On Ambedkar, Hindutva and more: 10 non-fiction works in contention for NIF Book Prize 2025

The 2025 longlist was selected by a jury comprising N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons; entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal; political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal; historian Srinath Raghavan; lawyer Rahul Matthan; Ambassador Jawed Ashraf; and policy scholar Yamini Aiyar.

The longlisted titles are:

📌Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva by  Janaki Bakhle

📌 India’s Forgotten Country: A View from the Margins by Bela Bhatia

📌 Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve by Urmilla Deshpande and Thiago Pinto Barbosa

📌 India’s Near East: A New History by Avinash Paliwal

📌Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity by Manu Pillai

📌 Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M Visvesvaraya by Aparajith Ramnath

📌 The Backstage of Democracy: India’s Election Campaigns and the People Who Manage Them by  Amogh Dhar Sharma

📌 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: The Art of Freedom by Nico Slate

📌 Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar by Anand Teltumbde

📌 The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community by Salil Tripathi

“The 8th edition longlist … features works distinguished by their research and craft, and their ability to weave the threads of the past into the challenges and debates of the present,” Jayal said in a statement on behalf of the jury.

The award is named after Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, a freedom fighter and institution-builder.

Named after Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, a freedom fighter and institution-builder, the prize is intended to encourage rigorous and accessible nonfiction writing on India.

Past winners include Ashok Gopal (2024) for A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B R Ambedkar, Akshaya Mukul (2023) for Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya, and Shekhar Pathak (2022) for The Chipko Movement: A People’s History.