Biographies of Ambedkar, Sheikh Abdullah make it to NIF Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize longlist

New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) A comprehensive account of the life and thoughts of BR Ambedkar, a biography of Kashmiri politician Sheikh Abdullah and a book exploring the “secretive world of Hindutva pop stars” have made it to the longlist for the New India Foundation’s Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay book prize for 2024.

The prize is given to the finest non-fiction on modern and contemporary Indian history published in the previous calendar year.

The longlist of the seventh edition of the coveted prize comprises 10 books that provide a window to understand independent India.

This year’s longlist includes Chitralekha Zutshi’s “Sheikh Abdullah: The Caged Lion of Kashmir”, Ashok Gopal’s “A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar”, Kunal Purohit’s “H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars”.

The other books in the list are: “Toward a Free Economy” by Aditya Balasubramanian, “Shadows at Noon” by Joya Chatterji, “From Phansi Yard” by Sudha Bharadwaj, Neerja Chowdhury’s “How Prime Ministers Decide”, Radhika Iyengar’s “Fire on the Ganges”, Michael O’Sullivan’s “No Birds of Passage” and “Swadeshi Steam” by AR Venkatachalapathy.

The longlist was selected by a jury, including political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal (chair of the Book Prize), historian Srinath Raghavan, entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal, former diplomat and author Navtej Sarna, lawyer Rahul Matthan, and public policy researcher Yamini Aiyar.

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

Open to writers of all nationalities who have worked on any aspect of Indian history after Independence, the KCBP was instituted in 2018 and carries an award of Rs 15 lakhs as well as an annual citation at the Bangalore Literature Festival.

Named after social reformer Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, the prize invites works written originally in English or translated into English.

Author Akshaya Mukul won the prize last year for his authoritative biography “Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya”.