The NIF Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize builds on the New India Foundation’s mission to sponsor high-quality research and writing on all aspects of the world’s largest democracy. Works written originally in English or translated into English are eligible across a range of genres. The prize was named to honour the legacy of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: the great patriot and institution-builder who contributed significantly to the freedom struggle, to the women’s movement, to refugee rehabilitation and to the renewal of Indian theatre and handicrafts.
New India Foundation is based in Bengaluru, the core activity of the New India Foundation is the NIF Book Fellowships (currently accepting applications) which have been awarded to scholars and writers for two decades to enable the highest standard of research and writing about India after Independence, resulting in the publication of 34 books covering an extraordinary range of topics. The NIF Translation Fellowships were instituted in 2021 and expand upon the core idea of fostering non-fiction by translating knowledge texts from 10 Indian languages to English. The NIF Book and Translation Fellowships are awarded in alternate years. Ramachandra Guha, Nandan Nilekani, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Manish Sabharwal, and Srinath Raghavan are the Trustees of the New India Foundation.
The 2024 KCBP Longlist was selected by an eminent Jury, including political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal (Chair of the Book Prize), historian Srinath Raghavan, entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal, former diplomat and author Navtej Sarna, lawyer Rahul Matthan, and public policy researcher Yamini Aiyar.
Jury Comment: “The landscape of Indian non-fiction today is prolific, exciting and constantly pushing boundaries, and we congratulate all the nominated authors and their publishers.”
The 2024 Longlist (in alphabetical order of the last names of the authors) is:
- Aditya Balasubramanian: Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India (Princeton University Press)
- Sudha Bharadwaj: From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada (Juggernaut)
- Joya Chatterji: Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century (Penguin)
- Neerja Chowdhury: How Prime Ministers Decide (Aleph Book Company)
- Ashok Gopal: A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar (Navayana)
- Radhika Iyengar: Fire on the Ganges: Life Among the Dead in Banaras (HarperCollins)
- Michael O’Sullivan: No Birds of Passage: A History of Gujarati Muslim Business Communities 1800-1975 (Harvard University Press)
- Kunal Purohit: H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars (HarperCollins)
- AR Venkatachalapathy: Swadeshi Steam: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle Against the British Maritime Empire (Penguin)
- Chitralekha Zutshi: Sheikh Abdullah: The Caged Lion of Kashmir (HarperCollins)
