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 remains. There is still no widely accepted, even-handed account of how it came about. While earlier works such as B.S. Das’ The Sikkim Saga and Sunanda Datta-Ray’s Smash and Grab: the Annexation of Sikkim have offered differing interpretations, they are also shaped by their affiliations to the Indian state or the monarchy. Hiltz argues that while these and other accounts have contributed to an understanding of modern Sikkimese history, none has produced irrefutable evidence regarding the events.This absence of memory is compounded by the politics of remembering itself. Hiltz observes that people who lived through the transition often recollect it selectively, while others prefer not to speak of it at all. Even among the next generation of Sikkimese, she encountered “more questions and few answers”. In this sense, this book is also about the Sikkimese society’s relationship with its past – one marked by hesitation, forgetting and, at times, self-silencing.Hiltz initially set out to write a straightforward history of Sikkim’s final years as a monarchy. However, the hurdles of silence themselves become the subject of study. She notes how her conversations with Sikkimese interlocutors were often marked by caution, which she finds “both frustrating and understandable.”Indian officials in Delhi also remain guarded in their recollections. In both their tellings and archival sources, the official term “merger” coexists uneasily with “annexation”, with the choice of language reflecting underlying sensitivities. On silences, Hiltz remarks, “Sometimes it is what a person does not say that says the most.”In her candid admission, Hiltz notes that the book took years to complete and she often considered shelving the project as sources proved elusive. It was the discovery of what she calls “something compellingly close to the metaphorical smoking gun – irrefutable evidence” that finally enabled her to complete her work. The nature of this evidence is best left for the book to disclose.The book is structured chronologically. It begins with an overview of the establishment of the Buddhist monarchy before moving through the period of British engagement. She examines the demographic changes and socio-economic inequalities that accompanied colonial rule, including the lessee-landlord system and corvée labour, which contributed to political awakening in the years following British withdrawal in 1947.The narrative then turns to the decisive decades leading up to 1975: the emergence of political outfits and popular discontent, the rise of Indira Gandhi and the monarchy’s efforts to assert a distinct national identity in the face of geopolitical pressures.A wide cast of historical figures animates her account. The last Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal and his American-born consort Hope Cooke stand alongside Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Kazi Lhendup Dorji. Diplomats and administrators such as Apa Pant, K.S. Bajpai and B.S. Das, as well as intelligence figures like R.N. Kao, feature prominently. Hiltz combines private and official archives with interviews to reconstruct the political intrigue through the eyes of those in the ring.Her approach is to place these divergent perspectives in conversation. She speaks to individuals across the political spectrum, including former diplomats, political actors and observers in India and abroad, to piece together a narrative. These testimonies are not always consistent or complete, but taken together, they reveal why history resists a singular linear narrative. Where this book succeeds most is in bringing these views into dialogue, allowing the reader to see how different actors understood both each other and the unfolding events.The book straddles conventional and narrative history, weaving archival material with vignettes from Hiltz’s encounters and travels. Where conventional histories, by design, exclude the personal and the process of research, Hiltz includes both. Her observations also capture a changing Sikkim. Gangtok, for instance, evolves over the years into a city marked by “unfettered development”. Her encounters with elderly politicians, gracious hosts and officious bureaucrats add texture without distracting from the narrative.In the end, Hiltz is notably candid about the limits of inquiry and suggests that time can be both an ally and adversary to historical understanding. While historical distance offers clarity of thought and the possible unearthing of new sources, it also brings about the erosion of memory and the loss of firsthand witnesses. It raises an important question: what happens to historical memory after the passing of the generation that witnessed the merger? What she describes as “the old days were far away, yet within reach” still holds, but there is an urgency to record and archive oral histories with each passing day.While the jigsaw of the whole truth remains incomplete, it is always an ongoing effort. What matters most is that this book reignites curiosity about Sikkim’s past, a story much neglected in the mainstream historical narratives. In the context of Sikkim’s merger, Hiltz notes “the truth of how it happened and why should be accessible to all, especially to the Sikkimese”.A Kingdom Remembered: A Personal and Political History of Sikkim is an important and timely contribution to the study of modern Sikkimese history and it adds to our understanding of how major political transitions are contested, remembered and forgotten.It has been fifty years since Sikkim became a part of India. That is reason enough to revisit it.Raman Mohora is a PhD scholar of Modern History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.