In 1947, Gandhi met with India's last viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, in Delhi to discuss the transfer of Indian sovereignty from Great Britain. Pictured here with Mountbatten and his wife, Lady Edwina, Gandhi argued that partition of India into a Muslim and Hindu state should come only "as a result of understanding between the parties or armed conflict," and only after the British had left. Gandhi's plea for India to be allowed to resolve its own problems was ignored: Under the Mountbatten Plan, power was divided between two states, India and Pakistan.

PHOTO: AP