Just Being

Romila Thapar is an emeritus professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and she was previously the general president of the Indian History Congress. She is a fellow of the British Academy and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Calcutta, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago, among others. She is an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and SOAS, London. In 2008, she was awarded the prestigious Kluge Prize from the Library of Congress.

• PrefacePrologue: Starting at One Book-End of My Life1 The Child2 Anticipations & Misgivings of Adolescence3 Becoming an Adult4 Going Home?5 Returning Home to Much Floundering6 The Ground Beneath My Feet7 The Gelling8 History Rocks!9 Of History and Politics10 The JNU Years, 111 The JNU Years, 212 Family and Friends13 The Aftermath of Momentous Events14 Wanderings: Purposeful or Aimless15 Retirement, but More in Theory16 Politics in the Readings of Archaeology17 The Media & Politics18 Inching Towards a New Millennium19 Into the New Millennium20 Anything New in the New Millennium?21 The Confrontation22 A Return to the Old, but Not Quite23 Diverse Wonderings24 The Kluge Prize, 201025 Historiography Delivered26 What Has Happened to Democracy?27 From the Other Side28 A Failed Conference but An Impressive Felicitation29 The Seagull Space in My House30 Pandemic of More than the Usual Kind31 Farewell YearsEpilogue: The Other Book-End

“An extensive memoir that traces [Thapar's] journey from childhood in British India to her role as a pioneering scholar who profoundly shaped the understanding of India’s ancient past — and her emergence as a public intellectual defending secular values in an era of rising Hindu nationalism.”