The New India Foundation announced the longlist of the 2024 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize which honours nonfiction books about modern and contemporary Indian history. The winning author will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 15 lakh.

The shortlist will be announced in September and the winner, in November. The winning author will be in conversation with an NIF Trustee at the Bangalore Literature Festival on December 14, 2024.

This year’s jury is chaired by political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal, and comprises historian Srinath Raghavan, entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal, former diplomat and author Navtej Sarna, lawyer Rahul Matthan, and public policy researcher Yamini Aiyar.

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“The landscape of Indian non-fiction today is prolific, exciting and constantly pushing boundaries, and we congratulate all the nominated authors and their publishers,” said the jury about the longlist.

Here are the longlisted books for this year’s Prize:

  • Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India, Aditya Balasubramanian, Princeton University Press
    A deeply-researched book, arguing that India’s free-market economic policies were homegrown, and not simply imported from the West. This fascinating account of the Swatantra Party, through its leaders, policies, and ideas, shows how economic conservatism and democracy could cohabit.

  • From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada, Sudha Bharadwaj, Juggernaut
    This is a keenly felt autobiographical account of the author’s experience in the Indian prison system – its institutional flaws, but also the individuals who manage small triumphs within it regardless.

  • Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century, Joya Chatterji, Penguin India
    Ambitious in scope and extraordinary in its execution, this book weaves together personal perspective with academic authority as it illuminates the journey of the subcontinent from anti-colonial resistance to electoral democracy.

  • How Prime Ministers Decide, Neerja Chowdhury, Aleph Book Company
    A keenly observed study of six Indian Prime Ministers, that interprets their legacies in terms of the one most significant decision taken by each of them. This is an insightful political history by a veteran journalist.

  • A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of BR Ambedkar, Ashok Gopal, Navayana
    Researched for over a decade, and drawing extensively on both Marathi and English sources, Ashok Gopal’s definitive biography is a capacious study of the life and ideas of Dr Ambedkar, adding enormously to our knowledge of a figure whose legacy is indelible.

  • Fire on the Ganges: Life Among the Dead in Banaras, Radhika Iyengar, Harper Collins India
    A deeply moving account of the everyday life of members of the Dalit community that cremates Hindus in Varanasi, and the fortitude of its young as they struggle to escape the formidable barriers of caste discrimination.

  • No Birds of Passage: A History of Gujarati Muslim Business Communities 1800-1975, Michael O’Sullivan, Harvard University Press
    This book tells the extraordinary story of the Khojas, Bohras and Memons who, despite being less than 1 per cent of South Asia’s Muslim population, came to dominate Muslim business in the sub-continent. The author shows how they created a distinctive form of Muslim capitalism through the intertwining of economic motivations and religious beliefs.

  • H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars, Kunal Purohit, HarperCollins
    A riveting, thoroughly original work of investigative reporting on how the ideology of Hindutva is propagated in popular culture – through music videos, kavi sammelan poetry, books and social media influencers.

  • Swadeshi Steam: VO Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle Against the British Maritime Empire, AR Venkatachalapathy, Penguin India
    Four decades of research have yielded an impressive biography not just of a remarkable individual, but also of the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company that he founded, heroically challenging the British Empire, politically as well as economically.

  • Sheikh Abdullah: The Caged Lion of Kashmir, Chitralekha Zutshi, Harper Collins India
    This is a deeply researched biography of the legendary Kashmiri nationalist Sheikh Abdullah, one of the most controversial and charismatic political figures of 20th-century India.