Permanent Black is an independent press based in India. It publishes the most exciting scholarship on South Asia by leading writers from across the world.
Joined May 2014
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Listen to a conversation about SOULS IN THE KALYUG by Shankar Ramaswami
For four years, Shankar Ramaswami spent his days inside a small metal polishing factory in Delhi. The men who worked twelve- to eighteen-hour shifts there did not speak to him only in the language of wages and conditions. They spoke in the language of Kalyug, of Qayamat, of mann and atma. They spoke of the soul.
The title of the book came from them, not from him. Souls in the Kalyug by Shankar Ramaswami, in conversation with Rishvanth Reddy Mucheli. Longlisted for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize 2026.
#kcbp2026 #newindiafoundation #bookrec #workersrights
@NandiniNai @OrientBlackSwan @RishvanthReddy
Absolutely wonderful to see Partha Chatterjee's FOR A JUST REPUBLIC and Shankar Ramaswami's SOULS IN THE KALYUG in this much-awaited selection.
150+ Nominations. Ten books Longlist. One prize. INR 15 lakhs.
Announcing the Longlist for the 9th Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize, honouring the finest non-fiction on Independent India’s history.
From the making of the Constitution to the partition of a subcontinent, from the story of India’s development to the rise of its scam economy, from the life of a diplomat who shaped the Republic’s foreign policy to a diaspora's resistance to the Emergency, from the lives of migrant workers in a Delhi factory to a hidden maestro of Hindustani music, from questions of justice in the Republic to a personal history of the nation, these books reckon with the India we live in today.
Listen to Sanjay Joshi talking about his new book, Brahmins of the Himalaya. Out now! More about the book on our website.
indianreligions.com/podcast/…
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A new book from fellow @Pennalumni Sanjay Joshi (PhD, history)
Brahmins of the Himalaya: Upper-Caste Ways of Belonging 1850–1950
2026, Permanent Black @PermanentBlack
permanentblack.com/product-p…
Just out! Nirvikar Jassal's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN INDIA not only sheds light on justice delivery in the world’s largest democracy, it charts, for the first time, the full trajectory of accessing justice in India’s criminal justice system
permanentblack.com/product-p…
Just published: ‘Brahmins of the Himalaya: Upper-Caste Ways of Belonging, 1850-1950’, by Sanjay Joshi. Read an excerpt here:
scroll.in/article/1095374/re…
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Today is the 138th birth anniversary of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and also the 5th death anniversary of his grandson, Keshav Desiraju, one of the most remarkable public servants in the history of independent India.
scroll.in/article/1005143/ra…
We are getting messages saying copies of these books cannot be found on @amazonIN. If you are trying to buy on Amazon & are encountering problems, please buy instead from bookstores/ the Orient Blackswan website/ other internet sellers - as we always recommend. They are available
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Ramachandra Guha: Historian Sumit Sarkar took his scholarship beyond the confines of the academy scroll.in/article/1095193/ra…
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It's today!
Remembering Prof. Sumit Sarkar!
IIC, New Delhi – at Noida, India
Out now, with a new Afterword, David Hardiman's Gandhi in his Time and Ours. This book examines Gandhi as the creator of a radical style of politics. It argues that whereas politicians garner support by demonising those they oppose, Gandhi resisted such a politics.
"that rare combination of a great historian and a lovely human being...my wife, Piyali Chakravartty, was a childhood friend of his till the end, a friendship I shared." Claude Markovits writes about his old friendship with Sumit Sarkar
tinyurl.com/mptkjfz
"not only the loss of one of the greatest historians of modern India, but also the disappearance of a particular intellectual presence: quiet, exacting, sceptical, immensely learned, and utterly without pomposity, writes Charu Gupta tinyurl.com/57zwjhxd
This was at the India International Centre in Delhi, where we had gathered to give Sumit and Tanika the first copies of his MODERN TIMES. There was such rejoicing and satisfaction that the book was done.
(One of a series of photographs taken that day by Anuradha Roy.)
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Professor Sumit Sarkar was that rara avis, an outstanding scholar who was also a very fine human being. Though I was never his student, my understanding of Indian history was deeply shaped by his books “The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal”, “Writing Social History”, and especially “Modern India: 1885-1947”. Then there are his brilliant Deuskar lectures, “Popular Movements and Middle-Class Leadership in Late Colonial India”, reprinted by Permanent Black in their edition of his “Uncollected Writings”. His work influenced generations of historians both in India and overseas, and will live on long after his passing.
N.S.Gundur in conversation with Milind Wakankar, @iitdelhi on 12 August!
Details of the book on our website.
