The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize, India’s richest literary prize for non-fiction books, announced its 2020 shortlist on Monday. The list of six includes Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s biography of V.K. Krishna Menon, defence minister in Nehru’s cabinet, and journalist Katherine Eban’s investigation into the malpractices of the Indian drug industry.
The winner of the Rs15 lakh prize will be announced in early December. The 12-book longlist had been announced in September.
The shortlist was chosen by a jury which includes political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal (the chair), entrepreneur Nandan Nilekani, Teamlease Services chairman Manish Sabharwal and historians Ramachandra Guha, Srinath Raghavan and Nayanjot Lahiri.
In a statement, the jury said that the shortlist “demonstrates the range and quality of non-fiction writing about modern India, from political biography to the sociology of politics, from investigative journalism to the history of ecology and of technology”.
This is the third edition of the prize, which is open to books “written or translated in English, about any aspect of India since Independence”. Academic Milan Vaishnav won the inaugural edition of the prize in 2018 for When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics. Last year, Ornit Shani won the prize for How India Became Democratic. The prize is awarded by the New India Foundation.
Here is the complete shortlist:
*Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties without Ethnic Movements by Amit Ahuja
*Midnight’s Machines: A Political History of Technology in India by Arun Mohan Sukumar
*The Unquiet River: A Biography of the Brahmaputra by Arupjyoti Saikia
*A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon by Jairam Ramesh
*Bottle of Lies: Ranbaxy and the Dark Side of Indian Pharma by Katherine Eban
*Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth by Stephen Alter