Bengaluru: Author Amandeep Singh Sandhu has been selected as one of the five recipients of the New India Foundation (NIF) Book Fellowship, a programme that supports writers and scholars working on projects related to independent India. Sandhu will work on his upcoming book titled Keeping the Faith: Sikhs who live outside Panjab, in India.
Book to explore Sikh lives across India
The book aims to document the experiences of Sikhs living in various parts of the country, including remote and less-studied regions. Speaking to Metrolife, Sandhu said, “It was interesting to learn how they reached there and thrived, and what their vulnerabilities are at this point in time in the country’s history.”
He noted that while post-Independence India embraced secularism and equality, recent years have seen a rise in parochialism, with states emphasising their own language and culture. “The subtext of my book is — how do Sikhs fare in such times?” he added, explaining that he hopes to use the Sikh community as a lens to explore broader social and cultural shifts in India.
Personal inspiration and perspective
Sandhu’s interest in the subject is deeply personal. His father, an engineer from Punjab, moved to eastern India to work in steel plants set up under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s industrialisation programme. Sandhu recalls the changing social attitudes after 1984, when his family felt a shift in how they were treated.
“Growing up, I could see a distinct change in how people treated my father earlier and how they treated him after 1984, and how the society that was earlier open to us was slowly getting closed,” he said.
Educated in Punjab, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, Sandhu says he carried with him the belief that India belonged to everyone. “What does a human being want? They want to belong. They want acceptance,” he reflected.
Fifth book in the making
This upcoming work will be Sandhu’s fifth book. He has already written two novels and two non-fiction titles, three of which are autobiographical. One of his works explored mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic.
For his current project, Sandhu earlier received the Homi Bhabha Fellowship to conduct fieldwork. The NIF fellowship will now support him in writing the manuscript, which he plans to complete by the end of next year.
About the fellowship
The New India Foundation Book Fellowship was established in 2004 to encourage writers, scholars and researchers to produce original works that shed light on India’s post-1947 history. Each year, a select group of fellows receives financial support to complete their projects.
Conclusion
For Sandhu, the fellowship is both recognition and an opportunity to explore a community’s story that resonates with India’s larger social fabric. His book on Sikhs living outside Punjab promises to blend personal history with scholarly insight, offering a unique perspective on belonging, identity, and citizenship in contemporary India.