By Tehreem Asad
Books on history are essential in strengthening our appreciation of human complexities and experiences. Understanding of the past helps us to contextualise our present. The relevance of historical reflection is growing now more than ever, as history becomes a space for discussions, debates, and contentions. It is, thus, crucial to familiarise oneself with the past. In this spirit, here are five books on Indian history published in 2025, each of which breaks away from the conventional wisdom of history in its own unique way.
1. The Lost Heer: Women in Colonial Punjab by Harleen Singh
(Courtesy: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/the-lost-heer/ )
Published in March 2025, The Lost Heer seeks to highlight the struggles and role of women in colonial Punjab. The book uses oral narratives and accounts of women in regional literature to reconstruct the contributions of women in the political, economic and socio-cultural milieu of Punjab from the 18th century till the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. The title of the book alludes to the heroine of the extremely popular Punjabi folk tale who belonged to a wealthy family, but falls in love with a commoner. The title remembers Heer as not just a romantic figure, but as a symbol of resistance, assertion, and as a woman of agency.
In this book, Singh offers a narrative which reproduces the lives of Punjabi women which went far beyond their roles as daughters, sisters, wives and mothers. Women’s role as revolutionaries, rebels, intellectuals and defiers of rigid social norms is emphasised. Singh brings to light stories of women like Dr Premdevi, who was possibly Punjab’s first female doctor and Khadija Begum Ferozeuddin, who was the first Punjabi lady to earn an M.A., Haridevi Roshanlal, who started the first women’s magazine in colonial Punjab, as well as figures like Mai Fatto, Bibi Sahib Kaur, Manmohini Zutshi and others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Harleen Singh is a writer and researcher. He became interested in history because of the stories he was told growing up, especially by his grandmother. He started volunteering for the 1947 Partition Archive, which drew his attention to the lives and struggles of the women Partition survivors. This resulted in the creation of ‘The Lost Heer’ Project by him on Instagram in 2018, which ultimately led to the creation of the book on the same subject.
2. India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent by Audrey Truschke
(Courtesy: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/india-5000-years-of-history-on-the-subcontinent/ )
Published in June 2025, India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent provides an overarching history of the Indian subcontinent, spanning over a period of over five millenia. The term India in the title refers to the older geographical sense of the subcontinent, which includes regions from modern-day nations of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. The book tries to move the discussion of the past away from the dynastic and political history, focused on state formation and dominant groups, by focusing on the non-elite and often neglected sections of the society like women, oppressed castes, Adivasis, and others. The experiences of such marginalised groups, as well as non-Brahmanical traditions, are presented in the form of a thorough narrative history. Truschke uses a multitude of literary and archaeological sources in her work and challenges both the colonial and nationalist interpretations of history.
The book covers the history of the Indian subcontinent from the times of the Indus Valley Civilisation to the 21st century. Naturally, while trying to condense the history of such a vast period and such a diverse region, the book sometimes overlooks important dimensions of the past. It has been pointed out that the book is sometimes unable to fully capture or emphasise certain events and ideas, especially the anti-colonial movement. However, considering the scope of the work, the book provides a detailed and extensive narrative of the past, despite its limitations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Audrey Truschke is a professor at Rutgers University–Newark. She teaches the history of South Asia, which inspired her to write India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent, partly as a textbook for her students. Her teaching interests include modern India and Pakistan and religious debates and conflicts. Her research interests include cultural, intellectual and imperial history of early modern South Asia.
3. Badshah, Bandar, Bazaar: Commerce and Everyday Life in the Mughal World by Jagjeet Lally
(Courtesy: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/badshah-bandar-bazaar/ )
Published in October 2025, Badshah, Bandar, Bazaar focuses on the importance of commercial forces like coins, contracts and markets that were responsible for holding together the Mughal empire. The book provides a people-oriented perspective of the Mughal Empire by focusing on the role of ordinary people like bankers, moneylenders, merchants, middlemen, and artisans in shaping the society and economy of the empire. It explores the contributions of these real-life characters in sustaining the empire, as well as their role in its decline.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jagjeet Lally is an Associate Professor at University College London and teaches the history of Early Modern and Colonial India. As a historian, he is interested in the South Asian economy and material life. Besides Badshah, Bandar, and Bazaar, he has authored two other books on Indian history.
4. Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present by Romila Thapar and Namit Arora
(Courtesy: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/speaking-of-history/ )
Published in November 2025, Speaking of History presents a discussion between the renowned historian Romila Thapar and writer Namit Arora, which probes into the central debates in the field of history. Their discourse seeks to examine why the past has become a space for disputation and its role in the politics and identity formation in today’s time. Their discussion revolves around ideas like religion, caste, violence, culture, power structures and nationalism and affects our past and present alike.
In their conversation, Thapar and Arora discuss how historical writing in India provides different interpretations of the past and how these interpretations lead to the contestation of our understanding of history. The book attempts to critically examine the field of history, trying to understand the extent to which it is possible to recognise the nature of our past while dismantling the distortions that hinder this knowledge.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Romila Thapar is Professor Emerita of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi. Her areas of interest include social and cultural history as well as the historiography of early India. Her research draws its evidence from multiple and comprehensive selection sources and offers an approach to scholarship that is holistic in nature. Thapar, early in her career, challenged conventional historiography and is credited by many for pioneering novel research methodologies for historical writing and renewing the understanding of Indian history.
Namit Arora is a writer and a social critic who, although trained in science and technology, has spent more than three decades studying the discipline of history as well as other social sciences.
5. The Battle of Narnaul by Kulpreet Yadav and Madhur Rao
(Courtesy: https://www.penguin.co.in/book/the-battle-of-narnaul/ )
Published in November 2025, the book provides the narrative of one of the intense battles from 1857, which is often not given its due notice. It focuses on the role of Rao Tula Ram as a warrior, strategist and a leader of the revolt of 1857 in Haryana. The book offers a well-researched and detailed description of the Battle of Narnaul and the subsequent six-year resistance. It provides an account of the conflicts as well as the role of forgotten figures in India’s struggle with colonial power.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Kulpreet Yadav served in the Indian Coast Guard for two decades, after which he shifted his focus to writing and authored several books in different genres. He is also an entrepreneur, actor and filmmaker.
Mathur Rao is a historian. His interest areas include culture, heritage, and history of Ahirwal, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Western Uttar Pradesh.
These works give us compelling accounts and reinterpretations of history. They shed light on overlooked episodes of the past, lived experiences of the present, and the implications of the depiction of history on our contemporary society. These works provide new insights and question the accepted version of the past, where they deem the challenge to the status quo necessary.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
The Lost Heer: Women in Colonial Punjab by Harleen Singh
1.https://thewire.in/books/history-of-punjab-re-imagined-through-the-lives-of-women
2. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/the-many-heers-of-punjab-harleen-singhs-archive-of-resistance-resilience-and-remembering/articleshow/121851431.cms
India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent by Audrey Truschke
1.https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691221229/india
2. https://asianreviewofbooks.com/india-5000-years-of-history-on-the-subcontinent-by-audrey-truschke/
3. https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/audrey-truschke-india-5000-years-history-review-migration-marginalised-voices/article69919494.ece
4. https://www.telegraphindia.com/books/india-made-sense-of-audrey-truschkes-book-is-yet-another-addition-to-the-growing-corpus-of-textbooks-on-the-subcontinents-history-prnt/cid/2121350
5. https://sasn.rutgers.edu/audrey-truschke
Badshah, Bandar, Bazaar: Commerce and Everyday Life in the Mughal World
1. https://www.penguin.co.in/book/badshah-bandar-bazaar/
2. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/history/people/academic-staff/dr-jagjeet-lally
Speaking of History: Conversations about India’s Past and Present by Romila Thapar, Namit Arora
1.https://www.penguin.co.in/book/speaking-of-history/
2. https://www.loc.gov/programs/john-w-kluge-center/kluge-prize/past-winners/item/n50007613/romila-thapar-1931/
The Battle of Narnaul by Kulpreet Yadav and Madhur Rao
1.https://www.penguin.co.in/book/the-battle-of-narnaul/
