The longlist for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2022, announced on September 29, features 10 non-fiction books, ranging from themes of art history to environmental and governmental shifts.
Instituted by The New India Foundation in 2018, the award is meant to recognise excellence in non-fiction writing in India and carries a prize of Rs 15 lakh and a citation. The shortlist will be announced on November 8, and the winner on December 1.
— New India Foundation (@newindiafndtion) September 29, 2022
The books longlisted are: Accidental Feminism: Gender Parity and Selective Mobility Among India’s Professional Elite by Swethaa S. Ballakrishnen (Princeton University Press); The Truths and Lies of Nationalism as Narrated by Charvak by Partha Chatterjee (Permanent Black); Syed Haider Raza: The Journey of an Iconic Artist by Yashodhara Dalmia (HarperCollins); Governance by Stealth: The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Making of the Indian State by Subrata Mitra (Oxford University Press); The Chipko Movement: A People’s History by Shekhar Pathak (Permanent Black); Tata: The Global Corporation That Built Indian Capitalism by Mircea Raianu (Harvard University Press); Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India by Rukmini S (Context/Westland); Congress Radio: Usha Mehta and the Underground Radio Station of 1942 by Usha Thakkar (Penguin); Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India by Suchitra Vijayan (Context/Westland); and Born a Muslim: Some Truths about Islam in India by Ghazala Wahab (Aleph).
Making the announcement, the jury — comprising political scientist and author Niraja Gopal Jayal; entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal; historian and author Srinath Raghavan; historian and author Nayanjot Lahiri; former diplomat and author Navtej Sarna; and attorney and author Rahul Matthan — said, “The longlist is wonderfully diverse. The many themes in modern Indian history that it covers have great relevance today: if the histories of nationalism, business, the environment and state institutions offer a sobering historical lens on the present, the more contemporary works on feminism and data give reasons for optimism about the future.”
The winners of the previous years include Amit Ahuja, who won the 2020 prize for his debut Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties Without Ethnic Movements (Oxford University Press) alongside Jairam Ramesh for A Chequered Brilliance (Penguin Random House). In 2021, Dinyar Patel won the prize for Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism (Harvard University Press).
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