While Jawaharlal Nehru, M.A. Jinnah and other prominent leaders sparred and debated in public, and Lord Mountbatten readied himself to become the Governor-General of two nascent democracies, a small group of civil servants quietly anticipated—and sought to prevent—the eventual Balkanisation of India.

25 July–14 August 1947: These were the twenty-one days that made India.

The Birth of a Nation follows the work of the newly set-up States Department led by Sardar Patel, and its group of determined officials. They were pitted against a core of ruling families and their wily advisors who had declared their independence. The princely states and small republics were in alliance with orthodox Muslim rulers. These states were building diplomatic relations with foreign nations; trying to Mountbatten, Nehru and Patel; pre-empting the birth of new countries; building relations with Jinnah and the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League.

This is the Indian history citizens need to appreciate just how hard-won the sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic of India is—and how fragile and precious that idea is.