Bharat Ratna Award Winners

The Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award provided by the Union of India. It is awarded to distinctive personalities from various fields. The Prime Minister recommended this award to the President. It should be noted every year, a maximum of 3 persons can be awarded the Bharat Ratna Award. These people get certificates signed by the President and a peepal-leaf-shaped medallion. The last Bharat Ratna award was given in 2019. There is no Bharat Ratna award given in 2020 and 2021. So, we have not received any Bharat Ratna 2021 winners. The first Bharat Ratna award-winner woman was Indira Gandhi. Thus, let us know about the Bharat Ratna award winners. 

List Of Bharat Ratna Award Winners

1954 Recipients

They are the first Bharat Ratna award winners. 

Dr. C.V Raman:-

• Physicist

• Worked in the field of Atomic Physics and Electromagnetism

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

• India’s first Vice-President (1952–62) 

• India’s second President (1962–67).

C. Rajagopalachari

• Lawyer

• Last Governor-General of independent India

• Founder of the Indian political party Swatantra Party. 

1955 Recipients

Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru

• First and longest Prime Minister of India who won Bharat Ratna(1947–64)

Dr. M Visvesvaraya

• Civil engineer

• His birthday, 15 September, is celebrated as “Engineer’s Day” in India.

Dr. Bhagwan Das

• Work with Malaviya for the foundation of Banaras Hindu University.

1957 Recipients

Pt. Govind Ballabh Pant

• First Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh

1958 Recipients

Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve

• Work for women’s education and remarriage of Hindu widows.

1961 Recipients

Purushottam Das Tandon

• Involve in a campaign to get official language status to Hindi.

Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy

• Physician

• His birthday, 1 July, is celebrated as Doctor’s Day. 

1962 Recipients

Dr. Rajendra Prasad

• First President of India (1950–62).

1963 Recipients

Dr. Zakir Husain

• Second Vice-President of India (1962–67) 

• Third President of India (1967–69).

Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kane

• Ideologist and Sanskrit scholar

• He is known for his five-volume literary work.

1966 Recipients

 Lal Bahadur Shashtri (Posthumous)

• Second Prime Minister of India

1971 Recipients

 Indira Gandhi

• First woman, third Prime Minister of India

• First Bharat Ratna award-winner woman

1975 Recipients

V.V Giri

• Fourth President of India

1976 Recipients

 K. Kamaraj (Posthumous)

• Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu 

1980 Recipients

Mother Teresa

• Founder of the Missionaries of Charity

• Managed homes for people who were dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis

1983 Recipients

Vinoba Bhave

• Bhave is best known for his Bhoodan movement

1987 Recipients

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

• Founded Khudai Khidmatgar

1988 Recipients

M.G Ramachandran

• Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu

1990 Recipients

Nelson Mandela

• He is called the Gandhi of South Africa. 

• First President of South Africa who won the Bharat Ratna. 

Dr. B.R Ambedkar

• First Law Minister

• The chief architect of the Indian Constitution. 

1991 Recipients

Morarji Desai

• sixth Prime Minister of India

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Posthumous)

• first Deputy Prime Minister of India

Rajiv Gandhi (Posthumous)

• ninth Prime Minister of India 

1992 Recipients

Satyajit Ray

• Having debuted as a director with Pather Panchali

J.R.D Tata

• Founder of India’s first airline Air India, Tata Memorial Hospital, TCS. 

Abul Kalam Azad (Posthumous)

• First Education Minister

• His birthday, 11 November, is celebrated as National Education Day. 

1997 Recipients

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

• 11th President of India

Aruna Asaf Ali (Posthumous)

• Elected as Delhi’s first Mayor 

Gulzarilal Nanda

• Prime Minister of India

1998 Recipients

Chidambaram Subramaniam

• Former Minister of Agriculture

M.S. Subbulakshmi

• known for her divine voice

1999 Recipients

Ravi Shankar

• Considered the World’s best-known exponent of Hindustani Classical Music

Gopinath Bordoloi (Posthumous)

• First Chief Minister of Assam

Amartya Sen

• Research on ethics and political philosophy, economics. 

Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan (Posthumous)

• Known for the Total Revolution Movement

2001 Recipients

Bismillah Khan

• He Played instrument for more than eight decades

Lata Mangeshkar

• She has sung songs in over 36 languages.

2009 Recipients

Bhimsen Joshi

• Hindustani classical vocalist

2014 Recipients

Sachin Tendulkar

• Played 664 international Cricket matches

C. N. R. Rao

• worked in the fields of Materials Chemistry, Solid State, and Spectroscopy.

2015 Recipients

Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee

• Prime Minister of India for three terms

Madan Mohan Malaviya (Posthumous)

• Founder of Banaras Hindu University

2019 Recipients

Nanaji Deshmukh

• Worked in the fields of health, education, and rural self-reliance

Bhupen Hazarika

• Indian Playback Singer from Assam

Pranab Mukherjee

• 13th President of India ( 2012-2017) 

• Union Finance Minister ( 2009-2012) 

We have not received Bharat Ratna 2021 winners.

Conclusion

We know the list of Bharat Ratna Award Winners from the above. The Bharat Ratna is awarded without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex. These award winners are ranked 7th in the Indian order of priority. Two non-Indians have received this award. Sachin Tendulkar was the first youngest recipient to receive the Bharat Ratna Award. 

In contrast, Dhondo Keshav Karve received the Bharat Ratna Award on his 100th birthday. Moreover, Indira Gandhi is the first woman Bharat Ratna award winner. The Bharat Ratna was suspended from July 1977 to January 1980 due to the change in the national government. And again suspended from August 1992 to December 1995.