Indian Beauty Pageant winners have established a benchmark in the domain of glamour and beauty competitions. The world of fashion in India has improved with a smart outlook and lucrative career. Several fashion shows and beauty competitions have given a platform to the achievements of Indian beauty pageant winners.

Indian beauty pageant winners are often selected is an annual, national beauty pageant competition held in different countries by some particular sponsor. The programs that promote the Indian beauty pageant winners continue to be one of the highly recognized and well-noted pageant competitions.

Miss India is one such competition that has been participating in the Miss Universe pageant since 1953, starting with Indrani Rehman; and in the Miss World pageant since 1959, starting with Fleur Ezekiel. However, after the Indian beauty pageant winners win Femina Miss India pageant, they can further participate in the Miss Universe pageant and the runner-up to the Miss World contest.

In 2007, the organization changed this rule to send the winner to Miss World and the first runner-up to Miss Universe. Traditionally, the second-runner up or other independent Indian beauty pageant winners are sent for the less prominent international pageants such as Miss Asia, Miss International and Miss Asia-Pacific. From 1997, the practice of choosing a single winner or "Miss India" was changed to instead elect representatives to the different positions of Indian beauty pageant winners on international platform. The three winners, who receive equal prizes and status but are called Miss India winners, and are designated Miss India World, Miss India Universe and Miss India Asia-Pacific. Since 2002, the third Indian beauty pageant winners is no longer sent to Miss Asia-Pacific, but to the Miss Earth pageant, which is currently recognized as one of the three most prestigious Indian beauty pageant winners in the world (in terms of size and recognition).

The awards of the Indian beauty pageant winners for 1989 were given at the end of the year (December); hence there was no separate contest for 1990. No contest was held in 1989 and the Eve`s Weekly winners Miss India International - Shikha Swaroop and Miss India Earth and Miss Bombay - Shabnam Patel, went on to achieve the title of Miss MaxFactor in 1989 and were very close and almost a tie and therefore both beauty queen`s featured for the first time on all the magazine covers together, as stated by Eve`s Weekly editor Gulshan Ewing.

The year 1994 was a milestone year for the pageant industry in India Sushmita Sen won the Miss Universe title after winning the Miss India crown. Sushmita Sen became the first Indian woman ever to win the Miss Universe crown. The same year the runner-up of Miss India, Aishwarya Rai also won the Miss World title. Both the Miss Universe and Miss World contests were won by the Indian beauty pageant winners, namely Miss India Sushmita Sen (Miss India) and Aishwarya (Miss India 94 runner-up) respectively.

The success of Sushmita Sen spanned a lot of coaching institutions, which were set up to groom girls to be Indian beauty pageant winners. The number of participants in the preliminary rounds of the pageant has increased considerably. Miss India World 1997, Diana Hayden won the title of Miss World 1997. Indian beauty pageant winners are also groomed for months in preparation for the international contest. In 1999, the Miss India winner Yukta Mookhey went on to win the Miss World that year.

The year 2000 was another landmark year for Miss India. Three of the Miss India winners happened to reach the zenith of international platform - Lara Dutta (Miss Universe), Priyanka Chopra (Miss World) and Diya Mirza (Miss Asia-Pacific). This was a huge success. The only other country to have won all three major titles in one year was Australia in 1972.

The list of the Indian beauty pageant winners is as follows -

Miss Universe from India
* Sushmita Sen (Miss Universe 1994)
* Lara Dutta (Miss Universe 2000)

Miss World from India
* Reita Faria (Miss World 1966)
* Aishwarya Rai (Miss World 1994)
* Diana Hayden (Miss World 1997)
* Yukta Mookhey (Miss World 1999)
* Priyanka Chopra (Miss World 2000)

Miss Asia-Pacific from India
* Zeenat Aman (1970)
* Tara Anne Fonseca (1973)
* Diya Mirza (2000)

Mrs World from India
* Aditi Govitrikar (2000)

Miss Earth
* Nicole Faria