5 Books Shortlisted for 2026 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Prize
These span the making of India’s Constitution, the arc of its development since Independence, the Partitions that shaped modern Asia and two lives, in particular, that moved through these histories
New Delhi: The New India Foundation (NIF) has announced the shortlist for this year’s Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize (KCBP). It comprises five outstanding works of non-fiction on modern and contemporary India, all published in 2025.
These are: A Man for All Seasons: The Life of K.M. Panikkar (Westland Context) by Narayani Basu; Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia (HarperCollins Fourth Estate) by Sam Dalrymple; Assembling India’s Constitution: A New Democratic History (Penguin Random House Allen Lane) by Rohit De and Ornit Shani; A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey (HarperCollins) by Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian; and The Secret Master: Arun Kashalkar and a Journey to the Edge of Music (Westland Context) by Sumana Ramanan.
These five books span the making of India’s Constitution, the arc of its development since Independence, and the Partitions that shaped modern Asia. They also follow the lives that moved through these histories, from a statesman and diplomat to a Hindustani musician, showing how a nation is built and sustained.
The 2026 KCBP shortlist was selected by an eminent jury comprising chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group N. Chandrasekaran, political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal, partner at Trilegal Rahul Matthan, historian of science Jahnavi Phalkey, historian Srinath Raghavan, former foreign secretary of India Nirupama Rao, and entrepreneur Manish Sabharwal.
The winner will be announced in December, and the prize will be presented on December 12 at the Bangalore Literature Festival 2026. The winning author will receive a cash prize of ₹15 lakh.
Announcing the shortlist, chair of the jury, Niraja Gopal Jayal said, “We are delighted with this year’s shortlist. The five books demonstrate the value of rigorous, imaginative non-fiction in deepening our understanding of India and are exceptional in their ability to bring important aspects of the country’s experience into focus. It is heartening to see such a breadth of scholarship represented in this shortlist.”
Instituted in 2018, the NIF Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize is India’s largest and most prestigious book prize for non-fiction books on modern and contemporary India. The work can be originally written in English or translated into English, and welcomes a wide range of non-fiction genres.
Previous winners include Aparajith Ramnath (2025) for Engineering a Nation: The Life and Career of M. Visvesvaraya, 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 more.