Bharat Ratna tally at 53, 5 of them to women: Here's the list of awardees

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing on Friday that India’s highest civilian honour will be given to former prime ministers Chaudhary Charan Singh and P V Narasimha Rao, and also to agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan, the tally of those conferred with the Bharat Ratna rises to 53. This year’s list also has, as announced last month, former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur and former deputy prime minister L K Advani.

This is the most Bharat Ratnas in a year.

So far, five women have received the honour since it began in 1954. Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first woman to receive it in 1971, followed by Mother Teresa in 1980, independence activist Aruna Asaf Ali in 1997, and singers M S Subbalakshmi (1998) and Lata Mangeshkar (2001).

The recipients include six former presidents, nine former prime ministers, and seven former chief ministers, taking the number of people from public affairs to 31. Former president A P J Abdul Kalam was conferred the award not for public affairs but science, taking the total of those receiving it for science and engineering to four, including Swaminathan (though the categories for this year have not been announced).

Six have received it for social work, seven for arts (including singers), two for literature and education, and one each for civil service, sports, and trade and industry.

Bharat Ratna

List of Awardees

Art: Dr Bhupendra Kumar Hazarika (Posthumous), Pandit Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi, Lata Mangeshkar, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar, MS Subbalakshmi, Satyajit Ray (Posthumous)

Civil Service: M Visvesvaraya

Literature and Education: Amartya Sen, Dr Bhagwan Das

Public Affairs: Pranab Mukherjee, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya (Posthumous), Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jayaprakash Narayan (Posthumous), Sri Chidambaram Subramaniam, Gopinath Bordoloi (Posthumous), Gulzari Lal Nanda (Posthumous), Aruna Asaf Ali (Posthumous), Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (Posthumous), Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (Posthumous), Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi (Posthumous), Dr BR Ambedkar (Posthumous), Dr Nelson Mandela, MG Ramachandran (Posthumous), Kumaraswamy Kamraj (Posthumous), V V Giri, Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri (Posthumous), Dr Zakir Husain, Dr Rajendra Prasad, Bidhan Chandra Roy, Purushottam Das Tandon, GB Pant, Jawaharlal Nehru, S Radhakrishnan, C Rajagopalachari, Karpoori Thakur (Posthumous), LK Advani, PV Narasimha Rao (Posthumous), Chaudhary Charan Singh (Posthumous)

Science and Engineering: Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, CV Raman, MS Swaminathan (Posthumous)

Social Work: Nanaji Deshmukh (Posthumous), Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Acharya Vinoba Bhave (Posthumous), Mother Teresa, Dr Pandurang Vaman Kane, Dr Dhondo Keshav Karve

Sports: Sachin Tendulkar

Trade and Industry: JRD Tata

Note: Recipient names from 1954 till date

Source: Ministry of Home Affairs