the first foreigner to receive bharat ratna was
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
title: Bharat Ratna text: receive a "Sanad" (certificate) signed by the President and a peepal-leaf–shaped medallion; there is no monetary grant associated with the award. Bharat Ratna recipients rank seventh in the Indian order of precedence. The first recipients of the Bharat Ratna were politician C. Rajagopalachari, philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and scientist C. V. Raman, who were honoured in 1954. Since then, the award has been bestowed upon 45 individuals, including 12 who were awarded posthumously. The original statutes did not provide for posthumous awards but were amended in January 1955 to permit them. Former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri became the first individual title: Bharat Ratna text: to receive the honour. In a special ceremony on 18 April 1958, Dhondo Keshav Karve was awarded on his 100th birthday. , the award has been conferred upon 45 people with 12 posthumous declarations. 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 honours 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 The suspension was rescinded on 25 January 1980, after Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister.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, title: M. S. Subbulakshmi text: M. S. Subbulakshmi Madurai Shanmukhavadivu Subbulakshmi (16 September 1916 – 11 December 2004) was an Indian Carnatic singer from Madurai, Tamil Nadu. She was the first musician ever to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour. She is the first Indian musician to receive the Ramon Magsaysay award, often considered Asia's Nobel Prize, in 1974 with the citation reading "Exacting purists acknowledge Srimati M. S. Subbulakshmi as the leading exponent of classical and semi-classical songs in the carnatic tradition of South India." Subbulakshmi (Kunjamma to her family) was born on 16 September 1916 in Madurai, Madras Presidency, India title: Bharat Ratna text: the Dalits. The posthumous conferments of the award on the recipients who died before the Indian independence in 1947 or the award was instituted in 1954 have been criticised by historians. It was noted that such conferments could lead to more demands to honour people like Maurya Emperor Ashoka, Mughal Emperor Akbar, Maratha Emperor Shivaji, Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Hindu spiritualist Swami Vivekananda, and independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The then Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao (1991–96) was criticised for bestowing the award upon Vallabhbhai Patel in 1991, 41 years after his death in 1950; and upon Subhas Chandra title: Bharat Ratna text: July 1977 to January 1980, during the change in the national government; and for a second time from August 1992 to December 1995, when several public-interest litigations challenged the constitutional validity of the awards. In 1992, the government's decision to confer the award posthumously on Subhas Chandra Bose was opposed by those who had refused to accept the fact of his death, including some members of his extended family. Following a 1997 Supreme Court decision, the press communiqué announcing Bose's award was cancelled; it is the only time when the award was announced but not conferred. Several bestowals of the