The longlist for the fourth edition of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize was announced by the New India Foundation (NIF) yesterday, that saw 12 books get featured in a list comprising diverse works of non-fiction that aim to represent “independent India’s cultural, political, and social milieu”.
Started in 2018, the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize celebrates non-fiction literature published in the previous calendar year by emerging writers of all nationalities, with the objective of promoting NIF’s mission of sponsoring all-encompassing research and writing about India.
Professor Niraja Gopal Jaya Courtesy of NIF
The jury this year included the likes of political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal, entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani, historian Nayanjot Lahiri, entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal and historian Srinath Raghavan.
Last year’s iteration of the award saw Amit Ahuja for his debut Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements and Jairam Ramesh for his biography A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon winning jointly.
The shortlist comprising six titles will be announced in the last week of October.
Professor Niraja Gopal Jayal, jury member and trustee, NIF, tells us more:
Tell us about the process of choosing the longlisted books from the nominations?
We received about 150 nominations this year. Arriving at a longlist of just 12 books was challenging because there were so many excellent books to choose from. The longlisted books are the very best of those nominated, and the best in their respective genres.
Is there a new direction that non-fiction books in India are headed towards this year?
For the prize, the direction is largely determined by the nominations. For instance, in the previous year, we had more books on the environment. This year, we received many more nominations of biographies, as also some books on art and music.
If we were to try and discern a general trend on the basis of nominations for the prize, it would be that there are many more biographies being written, including of lesser-known Indians, which is altogether a good thing. The recent interest in the early days of our republic has also been sustained. Both these trends suggest that writers are exploring the complicated legacies of our history in defining who we are.
The 2021 longlist is:
- Muscular India: Masculinity, Mobility & the New Middle Class by Michiel Baas (Context, Westland)
- The Death Script: Dreams and Delusions in Naxal Country by Ashutosh Bhardwaj (Fourth Estate, HarperCollins Publishers)
- India’s First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-77 by Christophe Jaffrelot & Pratinav Anil (HarperCollins Publishers)
- Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First-Century India by Ravinder Kaur (Stanford University Press)
- India’s Founding Moment: The Constitution of a Most Surprising Democracy by Madhav Khosla (Harvard University Press)
- Sebastian & Sons: A Brief History of Mrdangam Makers by T.M. Krishna (Context, Westland)
- The Greater India Experiment: Hindutva and the Northeast by Arkotong Longkumer (Stanford University Press)
- I Could Not Be Hindu: The Story of a Dalit in the RSS by Bhanwar Meghwanshi; Translated by Nivedita Menon (Navayana)
- Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism by Dinyar Patel (Harvard University Press)
- Gandhi in the Gallery: The Art of Disobedience by Sumathi Ramaswamy (Roli Books)
- The Coolie’s Great War: Indian Labour in a Global Conflict 1914-1921 by Radhika Singha (HarperCollins Publishers)
- Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi by Vinay Sitapati (Penguin Random House)