On July 6, The New India Foundation announced the seven recipients of this year’s NIF Book Fellowships. Now in its 11th edition, the initiative aims to support well-researched scholarship on a range of topics concerning post-Independence India. The Fellowship is awarded for a period of one year and each fellow will receive a stipend of Rs 18 lakhs. In addition to financial aid, the Foundation will also offer editorial, legal, and administrative guidance to each fellow.

The seven recipients comprise academics, authors, journalists, and public intellectuals. They are:

  • Pramit Bhattacharya, Accounting For The Nation: The Story Behind India’s Growth Numbers
  • Srijan Deshpande, The Life and Music of Kumar Gandharva
  • Syed Jaleel Hussain, Ambivalent Allegiances: Shiism and Everyday Politics in Kashmir
  • Rachna Mehra, Planning “New Towns” in the Post-Independence Era: The Making of Faridabad City (1948-90)
  • Maya Mirchandani, Fathers, Sons, and a Troubled Paradise: A History of the Abdullahs
  • Disha Mullick, Love, Death and Compromise: Stories of a New Rural Public (A Collective Biography of Khabar Lahariya)
  • Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, A Difficult Mind: An Intellectual Biography of Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi

The Jury for this year consisted of Nandan Nilekani, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Srinath Raghavan, and Manish Sabharwal. While announcing the Fellowship recipients, Raghavan said that “each of the seven selected proposals aims to tell a remarkable story...of some of the most important and interesting aspects of India today”.