Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize
Sponsored byNew India Foundation
CountryIndia
EligibilityNon-fiction books about contemporary and modern India
First awarded2018

The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize is awarded annually for non-fiction books on modern or contemporary India which were published in the preceding year. The Prize was established in 2018 by the New India Foundation, a charitable trust that also awards research fellowships and book grants to Indian scholars and writers. Winners of the prize include politician and writer Jairam Ramesh, and historian Ornit Shani, and authors shortlisted for the prize include Aanchal Malhotra, Sujatha Gidla, Katherine Eban, Christophe Jaffrelot, Piers Vitebsky, Alpa Shah, and Manoranjan Byapari.

Establishment

The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize was established by the New India Foundation, a charitable organisation which also awards research fellowships and book grants for Indian writers.[1] Trustees of the foundation include political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal, businessmen Manish Sabharwal and Nandan Nilekani, historians Ramachandra Guha, and Srinath Raghavan.[2] The foundation provides grants for scholars and writers who are writing non-fiction and fiction books about India, and also provides translation grants for works translated from Indian languages.[3] The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize was established in 2018, to recognise and foster non-fiction writing about India, and is awarded annually for books published in the preceding year.[4] The prize is awarded to authors of any nationality, for books published in any language, and comes with a financial award of ₹15 lakh (equivalent to ₹16 lakh or US$19,000 in 2023).[4][5] Books which have already been the subject of fellowships awarded by the foundation are ineligible, and the jury is composed of the foundation's trustees.[5]

Recipients

Year Winner Shortlist Source
2018 Milan Vaishnav, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press 2017)
  • Abhinav Chandrachud, The Republic of Rhetoric: Free Speech and the Constitution of India (Penguin India)
  • Aanchal Malhotra, Remnants of a Separation: A History of Partition Through Material Memory (Harper Collins)
  • Anirudh Krishna, The Broken Ladder: The Paradox and Potential of India’s One Billion (Penguin Random House)
  • Sujatha Gidla, Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India (HarperCollins)
  • Francesca R Jensenius, Social Justice Through Inclusion: The Consequences of Electoral Quotas in India (Oxford University Press)
 [6][7]
2019 Ornit Shani, How India Became Democratic: Citizenship and the Making of the Universal Franchise (Penguin Random House India)
  • Manoranjan Byapari, Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography Of A Dalit (Sage Publications)
  • Rohit De, A People's Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic (Princeton University Press)
  • Snigdha Poonam, Dreamers: How Young Indians Are Changing Their World (Penguin Viking)
  • Alpa Shah, Nightmarch: A Journey into India's Naxal Heartlands (HarperCollins)
  • Piers Vitebsky, Living Without the Dead: Loss and Redemption in a Jungle Cosmos (University of Chicago Press)
 [8]
2020 Jointly awarded to:
  • Amit Ahuja, Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements (Oxford University Press)
  • Jairam Ramesh, A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of VK Krishna Menon (Penguin Random House)
  • Arun Mohan Sukumar,Midnight’s Machines: A Political History of Technology in India (Penguin Random House)
  • Arupjyoti Saikia, The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra (Oxford University Press)
  • Katherine Eban, Bottle of Lies: Ranbaxy and the Dark Side of Indian Pharma (Juggernaut)
  • Stephen Alter, Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth (Aleph Book Company)
 [9][10]
2021 Dinyar Patel, Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism (Harvard University Press)
  • Ashutosh Bhardwaj, The Death Script: Dreams and Delusions in Naxal Country (Fourth Estate, HarperCollins Publishers)
  • Christophe Jaffrelot & Pratinav Anil, India’s First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975-77 (HarperCollins Publishers)
  • Sumathi Ramaswamy, Gandhi in the Gallery: The Art of Disobedience (Roli Books)
  • Radhika Singha, The Coolie’s Great War: Indian Labour in a Global Conflict 1914-1921 (HarperCollins Publishers);
  • Vinay Sitapati. Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi (Penguin Random House).
 [11][12]
2022
  • Swethaa S Ballakrishnen, Accidental Feminism: Gender Parity and Selective Mobility Among India’s Professional Elite (Princeton University Press)
  • Ghazala Wahab, Born a Muslim: Some Truths about Islam in India (Aleph Book Company)
  • Shekhar Pathak, The Chipko Movement: A People’s History (translated from the Hindi by Manisha Chaudhry, Permanent Black and Ashoka University)
  • Suchitra Vijayan, Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India (Context/Westland)
  • Rukmini S., Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India (Context/Westland)
 [13]

References

  1. ^ "New India Foundation". New India Foundation. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  2. ^ "New India Foundation Trustees". New India Foundation. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  3. ^ Gupta, Kanishka (16 August 2020). "How the New India Foundation is dealing with the pandemic for its fellowships for non-fiction books". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  4. ^ a b "New India Foundation Book Prize". New India Foundation. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  5. ^ a b Scroll Staff. "The New India Foundation announces an annual non-fiction book prize worth Rs 15 lakh". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  6. ^ Scroll Staff. "New India Foundation announces its shortlist for the first Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  7. ^ Staff Reporter (2018-10-27). "Milan Vaishnav wins first Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  8. ^ "NIF Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize 2019 awarded to Ornit Shani's How India Became Democratic". Firstpost. 2019-11-11. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  9. ^ "New India Foundation has announced the shortlist for the third edition of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize". The Hindu. 2020-11-20. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  10. ^ "Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize announces joint winners for 2020". Financialexpress. 13 December 2020. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  11. ^ "Dinyar Patel wins Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize for 2021". Hindustan Times. 2021-12-01. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  12. ^ "New India Foundation: 2021 Shortlist". New India Foundation. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  13. ^ Scroll Staff (8 November 2022). "Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize for 2022 announces its shortlist of five nonfiction books". Scroll.in. Retrieved 2022-11-08.