Nirmal Verma was born on 3 April 1929 in Shimla, where his father worked as an officer in the Civil and Services Department of the British Indian Government.
His activism streak was visible even during his student days; in 1947-48, he regularly attended Mahatma Gandhiji's morning prayer meetings in Delhi, even though he was a card holding member of Communist Party of India, which he resigned in 1956, after Soviet invasion of Hungary.