← 1986 1985 1984 1987 in India → 1988 1989 1990
Centuries:	18th 19th 20th 21st
Decades:	1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s
See also:	List of years in India Timeline of Indian history

Events in the year 1987 in the Republic of India.

Incumbents

• President of India – Zail Singh until 25 July, R. Venkataraman
• Prime Minister of India – Rajiv Gandhi
• Vice President of India – R. Venkataraman until 24 July, Shankar Dayal Sharma
• Chief Justice of India – Raghunandan Swarup Pathak

Governors

• Andhra Pradesh – Kumud Ben Joshi
• Arunachal Pradesh –
  • 20 February-18 March: Bhishma Narain Singh
  • starting 18 March: R. D. Pradhan
• Assam – Bhishma Narain Singh
• Bihar – P. Venkatasubbaiah
• Goa – Gopal Singh (starting 30 May)
• Gujarat – Ram Krishna Trivedi
• Haryana – Saiyid Muzaffar Husain Burney
• Himachal Pradesh – R. K. S. Ghandhi
• Jammu and Kashmir – Jagmohan Malhotra
• Karnataka – Ashoknath Banerji (until 26 February), Pendekanti Venkatasubbaiah (starting 26 February)
• Kerala – P. Ramachandran
• Madhya Pradesh –
  • until 30 November: K.M Chandy
  • 30 November-29 December: Narayan Dutta Ojha
  • starting 29 December: K.M Chandy
• Maharashtra – Shankar Dayal Sharma (until 3 September), vacant thereafter (starting 3 September)
• Manipur – K. V. Krishna Rao
• Meghalaya – Bhishma Narain Singh
• Mizoram – Hiteswar Saikia
• Nagaland – K. V. Krishna Rao
• Odisha – Bishambhar Nath Pande
• Punjab – Siddhartha Shankar Ray
• Rajasthan – Vasantdada Patil (until 15 October), vacant thereafter (starting 15 October)
• Sikkim – T.V. Rajeswar
• Tamil Nadu – Sundar Lal Khurana
• Tripura – K. V. Krishna Rao
• Uttar Pradesh – Mohammed Usman Arif
• West Bengal – Saiyid Nurul Hasan

Events

• National income - ₹3,618,647 million

January - June

• January – Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction set up and became operational with effect from May reflecting concerns related to Industrial Sickness and republic day
• 17 January - Rajiv Gandhi laid the foundation stone for Indian Naval Academy at Ezhimala, Kannur.
• 7 March - Sunil Gavaskar becomes the first man to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket.^[1]
• 19 March - 1987 Opera House heist
• 23 March - Controversial 1987 Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly election held.
• March – Magnetic ink character recognition technology introduced for cheque clearing.
• March - June - 1987 Meerut riots
• 12 April - V. P. Singh resigns as Defence Minister of India following his disclosure about kickbacks in defense deals by predecessors.^[2][3]
• May - 1987 Sino-Indian skirmish the second such conflict between China and India ended.
• 22 May - Hashimpura massacre.^[4]
• 30 May – The Union territory was split, and Goa was elevated as India's twenty-fifth state, with Daman and Diu remaining Union Territories
• 4 June - Operation Poomalai by India in Jaffna.
• June - Minister of External Affairs N. D. Tiwari visits North Korea as part of ministerial conference of Non-Aligned Movement.

July - December

• 29 July - Indo-Sri Lanka Accord to restore peace in the island signed.
• 30 July - Assault on Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi by a Sri Lanka Navy sailor named Vijitha Rohana during Guard of honour at Colombo.^[5]

• October – ICC Cricket World Cup (Reliance Cup 1987)
• 11 - 12 October - Jaffna University Helidrop by Indian Peace Keeping Force
• 20 November–27 November – The South Asian Games are held in Calcutta.^[6]
• 28 December - Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research was established by RBI as an advanced studies institute to promote research on development issues from a multi-disciplinary point of view.

Law

Births

• 1 January – Neha Sharma, actress and model.
• 3 March – Shraddha Kapoor, actress.
• 31 March – Janani Iyer, actress.
• 18 February – Mahat Raghavendra, actor
• 24 April – Varun Dhawan, actor
• 25 April – Mallika Kapoor, actress.
• 28 April – Samantha Ruth Prabhu, actress.

• 30 April – Rohit Sharma, cricketer.
• 4 May – Charmy Kaur, actress.
• 7 May – Sundeep Kishan, actor, producer
• 2 June – Santhosh Prathap, actor
• 13 June – G. V. Prakash Kumar, film composer, singer and actor.
• 25 June – Anil Shetty, entrepreneur, author, activist and motivational speaker
• 3 July – Arjai, actor
• 1 August – Taapsee Pannu, actress.
• 5 August – Genelia D'Souza, actress.

  

• 6 August – Aditya Narayan, actor, singer and television host.
• 25 October – Umesh Yadav, cricketer.
• 1 November – Ileana D'Cruz, actress.
• 20 November – Sukirti Kandpal, actress.
• 18 December – Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, politician, member of parliament from Srikakulam.
• 28 December – Diganth Manchale, actor

Deaths

• 13 March – Hafizur Rahman Wasif Dehlavi, Islamic scholar, jurist and literary critic. (born 1910)
• 1 June – Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, film director, novelist, screenwriter and journalist (born 1914).

• 

  13 October – Kishore Kumar, playback singer, actor, lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenwriter and scriptwriter (born 1929).
• 27 October – Vijay Merchant, cricketer (born 1911).
• 24 December – M. G. Ramachandran, Actor, Politician, Former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (born 1917).

Full date unknown

• Dasaradhi, poet and political activist (born 1925).