The New India Foundation (NIF) has announced the shortlist for the NIF Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize 2025.
This annual prize celebrates exceptional works of non-fiction that shed new light on modern and contemporary India — and this year’s shortlist is a reflection of just that: bold ideas, rigorous research, and brilliant storytelling.
The shortlisted works are – Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva by Janaki Bakhle; India’s Forgotten Country: A View from the Margins by Bela Bhatia; India’s Near East: A New History by Avinash Paliwal; Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity by Manu S. Pillai; and Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M. Visvesvaraya by Aparajith Ramnath
The winner will be announced on December 6 this year and awarded a cash prize of Rs 15 lakh during the Bangalore Literature Festival.
The 2025 KCBP Shortlist was selected by an eminent jury, including (chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group) N Chandrasekaran, (entrepreneur) Manish Sabharwal, (political scientist) Niraja Gopal Jayal, (historian) Srinath Raghavan, (partner- Trilegal) Rahul Matthan, (former Ambassador of India to France) Jawed Ashraf, and Yamini Aiyar (public policy scholar)
Commenting on the shortlist, Rahul Matthan said, “This year’s shortlist reflects the range and vitality of contemporary nonfiction in India. From biographies of pioneering figures to accounts exploring identity and belief to the workings of democracy and statecraft, these works offer fresh insights into the forces that continue to shape modern India. They remind us that truly understanding our nation requires following both—the centres and the edges, the well-known and the forgotten. The Shortlist stands as a testament to this richness and complexity.”
The Winner of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2024 was Ashok Gopal for A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar, published by Navayana.
Translation Fellowships
Round 3 of NIF’s Translation Fellowships are also open. Aimed at bringing knowledge texts from Indian languages to English, it opened for applications on 1 August 2025 . In pursuit of fulfilling the NIF’s objective to foster scholarship around Independent India and to provide a wider audience for Indian-language texts, these Fellowships will be awarded from across 10 languages for the translation of non-fiction texts published from 1850 onwards.
The NIF designed this fellowship to bring non-fiction works originally written in Indian languages into English, broadening reach and enriching Indian knowledge traditions.
Works must be non-fiction, originally published in Indian languages since 1850 onward. Ten Indian languages are covered – Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Odia, Tamil and Urdu.
There’s no restriction on genre, ideology, nationality of translator, or style of original text — as long as it contributes meaningfully.
The duration of the fellowship is six months and each fellow receives a grant of Rs 600,000.
The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2025. Click here to apply.
