In recent years, history has become a subject of public debate for all the wrong reasons. There was a time when a television panellist claiming that the Taj Mahal was originally a temple would have been met with laughter for making such an absurd assertion. Today, however, mainstream films and media make similar claims without irony. This shift towards anti-intellectualism in public discourse calls for serious introspection. In Just Being, historian Romila Thapar reflects on her life, the India she has witnessed in over 94 years, and how she has experienced the gradual distortion of history over time.
Thapar begins by making it clear that this is unlike any of her previous books. Rather than an academic work or a historical study, Just Being is a record of memories, self-conversations, and the reflections that emerged from them. The prologue perfectly captures the nature and pace of the book, which demands patience. Appropriately, she closes it with lines from TS Eliot’s Burnt Norton: All time is unredeemable.
Born in 1931 to a father serving in the Armed Forces Medical Service and a mother who had never intended to have a third child, Thapar notes with characteristic candour that she arrived anyway, and was fortunate to grow up with deeply indulgent parents. She recounts her early years in Lahore before the family moved to what is now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when she was five. Growing up in cantonments, she frequently visited historic sites such as Takht-i-Bahi, the ancient Buddhist monastery that perhaps sowed the earliest seeds of her fascination with history. She introduces her extended family while seamlessly weaving in the period’s political and social history. As a Panjabi Khatri, she recalls how Lahore was once regarded as the city every Punjabi eventually returned to after a lifetime elsewhere. Partition robbed countless Punjabis of the city they had imagined returning to in old age.
Thapar does not shy away from painful memories. At the age of twelve, a horse-riding instructor attempted to lure her to an isolated spot and imposed himself upon her. She escaped only after shouting for help. Such experiences are tragically common for women, but what stands out is how her parents responded—with support rather than blame.
Thapar writes of initially welcoming the creation of Israel, believing it promised equality, before becoming disillusioned by its policies
On the day India became independent, Thapar, then her school’s prefect, was chosen to hoist the national flag and deliver a speech. She began with Wordsworth’s famous line: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.” That moment encapsulates much of what has shaped her intellectual life: a lifelong attempt to understand India’s identity through history and an enduring concern for its future.
Those expecting the memoir to consist solely of historical anecdotes will be pleasantly surprised. Thapar emerges as warm, self-aware and often witty. She recounts discovering in a memoir by two academics—one of them Amartya Sen—that they remembered her for being an excellent ballroom dancer, a skill she never consciously set out to acquire. “If they had said I was known to be a good cancan dancer,” she quips, “now that would have been something!”
The memoir also traces the evolution of her political thinking. She writes of initially welcoming the creation of Israel, believing it promised equality, before becoming disillusioned by its policies. While she remained uncertain about Israel’s trajectory, she firmly opposed the creation of a nation through the displacement of another people. As a founding member of the Indian Friends of Israel Society, she witnessed how even the existence of such an organisation provoked diplomatic tensions. Arab ambassadors reportedly walked out of an official dinner hosted by the Ministry of External Affairs, where she too was present. Years later, she learned that the Israeli consulate had monitored her movements and gathered information about her family.
After joining the DU, Thapar repeatedly warned of the dangers of rising communalism, concerns she says were largely ignored. Looking back, she suggests those neglected fault lines have only deepened. Reflecting on the contrast between then and now, she writes, “There was none of the public barrenness of thought that has now overtaken us.”
No one lives just one life. In Just Being, readers encounter the many lives Thapar has lived—as a daughter, student, scholar, traveller, teacher and public intellectual. She chronicles not only the major turning points of her life but also the ordinary moments that give them texture. She introduces readers to family, friends and scholars while taking them across Lahore, London, Latin America and beyond.
Thapar writes not simply as a historian of India but as someone who has witnessed its making. That perspective lends the memoir an unmistakable sense of disappointment at the direction the country has taken. Yet it never descends into despair. Instead, Thapar leaves readers with difficult questions about India’s future, and an uncomfortable silence, a simple “good night and good bye.”