Bharat Ratna Award Winners – Complete List

What is Bharata Ratna?

The Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India. Instituted in 1954, the award is conferred “in recognition of exceptional service/performance of the highest order”, without distinction of race, occupation position, or sex. The award was originally limited to achievements in the arts, literature, science, and public services, but the government expanded the criteria to include “any field of human endeavour” in December 2011.

The first recipients of the Bharat Ratna were politician C. Rajagopalachari, philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and scientist C. V. Raman, who was honoured in 1954. Since then, the award has been bestowed on 45 individuals, including 12 who were awarded posthumously.

Bharat Ratna Award Winners

S.No. Name of the Awardees Year
1 Shri C. Rajagopalachari 1954
2 Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan 1954
3 Dr.C. V. Raman 1954
4 Dr.Bhagwan Das 1955
5 Dr.M Visvesvaraya 1955
6 Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru 1955
7 Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant 1957
8 Dr.Dhondo Keshav Karve 1958
9 Dr.Bidhan Chandra Roy 1961
10 Shri.Purushottam Das Tandon 1961
11 Dr.Rajendra Prasad 1962
12 Dr.Zakir Husain 1962
13 Dr.Pandurang Vaman Kane 1963
14 Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri (posthumous) 1966
15 Smt.Indira Gandhi 1971
16 Shri V. V. Giri 1975
17 Shri K. Kamaraj(posthumous) 1976
18 Mother Teresa 1980
19 Shri Acharya Vinoba Bhave 1983
20 Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan 1987
21 Shri M. G. Ramachandran 1988
22 Dr.B. R. Ambedkar 1990
23 Nelson Mandela 1990
24 Shri.Rajiv Gandhi (posthumous) 1991
25 Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (posthumous) 1991
26 Shri Morarji Desai 1991
27 Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (posthumous) 1992
28 Shri J. R. D. Tata 1992
29 Shri Satyajit Ray 1992
30 Shri Gulzarilal Nanda 1997
31 Smt.Aruna Asaf Ali(posthumous) 1997
32 Dr.A. P. J. Abdul Kalam 1997
33 Smt.M. S. Subbulakshmi 1998
34 Shri Chidambaram Subramaniam 1998
35 Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan (posthumous) 1999
36 Professor Amartya Sen 1999
37 Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi (posthumous) 1999
38 Pandit Ravi Shankar 1999
39 ShushriLata Mangeshkar 2001
40 Ustad Bismillah Khan 2001
41 Pandit Bhimsen Joshi 2009
42 Professor C. N. R. Rao 2014
43 Shri Sachin Tendulkar 2014
44 Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya (posthumous) 2015
45 Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee 2015
46 Pranab Mukherjee 2019
47 Bhupen Hazarika 2019
48 Nanaji Deshmukh 2019

Did You Know?

  • The original 1954 specifications of the award was a circle made of gold 1 3⁄8 inches (35 mm) in diameter with a centred sunburst design on the obverse side.
  • The text “Bharat Ratna”, in Devanagari Script, is inscribed on the upper edge in silver gilt with a wreath set along on the lower edge.
  • Bhupen Hazarika was an Indian playback singer, lyricist, musician, singer, poet and film-maker from Assam, widely known as Sudhakantha.
  • Chandikadas Amritrao Deshmukh also known as Nanaji Deshmukh (11 October 1916 – 27 February 2010) was a social activist from India. He worked in the fields of education, health, and rural self-reliance.

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