Janaki Bakhle: Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva 

An outstanding intellectual history of one of the most contentious figures of modern India, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Drawing on the entire range of his writings in Marathi and English, the book offers an incisive analysis of the complexity of Savarkar’s thought, viewing him not just as the pre-eminent ideologue of Hindutva but also as a poet, historian, and social reformer.

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

A searingly powerful collection of essays emerging from over three decades of fieldwork amongst India’s most marginalised and vulnerable people —Dalits, Adivasis, women, bonded labourers, and communities impacted by conflict. Bhatia turns an unflinching eye on exploitation and structural violence, as well as on resistance and resilience, in forgotten corners of the nation.

Urmilla Deshpande & Thiago Pinto Barbosa: Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve 

This biography offers an intimate and illuminating portrait of Irawati Karve—pioneering anthropologist, philosopher and institution-builder. To reconstruct Karve’s life, the authors use an unconventional method – “critical fabulation” – combining personal memory with scholarly analysis, and tracing the evolution of her influential ideas on caste, culture, civilisation and Indian identity. 

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

This rigorously researched book brings India’s bilateral relations with Myanmar and Bangladesh into conversation with the struggles of state-building in Northeast India. Interweaving the challenges of diplomacy and statecraft, the book reveals the limitations of independent India’s influence in its Near East, and in doing so presents a compelling challenge to conventional geopolitical narratives.

Manu S. Pillai: Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity

This ambitious work charts the interplay of colonialism, Christian missionary activity, and indigenous reform movements in the shaping of modern Hindu identity. Pillai offers a rich account of the cultural transformations and social forces that prepared the ground for Hindu nationalism. 

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

A meticulously researched biography of M. Visvesvaraya that explores the life and work of this visionary engineer-statesman, and his influential role in shaping the technological imagination of the state and industrial development in independent India. 

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

An eye-opening account of what goes on behind the scenes of Indian elections, this book documents and analyses the emergence and the influence of the hidden players who craft and execute campaign strategy— from political consulting firms and data engineers to pollsters and digital war-room operatives.

Nico Slate: Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: The Art of Freedom

A deeply researched biography of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, the remarkable woman after whom this Book Prize is named. This biography foregrounds her contributions to India’s freedom struggle, to craft and cultural revival, and to feminist and internationalist movements, exploring how art, politics, and activism came to be blended in one extraordinary life.

Anand Teltumbde: Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar

An insightful evaluation of one of modern India’s most towering figures, this biography offers a critical perspective on Dr. Ambedkar’s complex intellectual and political journey. It is a provocative invitation to resist the iconisation of Ambedkar for a more complex and nuanced understanding of his work and thought.

Salil Tripathi: The Gujaratis: A Portrait of a Community

Spanning continents and centuries, this is a well researched and keenly observed exploration of the past and present of the Gujarati community and its sense of identity. Questioning stereotypes with humour and unveiling contradictions with candour, Tripathi paints an engaging portrait of a community in India and abroad.

The shortlist will be announced in October, and the winner of the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2025 will be declared in December.