Books by Gopalkrishna Gandhi, former CEA Subramanian in Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Prize longlist

NEW DELHI: Books by former diplomat Gopalkrishna Gandhi, ex-chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian and historian Sam Dalrymple are among the 10 non-fiction works in the longlist of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2026.

Announcing the longlist on Wednesday, the New India Foundation (NIF) said the 10 books on modern and contemporary India, published in the 2025 calendar year, explore a wide range of themes and genres from memoir-histories and data-rich reassessments to ethnographies and biographies.

Besides "The Undying Light: A Personal History of Independent India" by Gandhi, "A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey" by Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian and Dalrymple's "Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia", the longlist includes "A Man for All Seasons: The Life of KM Panikkar" by Narayani Basu and Partha Chatterjee's "For a Just Republic: The People of India and the State". "Assembling India's Constitution: A New Democratic History" (Rohit De and Ornit Shani), "Scamlands: Inside the Asian Empire of Fraud That Preys on the World (Snigdha Poonam), "The Secret Master: Arun Kashalkar and a Journey to the Edge of Music (Sumana Ramanan), "Souls in the Kalyug: The Politics and Cosmologies of Migrant Workers in Contemporary India" (Shankar Ramaswami) and "The Conscience Network: A Chronicle of Resistance to a Dictatorship" (Sugata Srinivasaraju) complete the list.

The longlist was selected by a jury comprising Tata Sons and Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran, political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal, partner at Trilegal Rahul Matthan, historians Jahnavi Phalkey and Srinath Raghavan, former diplomat Nirupama Rao, and entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal.

The shortlist will be announced at the end of October and the winner will be announced in December and awarded on December 12 at the Bangalore Literature Festival. The winning author will be awarded a cash prize of Rs 15 lakh. Chair of the jury Jayal said the longlist reflects the diversity and depth of non-fiction writing on modern and contemporary India.

"The ten selected works offer distinctive and compelling perspectives on the people, ideas, and movements that have shaped the country. We look forward to celebrating these works and the conversations they will inspire," she said. Instituted in 2018, previous winners of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize include Aparajith Ramnath (2025), Ashok Gopal (2024) and Akshaya Mukul (2023).