The New India Foundation announces call for applications for the Eleventh Round of Book Fellowships
Bangalore : The New India Foundation invites applications for the eleventh edition of the prestigious New India Foundation Book Fellowships, supporting well-researched scholarship that documents various aspects of the dynamic and rich landscape of India post Independence.
With an annual stipend of INR 18 lakhs to each recipient, the New India Foundation Book Fellowships are amongst the most distinguished Fellowships in the country. In addition to the financial stipend, the New India Foundation offers editorial and administrative guidance through the course of Fellowship, from proposal to publication. Open to Indian nationals, including those currently living abroad, these Fellowships are awarded for a period of one year.
From a large pool of applications, about 20-25 proposals are shortlisted to meet with a Jury consisting of eminent people from the worlds of scholarship, business, and social service; about 5 to 10 fellowships are awarded every two years. Our Jury this year includes social scientist and author Niraja Jayal, historian Srinath Raghavan, and entrepreneurs Nandan Nilekani and Manish Sabharwal.
According to Srinath Raghavan, Trustee, New India Foundation: ‘In a very real sense, the New India Foundation believes that India today is such a fascinating yet complex phenomenon that in order to be able to get a grip on where we are—and where we might be going—we need to approach through many windows and vantage points.’
Fellowship-holders shall be expected to write original books in English. Proposals should be oriented towards publication,and outline a road map towards that destination. The Foundation is agnostic as regards genre, theme, and ideology: the only requirement is that the proposed works contribute to a fuller understanding of independent India. Thus, Fellowship holders may choose to write a memoir, or a work of reportage, or a thickly footnoted academic study. Their books could be oriented towards economics, or politics, or culture. They could be highly specific—an account of a single decade or a single region—or wide-ranging, such as a countrywide overview.
Applications open: 9th August 2022
Applications close: 31st December 2022
Since its inception, the NIF Book Fellowships have resulted in the publication of several critically acclaimed and commercially successful books that have recorded various aspects of contemporary Indian history. Books resulting from the New India Foundation Book Fellowships have conveyed original research in an accessible manner to different constituencies. Recently published titles include Swati Ganguly’s Tagore’s University: A History of Visva-Bharati (1921-1961); Nazia Akhtar’s Bibi’s Room: Hyderabadi Women and Twentieth-Century Urdu Prose; Rahul Ramagundam’s The Life and Times of George Fernandes; Pradeep Magazine’s Not Just Cricket: A Reporter’s Journey Through Modern India; Rajshree Chandra’s Competing Nationalisms: The Sacred and Political Life of Jagat Narain Lal; G. Kanoto Chophy’s Christianity and Politics in Tribal India: Baptist Missionaries and Naga Nationalism.
Applicants for the New India Fellowships are invited to submit their book proposal along with a writing sample of at least 5000 words each online through the website ( https://nifbookfellowships11.paperform.co/) before December 31st, 2022.
Annexure:
Full list of published books from previous Fellows of the New India Foundation:
28 titles have been published under the aegis of the NIF:
∙ Harish Damodaran’s India’s New Capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation (Permanent Black, 2008)
∙ Vasanthi Srinivasan’s Gandhi’s Conscience-Keeper: C. Rajagopalachari & Indian Politics (Permanent Black, 2009)
∙ Dinesh C. Sharma’s The Long Revolution: The Birth & Growth of India’s IT Industry (HarperCollins, 2009)
∙ Deepak K. Singh’s Stateless in South Asia: Chakmas Between Bangladesh & India (Sage Publications, 2009)
∙ Ghazala Shahabuddin’s Conservation at the Crossroads: Science, Society, and the Future of India’s Wildlife (Permanent Black, 2010)
∙ Anis Kidwai’s In Freedom’s Shade: Annotated Translation of Begum Anees Kidwai’s Azaadi Ki Chhaon Mein (Penguin India, 2011)
∙ Chitra Sinha’s Debating Patriarchy: Hindu Code Bill Controversy (Oxford University Press, 2012)
∙ Shashank Kela’s A Rogue and Peasant Slave (Navayana, 2012)
∙ Rahul Pandita’s Our Moon Has Blood Clots (Random House, India, 2013)
∙ S. V. Srinivas’s Politics As Performance: Social History of Telugu Cinema (Permanent Black, 2013)
∙ Akshaya Mukul’s Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (HarperCollins, 2015)
∙ Amrita Shah’s Ahmedabad: A City in the World (Bloomsbury, 2015)
∙ Kartik Shanker’s From Soup to Superstar: The Story of Sea Turtle Conservation Along the Indian Coast (HarperCollins, 2015)
∙ Richa Kumar’s Rethinking Revolutions: Soybean, Choupals, and the Changing Countryside in Central India (Oxford University Press, 2016)
∙ Venu Madhav Govindu and Deepak Malghan’s The Web of Freedom: Kumarappa and Gandhi’s Struggle for Economic Justice (Oxford University Press, 2016)
∙ Indira Chowdhury’s Growing the Tree of Science: Homi Bhabha and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Oxford University Press, 2016)
∙ Zarin Ahmad’s Delhi’s Meatscapes: Muslim Butchers in a Transforming Mega City (Oxford University Press, 2018)
∙ Neyaz Farooquee’s An Ordinary Man’s Guide To Radicalism: Growing Up Muslim In India (Context Westland, 2018)
∙ Manjima Bhattacharjya’s Mannequin: Working Women in India’s Glamour Industry (Zubaan, 2018)
∙ Gautam Bhatia’s The Transformative Constitution: A Radical Biography in Nine Acts (HarperCollins, 2019)
∙ Saba Dewan’s Tawaifnama (Context Westland, 2019)
– Jason Fernandes’s Citizenship in a Caste Polity: Religion, Language and Belonging in Goa (Orient BlackSwan, 2020)
– G. Kanoto Chophy’s Christianity and Politics in Tribal India: Baptist Missionaries and Naga Nationalism (Permanent Black, 2021)
– Pradeep Magazine’s Not Just Cricket: A Reporter’s Journey through Modern India (HarperCollins, 2021)
– Rajshree Chandra’s Competing Nationalisms: The Sacred and Political Life of Jagat Narain Lal (Penguin Random House, 2021)
– Rahul Ramagundam’s The Life and Times of George Fernandes (Penguin Random House, 2022)
– Nazia Akhtar’s Bibi’s Room: Hyderabadi Women and Twentieth-Century Urdu Prose (Orient BlackSwan, 2022)
– Swati Ganguly’s Tagore’s University: A History of Visva-Bharati (1921-1961) (Permanent Black, 2022)
About the New India Foundation
Based in Bengaluru, the core activity of the New India Foundation is the New India Foundation Book Fellowships which have been awarded to scholars and writers for almost two decades. Aimed at enabling high-quality original research on an extraordinary range of topics around post-Independence India, the NIF Book Fellowships have resulted in the publication of an eclectic and vibrant collection of twenty-eight books published by prestigious publishing houses.
Instituted in 2018, the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize, awarded to the best non-fiction book on modern/contemporary India, has further built on this mission of sponsoring high-quality research and writings on the world’s largest democracy. It is currently in its fifth edition.
The Annual NIF Lecture was started in 2004 and renamed in 2019 as the Girish Karnad Memorial Lecture in honour of the late multi-lingual scholar. Delivered annually by a distinguished scholar or writer, the NIF Lecture is held in Bengaluru in association with a reputed public institution.
The Translation Fellowships instituted in 2021 expand upon the core idea of fostering non-fiction literature about modern and contemporary India by translating knowledge texts from Indian languages to English. The NIF Book and Translation Fellowships are awarded in alternate years.
Ramachandra Guha, Nandan Nilekani, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Manish Sabharwal and Srinath Raghavan are the Trustees of the New India Foundation.