* 1931 – Naren Tamhane, Indian cricketer ( d. 2002 )

* 1853 – Haraprasad Shastri, Indian scholar and historian ( d. 1931 )

* 1931 – K. S. Sudarshan, Indian nationalist ( d. 2012 )

* 1906 – Chandra Shekhar Azad, Indian nationalist ( d. 1931 )

* 1861 – Motilal Nehru, Indian freedom fighter ( d. 1931 )

* 1931 – Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar are hanged for murder during the Indian struggle for independence.

* 1931 – Nikhil Banerjee, Indian classical musician ( d. 1986 )

* 1907 – Bhagat Singh, Indian activist ( d. 1931 )

* December 6 – Haraprasad Shastri, Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist and historian of Bengali literature ( d. 1931 )

* August 14 – Shammi Kapoor, Indian film actor and director ( b. 1931 )

Until 1931, forty-one years later, all Fort Mojave boys and girls between the ages of six and eighteen were compelled to live at this school or attend an advanced Indian school remote from Fort Mojave.

* 1931 – The Texas Company ( Texaco's corporate name ) purchases Indian Oil Company, based in Illinois, a move that expands Texaco's refining and marketing base in the Midwest and also gives Texaco the rights to Indian's manufacturing processes of Havoline " Wax Free " motor oil, which becomes a Texaco product and provides the company with a higher-quality motor oil product.

R. C. Gorman ( 1931 – 2005 ) was an internationally renowned artist of the Navajo Nation, sometimes called the " Picasso " of the American Indian Arts.

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (; Tamil: அவ ு ல ் பக ி ர ் ஜ ை ன ு லப ் த ீ ன ் அப ் த ு ல ் கல ா ம ்; born 15 October 1931 ) usually referred to as Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, is an Indian scientist and administrator who served as the 11th President of India.

Kalam was born on 15 October 1931 to Jainulabdeen, a boat owner and Ashiamma, a housewife, at Rameswaram, located in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Largely designed by Lutyens over twenty or so years ( 1912 to 1930 ), New Delhi, situated within the metropolis of Delhi, was chosen to replace Calcutta as the seat of the British Indian government in 1912 ; the project was completed in 1929 and officially inaugurated in 1931.

* Maulana Mohammad Ali ( 1878 – 1931 ) — Indian Muslim leader, journalist and poet

Osho ( 11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990 ), born Chandra Mohan Jain, and also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic, guru, and spiritual teacher who garnered an international following.

* Maulana Mohammad Ali ( 1878 – 1931 ), Muslim Indian political leader, journalist, and poet

* " Indian Legends and Lore ", October 1931

Maria Mies ( born 1931, Steffeln ) is a professor of sociology and author of several feminist books, including Indian Women and Patriarchy ( 1980 ), Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale ( 1986 ), and ( with Bennholdt-Thomsen and von Werlhof ) Women: The Last Colony ( 1988 ).

Kanyakumari takes its name from the Hindu Goddess Kanyakumari ( also called Kumari Amman ). The Kanniyakumari amman temple is situated in the town, on the seashore, where there is the confluence of the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. 1931 Travancore census records the rule of Villavarayar kings for 800 years, and the stone engravings at Bhagavathi Amman Temple asserts it was built by Bharathar kings as a sign of reverence to the sea goddess.

Alam Ara ( released 14 March 1931 ) — directed by Ardeshir Irani — was the first Indian movie with dialogues.

* Chandrasekhar Azad ( 1906 – 1931 ), Indian revolutionary

The name was associated originally with a society of Oxford University's University College, initiated by the then undergraduate Edward Tangye Lean circa 1931, for the purpose of reading aloud unfinished compositions.

Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World is a more subtle and more threatening dystopia because he projected into the year 2540 industrial and social changes he perceived in 1931, leading to a fascist hierarchy of society, industrially successful by exploiting a slave class conditioned and drugged to obey and enjoy their servitude.

* The encyclical Quadragesimo Anno ( On Reconstruction of the Social Order, literally " in the fortieth year ") of 1931 by Pope Pius XI, encourages a living wage, subsidiarity, and advocates that social justice is a personal virtue as well as an attribute of the social order, saying that society can be just only if individuals and institutions are just.

Rusia en 1931, reflexiones al pie del Kremlin ( Russia in 1931, reflections on foot of the Kremlin ), first published in 1931, is a journalistic work describing Vallejo's impressions of the new socialist society that he saw being built in Soviet Russia.

Byrd, by then an internationally recognized, pioneering American polar explorer and aviator, served for a time as Honorary National President ( 1931 – 1935 ) of Pi Gamma Mu, the international honor society in the social sciences.

The earliest scientific thinking based on observation of ant life was that of Auguste Forel ( 1848 – 1931 ), a Swiss psychologist who initially was interested in ideas of instinct, learning, and society.

In 1931, Kahn made headlines on the New York society pages when he married musical comedy actress Hannah Williams January 16, 1931.

Upon his death in 1931, he left a generous bequest to GSA, with the remainder of his estate after more minor bequests divided equally between the Geological Society of America and the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia: nearly $ 4 million went to each society.

The novel Brave New World ( 1931 ), by Aldous Huxley discussed several ways their society was effectively dumbed down to maintain stability and social order.

It is a campus society and is named in honour of Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek, who lectured at the London School of Economics from 1931 until 1950.

* Equality ( 1931 ), R. H. Tawney's argument for an egalitarian society

Press coverage and notoriety increased dramatically for the Peace Mission after Father Divine's May 8, 1931 arrest for ' disturbing the peace ' ended in first conviction, than the death of the presiding judge, Justice Lewis J. Smith ( who in sentencing him had called Divine " a fraud and a menace to society ") and Father Divine's subsequent release.

Social realism, the belief that art should reflect the realities of society under capitalism, was the artistic doctrine of the Communist Party of Australia, and in 1931 Counihan became a confirmed atheist and a member of the Party.

He became a member of the Skull and Bones society at Yale in 1927, as were his brother-in-law Prescott Sheldon Bush ( S & B 1917 ); brothers Dr. John Mercer Walker, Sr. ( S & B 1931 ) and Louis Walker ( S & B 1936 ); and his nephew, the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush ( S & B 1947 ); and Bush's son ( therefore George's grand-nephew ), the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush ( S & B 1968 )

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1931 and was President of the society from 1950 to 1956.

He became a Quaker in 1931 and gave the Swarthmore Lecture in 1944, ‘ Man, society and religion ’, in which he stressed the importance of a social conscience.

James Knowlson in his biography of Beckett, Damned to Fame, suggests that the names may echo Richard Aldington's Enter Bim and Bom, the epilogue to his 1931 novel The Colonel's Daughter, on an English football field to comment upon the degeneration of English society.