Bharat Ratna is the Republic of India's highest civilian award, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order." In 2011, the Minister for Home Affairs and Prime Minister of India agreed to change the eligibility criteria to allow sportspersons to receive the award.

The holders of the Bharat Ratna rank 7th in the Indian order of precedence; however, unlike knights they do not carry any special title nor any other honorifics.

History
The order was established by Rajendra Prasad, President of India, on 2 January 1954. The original statutes of January 1954 did not make allowance for posthumous awards (and this perhaps explains why the decoration was never awarded to Mahatma Gandhi), though this provision was added in the January 1966 statute. Subsequently, there have been twelve posthumous awards, including the award to Subhash Chandra Bose in 1992, which was later withdrawn due to a legal technicality, the only case of an award being withdrawn. The award was briefly suspended from 13 July 1977 to 26 January 1980.

While there was no formal provision that recipients of the Bharat Ratna should be Indian citizens, this seems to have been the general assumption. Of the 41 awards so far, there has been one award to a naturalised Indian citizen, Mother Teresa (1980), and to two non-Indians, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1987) and Nelson Mandela (1990). The awarding of this honour has frequently been the subject of litigation questioning the constitutional basis of such.