public refusal made it one of the more eventful early Padma Bhushan years.

The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service of a high order, without distinction of race, occupation, position or sex".