Full list of awardees of India's Highest Citizen Award, Bharat Ratna (1954 - 2024)

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The government of India has named the former Chief Minister of Bihar, Karpoori Thakur as an awardee of India's highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna for 2024 and will be honored with the Bharat Ratna posthumously on January 26, 2024. With this, he will be the 49th personality and 4th from Bihar, who will receive this prestigious award. He is also the 17th recipient to receive the award posthumously. In this article, we will share the full list of awardees of India's Highest Citizen Award, Bharat Ratna.

Full list of awardees of India's Highest Citizen Award, Bharat Ratna (1954 - 2024)

S. NO

Name of Awardee

Year

Remarks

Chakaravarti Rajagopalachari

1954

Statesman, writer, lawyer, and independence activist

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Philosopher, politician and former President of India

Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

Physicist

Bhagwan Das

1955

Independence activist, philosopher, and educationist

Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya

Civil engineer, statesman, and Diwan of Mysore

Jawaharlal Nehru

Independence activist, author and former Prime Minister of India

Govind Ballabh Pant

1957

Independence activist

Dhondo Keshav Karve

1958

Social reformer and educator

Bidhan Chandra Roy

1961

Physician, political leader, philanthropist, educationist, and social worker

Purushottam Das Tandon

1961

Independence activist

Rajendra Prasad

1962

Independence activist, lawyer, statesman, scholar and former President of India

Zakir Husain

1963

Independence activist

Pandurang Vaman Kane

Indologist and Sanskrit scholar

Lal Bahadur Shastri (Posthumous)

1966

Independence activist and former Prime Minister of India

Indira Gandhi

1971

politician and former Prime Minister of India

Varahagiri Venkata Giri

1975

Independence activist and former President of India

Kumaraswamy Kamraj (Posthumous)

1976

Politician and former Tamil Nadu chief minister

Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa)

1980

Founder of the Missionaries of Charity

Vinoba Bhave (Posthumous)

1983

Independence activist, social reformer

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

1987

Independence activist

Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran (Posthumous)

1988

Actor turned politician

Bhim Rao Ramji Ambedkar (Posthumous)

1990

Social reformer

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

anti-apartheid activist

Rajiv Gandhi (Posthumous)

1991

Politician and former Prime Minister of India

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Posthumous)

Independence activist

Morarji Ranchhodji Desai

Independence activist and Prime Minister of India

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (Posthumous)

1992

Independence activist

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata

Industrialist

Satyajit Ray

Filmmaker

Gulzari Lal Nanda

1997

Independence activist

Aruna Asaf Ali (Posthumous)

Independence activist

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Aerospace, defence scientist and former President of India

Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi

1998

Carnatic classical vocalist

Chidambaram Subramaniam

1998

Independence activist

Jayaprakash Narayan (Posthumous)

1999

Independence activist, social reformer

Amartya Sen

economist

Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi (Posthumous)

Independence activist

Ravi Shankar

sitar player

Lata Dinanath Mangeshkar

2001

Playback singer

Ustad Bismillah Khan

Hindustani classical shehnai player

Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi

2009

Hindustani classical vocalist

C. N. R. Rao

2014

chemist and professor

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar

2014

Cricketer

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

2015

Politician and former Prime Minister of India

Madan Mohan Malaviya (Posthumous)

Scholar and educational reformer

Nanaji Deshmukh (Posthumous)

2019

social activist

Bhupendra Kumar Hazarika (Posthumous)

Playback singer, lyricist, musician, poet, and film-maker

Pranab Mukherjee

Politician and former President of India

Karpoori Thakur (Posthumous)

2024

Politician and former Bihar chief minister

India's Highest Citizen Honour: Bharat Ratna

  • Instituted: 1954

  • First recipient (1954): Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, and Dr. ChandrasekharaVenkata Raman

  • Latest recipient (2024): Karpoori Thakur (49th)

  • Recognition: The award honor to recognize exceptional service/performance of the highest order in any field of human endeavor.

  • The Prime Minister of India sends the recommendation for the Bharat Ratna to the President of India.

  • The number of Bharat Ratna Awards is restricted to a maximum of three in a particular year.

  • The medal is in the form of a peepal leaf which is 5.8 cm long, 4.7 cm wide, and 3.1 mm thick