Bharat Ratna Awardees

Year

Recipients

Details

1954

C. Rajagopalachari

Activist, statesman, and lawyer

 Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan

 India’s first Vice-President and second President

C. V. Raman

Physicists, mathematicians, and scientists

1955

Bhagwan Das

Activist, philosopher, and educationist

M. Visvesvaraya

Civil engineer, statesman, and Diwan of Mysore

Jawaharlal Nehru

Activist and author served as the Prime Minister of India

1957

Govind Ballabh Pant

Activist and first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

1958

Dhondo Keshav Karve

Social reformer and educator

1961

Bidhan Chandra Roy

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

Purushottam Das Tandon

Activist and speaker of the United Provinces Legislative Assembly

1962

Rajendra Prasad

Activist, lawyer, statesman, and scholar

1963

Zakir Husain

Activist, economist, and education philosopher served as a Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University and the Governor of Bihar

Pandurang Vaman Kane

Indologist and Sanskrit scholar, known for his five-volume literary work

1966

Lal Bahadur Shastri

Activist and served as the second Prime Minister of India

1971

Indira Gandhi

 First women Prime Minister of India

1975

V. V. Giri

Trade Unionist

1976

K. Kamaraj

Independence activist and statesman, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu

1980

Mother Teresa

 Catholic nun and the founder of the Missionaries of Charity.

1983

Vinoba Bhave

 Activist, social reformer, and a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi

1987

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

First noncitizen, independence activist

1988

M. G. Ramachandran

Actor turned politician, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu

1990

B.R. Ambedkar

Social reformer and leader of the Dalits

Nelson Mandela

Leader of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa, President of South Africa

1991

Rajiv Gandhi

Gandhi was the ninth Prime Minister of India serving from 1984 to 1989.

Vallabhbhai Patel

Activist and first Deputy Prime Minister of India

Morarji Desai

Activist, and Prime Minister of India

1992

Abul Kalam Azad

Activist and first Minister of education

J. R. D. Tata

Industrialist, philanthropist, and aviation pioneer

Satyajit Ray

Director, filmmaker, writer, novelist

1997

Gulzarilal Nanda

Activist, and interim Prime Minister of India.

Aruna Asaf Ali

Activist

A.P.J Abdul Kalam

Aerospace and defense scientist

1998

M. S. Subbulakshmi

Carnatic classical vocalist

Chidambaram Subramaniam

Activist and former Minister of Agriculture of India

1999

Jayaprakash Narayan

 Activist, and social reformer

Amartya Sen

Economist

Gopinath Bordoloi

Activist

Ravi Shankar

Musician, sitar player

2001

Lata Mangeshkar

Singer

Bismillah Khan

Hindustani classical shehnai player

2009

Bhimsen Joshi

Hindustani classical vocalist

2014

C. N. R. Rao

 Chemist and professor, author

Sachin Tendulkar

Cricketer

2015

Madan Mohan Malaviya

Scholar and educational reformer.

Atal Bihari Bajpayee

Elected nine times to the Lok Sabha, twice to the Rajya Sabha, and served as the Prime Minister of India for three terms.

2019

Pranab Mukherjee

Indian politician, and senior leader in the Indian National Congress.

Nanaji Deshmukh

A social activist from India, education, health, and rural self-reliance.

Bhupen Hazarika

 Indian playback singer, lyricist, musician, singer, poet, and filmmaker from Assam.

2024

Karpoori Thakur

A renowned socialist leader and former Chief Minister of Bihar

Lal Krishna Advani

A Veteran Bhartiya Janta Party Leader

PV Narsimha Rao

Former Prime Minister

Chaudhary Charan Singh

A former Prime Minister who supported the agricultural sector and upheld the rights of the farmers.

MS Swaminathan

Father of Green Revolution