The provision of Bharat Ratna was introduced in 1954. The first-ever Indian to receive this award was the famous scientist, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman. Since then, many dignitaries have received this coveted award. There are no written provisions that Bharat Ratna Awardees should be Indian citizens only. The award has been awarded to a naturalized Indian citizen, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa (1980) and to two non-Indians – Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and Nelson Mandela (1990). Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian honor, given for exceptional service towards any field of human endeavor, without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex.
On 2nd January 1954, a press communiqué was released from the office of the secretary to the President announcing the creation of two civilian awards—Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, and the three-tier Padma Vibhushan, classified into “Pahela Warg” (Class I), “Dusra Warg” (Class II), and “Tisra Warg” (Class III), which rank below the Bharat Ratna. On 15 January 1955, the Padma Vibhushan was reclassified into three different awards; the Padma Vibhushan, the highest of the three, followed by the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri.
The award was briefly suspended twice in its history. The first suspension occurred after Morarji Desai was sworn in as the fourth Prime Minister in 1977. His government withdrew all personal civil honors on 13 July 1977. The suspension was rescinded on 25 January 1980, after Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister. The civilian awards were suspended again in mid-1992, when two Public-Interest Litigations were filed, one in the Kerala High Court and another in the Madhya Pradesh High Court, challenging the “constitutional validity” of the awards. The awards were reintroduced by the Supreme Court in December 1995, following the conclusion of the litigation.
List of Winners Of Bharat Ratna Awardees:
| 2. Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975): 1954 |
| 2. Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975): 1954 |
| 3. Dr. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970): 1954 |
| 4. Dr. Bhagwan Das (1869-1958): 1955 |
| 5. Dr. Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya (1861-1962): 1955 |
| 6. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 -1964): 1955 |
| 1. Shri Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1878-1972): 1954 |
| 8. Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve (1858-1962): 1958 |
| 9. Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy (1882-1962): 1961 |
| 10. Shri Purushottam Das Tandon (1882-1962): 1961 |
| 11. Dr. Rajendra Prasad (1884-1963): 1962 |
| 12. Dr. Zakir Husain (1897-1969): 1963 |
| 13. Dr. Pandurang Vaman Kane (1880-1972): 1963 |
| 14. Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri (Posthumous) (1904-1966): 1966 |
| 15. Smt. Indira Gandhi (1917-1984): 1971 |
| 16. Shri Varahagiri Venkata Giri (1894-1980): 1975 |
| 17. Shri Kumaraswamy Kamraj (Posthumous) (1903-1975): 1976 |
| 18. Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu (Mother Teresa) (1910-1997): 1980 |
| 19. Shri Acharya Vinoba Bhave (Posthumous) (1895-1982): 1983 |
| 20. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988): 1987 |
| 21. Shri Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran (Posthumous) (1917-1987): 1988 |
| 22. Dr. Bhim Rao Ramji Ambedkar (Posthumous) (1891-1956): 1990 |
| 23. Dr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013): 1990 |
| 24. Shri Rajiv Gandhi (Posthumous) (1944-1991): 1991 |
| 25. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Posthumous) (1875-1950): 1991 |
| 26. Shri Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (1896-1995): 1991 |
| 27. Maulana AbulKalam Azad (Posthumous) (1888-1958): 1992 |
| 28. Shri Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhai Tata (1904-1993): 1992 |
| 29. Shri Satyajit Ray (1922-1992): 1992 |
| 30. Shri Gulzarilal Nanda (1898-1998): 1997 |
| 31. Smt. Aruna Asaf Ali (Posthumous) (1909-1996): 1997 |
| 32. Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (1931-2015): 1997 |
| 33. Smt. Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi (1916-2005): 1998 |
| 34. Shri Chidambaram Subramaniam (1910-2000): 1998 |
| 35. Shri Jayaprakash Narayan (Posthumous) (1902-1979): 1999 |
| 36. Professor Amartya Sen (b-1933): 1999 |
| 37. Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi (Posthumous) (1890-1950): 1999 |
| 38. Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920-2012): 1999 |
| 39. Sushri Lata Dinanath Mangeshkar (b-1929): 2001 |
| 40. Ustad Bismillah Khan (1916-2006): 2001 |
| 41. Pandit Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi (1922-2011): 2009 |
| 42. Prof. C. N. R. Rao: 2014 |
| 43. Shri Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar(b-1973): 2014 |
| 44. Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1924-2018): 2015 |
| 45. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya (Posthumous)(1861-1946): 2015 |
| 46. Shri Nanaji Deshmukh (Posthumous)(1916-2010): 2019 |
| 47. Dr. Bhupendra Kumar Hazarika (Posthumous)(1926-2011): 2019 |
| 48. Shri Pranab Mukherjee (1935–2020): 2019 |
Also Visit: Awards and Honours of Ratan Tata