Padma Awards 2026 spotlight cinema icons, with Dharmendra honored posthumously

On the eve of Republic Day, India stitched together six decades of screen history in a single list.

The Union Home Ministry on Jan. 25 announced the 2026 Padma Awards, elevating late Hindi film star Dharmendra to the Padma Vibhushan and honoring Malayalam actor Mammootty, playback singer Alka Yagnik and actor-filmmaker R. Madhavan in the arts category. The cinema-heavy lineup underscored how the country’s highest civilian honors after the Bharat Ratna have become a stage on which India curates its cultural memory.

President Droupadi Murmu approved 131 Padma awards this year, including five Padma Vibhushan, 13 Padma Bhushan and 113 Padma Shri. Sixteen of the awards are posthumous. Nineteen women and six foreign, NRI, PIO or OCI recipients feature on the list, which is traditionally released on Jan. 25 ahead of Republic Day.

While the government has in recent years stressed the “People’s Padma” — a push to recognize unsung achievers nominated online by citizens — the most visible arts honors this year went to some of Indian cinema and music’s most familiar names.

Dharmendra’s posthumous Padma Vibhushan

Dharmendra, who died Nov. 24, 2025, at age 89, was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second-highest civilian honor, for his contribution to cinema. He had earlier received the Padma Bhushan in 2012.

Born Dharmendra Singh Deol in what is now Punjab’s Ludhiana district, the actor rose from a Filmfare talent hunt winner in the late 1950s to one of Hindi cinema’s dominant stars through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He was often branded Bollywood’s “He-Man” for his action roles, yet some of his best-remembered work, such as the comedies Chupke Chupke and Seeta Aur Geeta, showcased his timing and charm as much as his physicality.

His turn as Veeru in the 1975 blockbuster Sholay — perched theatrically on a water tank threatening to jump if his love interest’s family did not relent — became part of popular folklore. Off screen, Dharmendra produced films including Ghayal, which won the National Award for best popular film, and served one term in Parliament as a Bharatiya Janata Party member from Bikaner, Rajasthan, between 2004 and 2009.

The posthumous elevation from Padma Bhushan to Padma Vibhushan places him in a small club of screen artists to receive the second-highest civilian honor. His wife, actor and MP Hema Malini, said in public remarks that the family was proud the government had recognized his “immense contribution to Indian cinema,” describing the award as an emotional tribute coming just months after his death.

Mammootty’s Padma Bhushan marks recognition for Malayalam cinema

If Dharmendra represents Hindi cinema’s post-independence mainstream, the Padma Bhushan for Mammootty signals the center’s embrace of a regional industry long regarded by critics as one of India’s most accomplished.

Mammootty, whose full name is Muhammad Kutty Panaparambil Ismail, was named for the Padma Bhushan in the arts category, nearly three decades after he received the Padma Shri in 1998. Now 74, the actor has appeared in more than 400 films, primarily in Malayalam but also in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and English. He is one of only three actors — along with Kamal Haasan and Ajay Devgn — to have won the National Film Award for best actor three times.

Speaking to Malayalam television after the announcement, Mammootty called the honor “santosham, athi santhosham (happiness, great happiness),” and added, “There is nothing bigger than the honor from the country.” In another interview he said, “Nothing is bigger than the nation’s honor,” framing the recognition in national terms rather than only as a film industry accolade.

Tributes from peers in the South underscored his stature. Actor Mohanlal, a frequent co-star and friendly rival who received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2025, posted, “Ichakka, absolutely delighted to know you’ve been conferred the Padma Bhushan. Heartfelt congratulations. Wishing you continued grace and glory,” using an affectionate term for older brother. Kamal Haasan likened their decades-long friendship to celebrated companions in Tamil literature and wrote, “My friend Mammootty has now become Padma Bhushan Mammootty.”

Mammootty remains active on screen and behind the scenes. He heads Malayalam Communications, which runs the Kairali television network, and will appear later this year in the spy thriller Patriot, co-starring Mohanlal, as well as in Padayaatra, his first collaboration in more than three decades with director Adoor Gopalakrishnan.

Alka Yagnik’s Padma Bhushan and the streaming-era afterlife of playback

In music, the Padma Bhushan for Alka Yagnik formally acknowledges a voice that has, for many listeners, defined Hindi film romance from the late 1980s through the early 2000s — and, increasingly, the digital age.

Yagnik, born in Kolkata in 1966, entered playback singing as a child and rose to prominence with chart-topping numbers in films such as Tezaab, Dil, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Taal. She has won two National Film Awards for best female playback singer and seven Filmfare Awards in the same category, tied for the record.

Beyond domestic awards, she has become a statistical outlier in the streaming era. Analytics firms and Guinness World Records have cited her as the world’s most-streamed music artist on YouTube in 2020 and 2021, with tens of billions of streams, driven in large part by repeat listening to 1990s and 2000s Hindi film songs in India and the South Asian diaspora.

The Padma Bhushan comes two years after Yagnik disclosed she had been diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss. The singer said then that the condition had arrived “suddenly” and that she was following medical advice, a revelation that prompted messages of support from fans and colleagues. The state honor now lands at a time when her future as an active playback singer is uncertain but her existing body of work has unprecedented visibility online.

R. Madhavan receives Padma Shri

Another of the arts honorees, R. Madhavan, represents a newer generation of cinema figures who have moved between languages and platforms and taken on institutional roles.

Madhavan, listed under his full name Madhavan Ranganathan and categorized in the arts from Maharashtra, received the Padma Shri for his contributions to film. The Jamshedpur-born actor first gained widespread notice with Mani Ratnam’s Tamil romance Alai Payuthey in 2000 and quickly built a parallel Hindi career with films such as Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein, Rang De Basanti and the blockbuster 3 Idiots. Later roles in Tanu Weds Manu and the Tamil thriller Vikram Vedha reinforced his pan-Indian appeal.

In 2022, he wrote, directed and starred in Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, a biopic of former Indian Space Research Organisation scientist Nambi Narayanan, who was falsely accused of espionage in the 1990s and later exonerated. The film premiered at the Cannes Marché du Film and went on to win the National Film Award for best feature film. In 2023, Madhavan was appointed president of the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, giving him an official role in shaping film education policy.

Reacting to the Padma announcement, Madhavan said in a statement that he accepted the Padma Shri “with profound gratitude and humility,” calling it “beyond my wildest dreams.” He said he was receiving the honor “on behalf of my entire family” and described it as “not just an award, but a responsibility” he would carry with “dignity, sincerity, and a deep sense of commitment.”

A broader roster — and what the list signals

The four marquee names are part of a broader arts roster that includes Hindustani classical violinist N. Rajam, who was elevated to the Padma Vibhushan after earlier Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan honors, and posthumous recognitions for advertising veteran Piyush Pandey and television and film actor Satish Shah. Bengali film star Prosenjit Chatterjee, Gujarati and Hindi stage and screen actors, and several regional theater practitioners also received the Padma Shri.

Beyond arts, this year’s list continued a trend of honoring sports figures who double as cultural icons. India men’s cricket captain Rohit Sharma and women’s team captain Harmanpreet Kaur were among those named for Padma honors, reflecting the convergence of sport and entertainment in the country’s public life.

The Home Ministry has stressed that the 2026 selection emerged from around 39,000 nominations submitted through the government’s online awards portal, part of an effort to widen the pool and increase representation from historically underrecognized communities and districts. Officials highlighted the 16 posthumous awards and the geographic spread of honorees, with states such as Maharashtra and Kerala prominently represented.

At the same time, the prominence of long-celebrated film and music personalities on the list illustrates how the Padma Awards function as much as instruments of cultural canon formation as they do tools to spotlight “unknown heroes.” The posthumous elevation of Dharmendra, the long-delayed higher honor for Mammootty, the recognition of a behind-the-scenes playback singer whose work dominates global streaming charts, and the nod to a mid-career actor-director now associated with space science storytelling collectively map the themes the state is choosing to emphasize.

In March or April, when the recipients walk up at Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive the bronze lotus-shaped medals from the president, they will stand not only as individual artists, but also as symbols of the eras and narratives the Indian republic has decided to formally inscribe in its public record — from the “He-Man” of a 1970s blockbuster and the quiet intensity of Malayalam drama to the familiar refrain of a 1990s love song and the arc of a scientist on screen.