Bharat Ratna ( Jewel of India) is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India. Instituted on 2 January 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. Recommendations for the Bharat Ratna are made by the Prime Minister to the President, with a maximum of three nominees being awarded per year. Recipients receive a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a peepal-leaf–shaped medallion; there is no monetary grant associated with the award. Bharat Ratna recipients rank seventh in the Indian order of precedence, but are constitutionally prohibited from using the award name as a title.
The first recipients of the Bharat Ratna were politician C. Rajagopalachari, scientist C. V. Raman and philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who were honoured in 1954. Since then, the award has been bestowed on 45 individuals including 11 who were awarded posthumously. The original statutes did not provide for posthumous awards but were amended in January 1955 to permit them. In 1966, former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri became the first individual to be honoured posthumously. In 2013, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, aged 40, became the youngest recipient while social reformer Dhondo Keshav Karve was awarded on his 100th birthday. Though usually conferred on Indian citizens, the Bharat Ratna has been awarded to one naturalised citizen, Mother Teresa in 1980, and to two non-Indians, Pakistan national Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan in 1987 and former South African President Nelson Mandela in 1990. Most recently, Indian government has announced the award to freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malaviya (posthumously) and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 24 December 2014.
List of laureates awarded with the Bharat Ratna
| Year | Laureates | Notes | |||||
| 1954 | C. Rajagopalachari | Independence activist, last and only Indian Governor-General of India | |||||
| C. V. Raman | Nobel laureate physicist (1930) | ||||||
| Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan | Philosopher, India’s first Vice-President (1952–62), and second President (1962–67) | ||||||
| 1955 | Bhagwan Das | Independence activist, theosophist, and founder of Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith | |||||
| Visvesvaraya | Civil engineer, statesman and Diwan of Mysore (1912–18) | ||||||
| Jawaharlal Nehru | Independence activist, author, and first Prime Minister of India (1947–64) | ||||||
| 1957 | Govind Ballabh Pant | Independence activist, first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (1950–54) | |||||
| 1958 | Dhondo Keshav Karve | Social reformer | |||||
| 1961 | Bidhan Chandra Roy | Physician-Surgeon and second Chief Minister of West Bengal (1948–62) | |||||
| Purushottam Das Tandon | Independence activist, educator | ||||||
| 1962 | Rajendra Prasad | Independence activist, lawyer, first President of India (1950–62) | |||||
| 1963 | Zakir Hussain | Independence activist, second Vice-President of India (1962–67), and third President of India (1967–69) | |||||
| Pandurang Vaman Kane | Indologist and Sanskrit scholar | ||||||
| 1966 | Lal Bahadur Shastri | Independence activist and third Prime Minister of India (1964–66) | |||||
| 1971 | Indira Gandhi | Former Prime Minister of India (1966–77, 1980–84) | |||||
| 1975 | V. V. Giri | Trade unionist, first Acting President of India, and fourth President of India (1969–74) | |||||
| 1976 | K. Kamaraj | Independence activist and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (1954–57, 1957–62, 1962–63) | |||||
| 1980 | Mother Teresa | Catholic nun, founder of the Missionaries of Charity and Nobel peace prize laureate (1979) | |||||
| 1983 | Vinoba Bhave | Independence activist, social reformer, and Ramon Magsaysay Award laureate (1958) | |||||
| 1987 | Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan | Independence activist | |||||
| 1988 | M. G. Ramachandran | Film actor and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (1977–80, 1980–84, 1985–87) | |||||
| 1990 | B. R. Ambedkar | Chief architect of the Indian Constitution and social reformer | |||||
| Nelson Mandela | Leader of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1993) | ||||||
| 1991 | Rajiv Gandhi | Ninth Prime Minister of India (1984–89) | |||||
| Vallabhbhai Patel | Independence activist and first Deputy Prime Minister of India (1947–50) | ||||||
| Morarji Desai | Independence activist and sixth Prime Minister of India (1977–79) | ||||||
| 1992 | Abul Kalam Azad | Independence activist | |||||
| J. R. D. Tata | Industrialist and philanthropist | ||||||
| Satyajit Ray | Filmmaker | ||||||
| 1997 | Gulzarilal Nanda | Independence activist and two times interim Prime Minister of India | |||||
| Aruna Asaf Ali | Independence activist | ||||||
| A. P. J. Abdul Kalam | Aerospace and Defense Scientist, eleventh President of India (2002–07) | ||||||
| 1998 | M. S. Subbulakshmi | Carnatic classical vocalist | |||||
| Chidambaram Subramaniam | Independence activist and former Minister of Agriculture of India (1964–66) | ||||||
| 1999 | Jayaprakash Narayan | Independence activist and social reformer | |||||
| Ravi Shankar | Hindustani classical Sitar player | ||||||
| Amartya Sen | Nobel laureate economist (1998) | ||||||
| Gopinath Bordoloi | Independence activist, first Chief Minister of Assam (1946–50) | ||||||
| 2001 | Lata Mangeshkar | Playback singer | |||||
| Bismillah Khan | Hindustani classical Shehnai player | ||||||
| 2009 | Bhimsen Joshi | Hindustani classical vocalist | |||||
| 2013 | C. N. R. Rao | Chemist | |||||
| Sachin Tendulkar | Cricketer | ||||||
| 2014 | Madan Mohan Malaviya | Educationist and politician (President of Indian National Congress (INC) in 1909, 1918) | |||||
| Atal Bihari Vajpayee | Former Prime Minister of India (1996), (1998), (1999-2004), poet | ||||||
