New Delhi, September 17, 2017: Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award of the Republic of India and is given for exceptional performance in any of the fields of human Endeavour.
C Rajagopalachari (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954): C Rajagopalachari, informally called Rajaji or C.R., was the Governor General of India from 1948 to 1950. He served as the Chief Minister of the Madras Presidency from 1937 to 1939, at the time of British rule. He was the Chief Minister of the Madras State from 1952 to 1954. He was also the founder of the Swatantra Party.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954): Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was an esteemed Indian philosopher. He was the Vice President of India from 1952 to 1962 and the second President of India from 1962 to 1967. It's on his birthday, which falls on September 5, we celebrate Teacher's Day in India.
CV Raman (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954): CV Raman was an internationally acclaimed scientist and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. He is widely known around the world for his remarkable work called Raman Scattering, which deals with the scattering of light and its effect.
Bhagwan Das (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955): Bhagwan Das was an Indian theosophist who co-founded the Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith in 1921. It was with his assistance that Madan Mohan Malaviya established the Banaras Hindu University.
M Visvesvaraya (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955): M Visvesvaraya was a renowned engineer and it's on his birthday, which falls on 15 September, Engineer's Day is celebrated in India.
Jawahar Lal Nehru (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1955): Jawahar Lal Nehru was the first Prime Minister of free India and the leading figure in the Indian independence movement. Also known as Chacha Nehru, his birthday, which falls on November 14, is celebrated around the country as Children's Day.
Govind Ballabh Pant (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1957): Govind Ballabh Pant was the first chief minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1950 to 1954, and became the home minister of India in 1955. He played a significant role in the freedom movement as well as in the government during British rule and in independent India.
Dhondo Keshav Karve (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1958): Karve was a social reformer who played a vital role in the upliftment of women in the country. He worked for remarriage of Hindu widows and education of women. He started many organizations for women development such as the Widow Marriage Association and the Hindu Widows Home. The Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women's University was established by him in 1916.
Bidhan Chandra Roy (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1961): Bidhan Chandra Roy was an acclaimed physician and a freedom fighter. He also served the Chief Minister of Bengal from 1948 to 1962. His birthday on July 1 is observed around the country as National Doctor's Day.
Purushottam Das Tandon (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1961): Purushottam Das Tandon was a freedom fighter who was given the title of Rajarshi. He is known and remembered for his campaign asking to provide Hindi, the official language status.
Rajendra Prasad (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1962): Rajendra Prasad was the President of India from 1950 to 1962. Other than that, he was also a brilliant scholar, a lawyer, and statesman.
Zakir Husain (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1963): Zakir Hussain was the Vice President of India from 1962 to 1967 and the President from 1967 to 1969. He has also served as the Vice Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University from 1948 to 1956.
Pandurang Vaman Kane (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1963): Kane was a Sanskrit scholar as well as a notable Indologist. He is known for his monumental work, History of Dharmaśāstra: Ancient and Medieval Religious and Civil Law in India.
Lal Bahadur Shastri (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1966): Lal Bahadur Shastri served as the Prime Minister of India from 1964 to 1966. He is the originator of the famous slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan.
Indira Gandhi (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1971): India Gandhi was the prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977, and 1980 to 1984. She is known as the Iron Lady of India. She was responsible for the liberation of Bangladesh in the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971.
V V Giri (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1975): V V Giri was the first acting president of India and a noted freedom fighter.
K Kamraj (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1976): Kamraj was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu from 1954–57, 1957–62, and 1962–63.
Mother Teresa (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1980): Mother Teresa is widely known around the world for her humanitarian work. She received the Nobel Peace Price in 1979.
list of all Bharat Ratna award winners
Vinoba Bhave (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1983): Vinoba Bhave was a social reformer and an active freedom fighter. He is famous for the Bhoodan movement, a Land-Gift movement. He was also awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1958.
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1987): Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a noted freedom fighter who founded the Khudai Khidmatgar in 1929. He was a devoted follower of Mahatma Gandhi, and was known as the Frontier Gandhi.
M G Ramachandran (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1988): Ramachandran was an actor who later went into politics. He was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu during the years 1977–80, 1980–84, and 1985–87.
B R Ambedkar (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1990): B R Ambedkar was a Dalit leader who fought against social discrimination that Dalits used to witness. Ambedkar is the drafter of the Indian Constitution and was also appointed as the first Law Minister of the country.
Nelson Mandela (Awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1990): Mandela famous for his significant role in South Africa's Anti-Apartheid Movement, was the President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, and is also called the Gandhi of South Africa.
Rajiv Gandhi (Awarded Bharat in 1991): He was the Prime Minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He was the youngest Prime Minister of India at the age of 40.
Vallabhbhai Patel (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1991): Vallabhbhai Patel, a freedom fighter, played a prominent role in integrating the princely states into the Indian Union. It was for the same reason that he came to be known as the Iron Man of India.
Morarji Desai (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1991): He was the Prime Minister of India from 1977 to 1979. Desai is the only Indian to have bagged Nishan-e-Pakistan, the highest civilian award presented by the Pakistan government.
Abdul Kalam Azad (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1992): Abdul Kalam Azad was the first Minister of Education. 11th November, which is Kalam's birthday, is observed as the National Education Day in India. He is also known as the missile man of India.
JRD Tata (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1992): JRD Tata was an industrialist and a philanthropist. He is famous for his accomplishments such as establishment of Air India as well as institutes such as Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
Satyajit Ray (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1992): Satyajit ray was an Indian filmmaker and author. Ray received Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1984. Some of his most famous works are Pather Panchali and Shatranj ke Khilari.
Gulzarilal Nanda (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1997): Gulzarilal Nanda served as the interim Prime Minister of India in 1964 and 1966. He has also served twice as the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission
Aruna Asaf Ali (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1997): Aruna Asaf Ali, a prominent freedom fighter became the first mayor of Delhi in 1958.
A P J Abdul Kalam (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1997): Kalam was the President of India from 2002 to 2007. He was also an acclaimed aerospace and defense scientist.
list of all Bharat Ratna award winners
MS Subbulakshmi (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1998): Subbulakshmi was a Carnatic classical vocalist who became the first Indian to have won the Ramon Magsaysay award. He is also known as the Queen of Songs.
Chidambaram Subramaniam (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1998): Subramaniam was India's Agriculture Minister form 1964 to 1966. He made a remarkable contribution towards Green Revolution.
Jayaprakash Narayan (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1999): Jayaprakash Narayan, also known as Lok Nayak, is known for his struggle against the government of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, for which he initiated the Total Revolution Movement.
Amartya Sen (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1999): Amartya Sen, an acclaimed economist, had done research in a number of topics. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998.
Gopinath Bordoloi (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1999): Gopinath served as the Chief Minister of Assam from 1946 to 1950. He played an important role in keeping Assam united with India at the time of partition.
Ravi Shankar (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 1999): Ravi Shankar was an internationally recognized sitar player. He has won four Grammy Awards. Some of his famous works include collaborations with George Harrison.
Lata Mangeshkar (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 2001): Lata Mangeshkar, owing to her melodious voice, is referred as the Nightingale of India. She won the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1989.
Bismillah Khan (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 2001): Bismillah Khan was a Shehnai player famous not only India but all over the world. He played a major role in the popularization of shehnai.
Bhimsen Joshi (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 2009): Bhimsen Joshi was a renowned vocalist from the state of Karnataka. He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1998.
CNR Rao (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 2014): Rao is a professor and chemist, who has significantly worked in the fields of Spectroscopy, Molecular Structure, Solid State, and Materials Chemistry. He is a holder of prestigious positions, like the Director of the ISI, National Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Professor, all in India, University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and Eberly Professor of Statistics and Director of the Center for Multivariate Analysis at Pennsylvania State University in USA.
Sachin Tendulkar (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 2014): Sachin is considered as one of the best cricket players in the world. Sachin. He has added many records in his career of two decades, including the record of being the first batsman to score a double century in a One Day International.
Madan Mohan Malaviya (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 2015): Madan Mohan Malviya founded the Banaras Hindu University. He also served as the president of the Indian National Congress.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Awarded Bharat Ratna in 2015): Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of India during the years 1996, 1998 and 1999 to 2004. In 1994, he was given the Best Parliamentarian Award.
-prepared by Samiksha Goel of NewsGram. Twitter @goel_samiksha