Five authors win New India Foundation’s fellowships to write non-fiction books

On 10 July 2025, the New India Foundation based in Bengaluru announced on X – the names and book titles of the winners of this year’s fellowships to write non-fiction works mainly about India. The five authors chosen to receive the New India Foundation’s Rs 18-lakh fellowships are Amrita Sharma, Amandeep Singh Sandhu, P Anima, Urvashi Butalia, and Bakhtiar K Dadabhoy. “We’re proud to welcome the Round 12 Fellows of the New India Foundation Book Fellowship, each of whom is working on a significant non-fiction book project that captures diverse aspects of contemporary and modern India.”

The biennial NIF fellowships for writing non-fiction works are open to Indian nationals, including those currently living abroad. The The awardees are each given a grant of Rs 18 lakhs payable as a monthly stipend of Rs 1 lakh for a period of twelve months, with the balance Rs 6 lakh payable on the submission of the final manuscript.

Awarded every two years to scholars, writers and authors for original works on various aspects of the culture and history of independent India, the non-fiction work can take any of several forms including memoirs, reportage, scholarly work looking at the economics, or politics, or culture of the country. In alternate years, fellowships are given to translators of non-fiction works in Indian languages into English.

• This year’s winners and the working titles of their projects are –
  Amrita Sharma – Unruly Apples: State and Politics in Kashmir
• Amandeep Singh Sandhu – Keeping the Faith: Sikhs Who Live Outside Punjab, In India
• P Anima – Chaliyar: The River that Shaped the Malabar
• Urvashi Butalia – Memories of a Generation: The Feminist Movement in India
• Bakhtiar K Dadabhoy – Cultivating Many Gardens: A Life of CD Deshmukh

The New India Foundation’s website states, “Given India’s size, its importance, and its interest, and given that this is our country, the lack of good research on its modern history is unfortunate. It is this lack that the New India Foundation seeks to address, by sponsoring high-quality original scholarship on different aspects of independent India. Its activities include the granting of NIF Book Fellowships for highly-researched original work, Translation Fellowships for bringing historical Indian language works to English, the publication of books on the history and culture of independent India, organising the Girish Karnad Memorial Lecture, and the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize.”

About the New India Foundation

Over two decades old, the core activity of the New India Foundation based in Bengaluru is the New India Foundation Fellowships which have been awarded to scholars and writers for over two decades now. Alternating each year between the NIF Book Fellowships and the NIF Translation Fellowships (for bringing non-fiction from Indian languages to English), the New India Foundation Fellowships have resulted in the publication of 34 books in collaboration with several leading publishers across India.

According to its website, the NIF instituted the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize in 2018, which is awarded to the best non-fiction book on modern/contemporary India. The 2023 KCBP was awarded to Akshaya Mukul for his biography Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya (Penguin 2022).

The Annual NIF Lecture began in 2004 and was renamed in 2019 as the Girish Karnad Memorial NIF Lecture in honor of the late multi-lingual playwrite, director and scholar. This is delivered annually by a distinguished scholar or writer in Bengaluru in association with a reputed public institution. Ramachandra Guha, Nandan Nilekani, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Manish Sabharwal and Srinath Raghavan are the trustees of the New India Foundation.