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As the small Himalayan state of Sikkim readied itself to conclude a year-long commemoration marking fifty years of its integration into the Indian Union, with the Prime Minister expected to attend, Jackie Hiltz’s A Kingdom Remembered hit the shelves. While Sikkim’s Indian statehood is widely regarded as a fait accompli, Hiltz returns to a quiet but lingering question in both public and private discourse: what brought about the end of the Buddhist kingdom of Sikkim? Her additional question: why does it remain so difficult to speak about it?

Today, Sikkim lies wedged between Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and the state of West Bengal. Sikkim became a monarchical state under the Namgyal dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century. Historically, it passed through phases of Tibetan and British influence before becoming a protectorate under independent India in 1950.

Between 1973 and 1975, amid internal political mobilisation and geopolitical intrigues, the monarchy was abolished and Sikkim became the last entrant into the Indian Union. This period of transition remains a field of contested narratives with differing perspectives.

A Kingdom Remembered: A Personal and Political History of Sikkim, Jackie Hiltz, Rachna Books, 2026.

Hiltz is an independent scholar of the Eastern Himalayas and brings to this work her decades-long and enduring obsession with Sikkim. The book completes the ‘Sikkim History Trilogy’ published by the independent, award-winning Rachna Books, following Saul Mullard’s account of Sikkim’s early state formation and Alex McKay’s study of its evolution under British influence. Hiltz builds on this historical foundation to look into the kingdom’s final decades and its journey to Indian statehood.

At the heart of her book lies an abounding mystery. Although the merger occurred only half a century ago, little collective memory of it........

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