On that fateful August 14, 1947, as Lord Mountbatten landed in Karachi to swear in Muhammad Ali Jinnah amid an assassination plot the last anxious hours of the Raj unfolded in high drama. In Karachi, the frail yet resolute Jinnah proclaimed religious freedom in his nascent nation, even as Punjab’s massacres raged unchecked, rivers ran red with blood, and thousands died in mass carnage and forced migration.

Meanwhile, in Calcutta, a weary Mahatma Gandhi refused the pomp of freedom celebrations. Instead, fasting and praying in the city’s violence, he appealed for unity, briefly restoring peace in a broken city through sheer moral force. Elsewhere, Jawaharlal Nehru received sacred blessings before learning that Lahore was engulfed in flames. Battling despair yet driven by purpose he steeled himself to deliver his celebrated “Tryst with Destiny” speech just hours before midnight, ushering India into freedom, even as his heart pined for a splintered land.