Former Bihar Chief Minister Karpoori Thakur has been named for Bharat Ratna posthumously. The two-time CM is considered the fountainhead of OBC politics in Bihar and was the first non-Congress socialist leader to become CM twice.
Thakur, known affectionately as 'Jan Nayak' (people's leader), is the 49th recipient of the country's highest civilian award. The award was last conferred on late president Pranab Mukherjee in 2019. Of the 49 awards, 15 were conferred posthumously.
Here is a look at all 49 Bharat Ratna awardees till date:
- C. Rajagopalachari - former Governor-General, Union Home Minister and Independence activist - 1954
- S. Radhakrishnan - former President of India - 1954
- C.V Raman - Nobel laureate and physicist - 1954
- Bhagwan Das - Independence activist, philosopher, and educationist - 1955
- M. Visvesvaraya – Diwan of erstwhile Mysore princely state, civil engineer - 1955
- Jawaharlal Nehru - former Prime Minister and Independence activist - 1955
- Govind Ballabh Pant - Independence activist - 1957
- Dhondo Keshav Karve - social reformer and educator - 1958
- Bidhan Chandra Roy - physician, political leader, philanthropist, educationist, and social worker - 1961
- Purushottam Das Tandon - Independence activist - 1961
- Rajendra Prasad - former President of India, Independence activist, lawyer - 1962
- Zakir Husain - Independence activist, became President of India after winning award - 1963
- Pandurang Vaman Kane - Indologist and Sanskrit scholar -1963
- Indira Gandhi - former Prime Minister - 1971
- V.V. Giri - former President of India - 1975
- Mother Teresa - founder of the Missionaries of Charity - 1980
- Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan - Independence activist - 1987
- Nelson Mandela - anti-apartheid activist - 1990
- Morarji Desai - former Prime Minister and Independence activist - 1991
- J.R.D Tata - Industrialist - 1992
- Satyajit Ray - Filmmaker - 1992
- Gulzari Lal Nanda - Independence activist - 1997
- A.P.J. Abdul Kalam - former President of India, aerospace, defence scientist -1997
- M.S. Subbulakshmi - Carnatic classical vocalist - 1998
- Chidambaram Subramaniam - Independence activist - 1998
- Amartya Sen - economist - 1999
- Ravi Shankar sitar player - 1999
- Lata Mangeshkar - playback singer - 2001
- Ustad Bismillah Khan - Hindustani classical shehnai player - 2001
- Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi - Hindustani classical vocalist - 2009
- C.N.R. Rao - chemist and professor - 2014
- Sachin Tendulkar - cricketer - 2014
- Atal Bihari Vajpayee - former Prime Minister - 2015
- Pranab Mukherjee - former President of India, Union Minister of Finance, External Affairs and Defence - 2019
Posthumous Bharat Ratna
- Lal Bahadur Shastri - former Prime Minister and Independence activist - 1966
- K. Kamraj - former Tamil Nadu chief minister - 1976
- Vinoba Bhave - Independence activist, social reformer -1983
- M.G. Ramachandran - actor and former Tamil Nadu chief minister -1988
- B.R. Ambedkar - social reformer -1990
- Rajiv Gandhi - former Prime Minister of India -1991
- Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel - Independence activist - 1991
- Maulana Abul Kalam Azad - Independence activist -1992
- Aruna Asaf Ali - Independence activist - 1997
- Jayaprakash Narayan - Independence activist, social reformer - 1999
- Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi - Independence activist – 1999
- Madan Mohan Malaviya - scholar and educational reformer - 2015
- Nanaji Deshmukh - social activist - 2019
- Bhupendra Kumar Hazarika - playback singer, lyricist, musician, poet, and filmmaker – 2019
- Karpoori Thakur - former Bihar chief minister - 2024