Nehru family portrait, circa 1899. Left to right: Swarup Rani, Motilal, Jawaharlal.

‘A beam of light that pierced the darkness’: Mohandas Gandhi and his wife Kasturba.

A reluctant Jawahar marries Kamala Kaul, 1916.

‘I think we are going to be great friends’: David (front), the future King Edward VIII, on his imperial tour with Dickie Mountbatten.

Hollywood honeymoon: Dickie and Edwina Mountbatten (2nd and 3rd right) on set with Charlie Chaplin (centre) and Cecil B. DeMille (3rd left).

Gandhi (left background, bare-chested) arrives with his Salt Marchers at Dandi, 6 April 1931, to collect salt in defiance of British law.

Ramsay MacDonald, standing, presides over the 2nd Round Table Conference, London, 1931. This attempt to move towards Indian self-rule failed, owing in part to the massive number of delegates. Gandhi is sitting centre, fourth right from MacDonald.

Balmoral, summer 1936: King Edward VIII (in cloak) is joined by friends, including (left) Dickie Mountbatten, and (right) Wallis Simpson and Edwina Mountbatten. A few months later, the King would abdicate to marry Mrs Simpson.

Grand strategy conferences
Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi agreeing the ‘Quit India’ plan in defiance of the British raj, 1942.

World War II Allies, 1943. Seated centre left, Winston Churchill; centre right, Franklin D. Roosevelt; standing, centre, Dickie Mountbatten. Sir Hastings Ismay is to the left of Mountbatten. Seated to the left of Churchill is Admiral Ernest King, who Mountbatten accidentally shot in the leg.

Captured in a rare moment of mutual good humour: Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, 1946.

24 March 1947: Dickie Mountbatten is sworn in as Viceroy of India. Edwina is to the right of Dickie. Standing to the left of the picture can be seen Jawaharlal Nehru, in black sherwani and white cap; to the left of Nehru is Vallabhbhai Patel, in white khadi. Liaquat Ali Khan is standing to the right of Edwina, in a light suit and a black cap.

28 March 1947: At the Viceroy’s first garden party, Edwina sits on a sofa with Nan Pandit and Pamela Mountbatten. Jawahar sits at Edwina’s feet.

Front page news, 31 March 1947: Gandhi, at his first meeting with the Mountbattens, leans on Edwina for support.

It was no secret that the Mountbattens got on less well with the Muslim League leaders. Left to right: Liaquat Ali Khan, Jinnah, Dickie, Fatima Jinnah, Edwina.

‘Like the Blitz at its worst’: Edwina inspecting riot damage in the Punjab, April 1947.

3 June 1947: for the first time in history, no party raises an objection to the plan for independence. Clockwise around the table from centre: Dickie, Jinnah, Liaquat, Abdur Rab Nishtar, Baldev Singh, K. R. Kripalani, Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawahar.

Independence days

Pakistan’s Independence Day, 14 August 1947. ‘I won’t pretend I wasn’t scared’: driving through Karachi, Dickie and Jinnah maintain brave faces despite an assassination threat.

India’s Independence Day, 15 August 1947: a rainbow appears in the sky as the new flag is raised. Dickie salutes; to the right, Edwina and Jawahar in conversation.

15 August 1947, Delhi: crowds greet the Mountbattens.

Calcutta, August 1947: Gandhi (with grand-niece Manu) plugs his ears against the screams of rioters.

‘A great and unique love’: brought together by their work with the victims of India’s partition, Jawahar and Edwina can be seen holding hands during a visit to a refugee camp in this rare photograph.

October 1947: crowds gather in riot-torn Delhi to hear Gandhi and Nehru call for peace.

‘We have so long been the “Aunt Sally” of politics in India that our reappearance in that role is hardly surprising’: the Mountbattens in Gwalior during the Kashmir crisis, December 1947.

‘His sister slipped up before each photograph and tried gently to uncurl his desperately clenched hands’: the dying Jinnah photographed by Margaret Bourke-White, 1948.

‘A thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country’: Jawahar climbs the gatepost of Birla House to tell the crowds of Gandhi’s murder, 30 January 1948.

‘Only the eyes revealed stark anguish’: Jawahar (centre) at Gandhi’s funeral, 31 January 1948. Edwina sits behind him.

Mashobra, May 1948: Dickie and Pamela Mountbatten in their car, just outside the Governor-General’s Retreat. Edwina and Jawahar are in the back.

‘They really dote on each other in the nicest way’: Edwina and Jawahar walking together in the forests around Mashobra.

‘Hundreds of thousands will be sorrowful at the news that you have gone’: Edwina and a downcast Jawahar at the Mountbattens’ farewell dinner.

More goodbyes: Dickie bids farewell to Rajagopalachari while, in the background, Jawahar kisses Edwina’s hand.

‘It was not a bang but with a kiss you left us’: Edwina hugs India’s new Governor-General, Chakravarty Rajagopalachari, as the Mountbattens leave for London, 21 June 1948.

Keeping in touch: Edwina and Jawahar in London, 1955.

‘He had sat between Mrs Kennedy and her sister and with the light of love in his eyes’: Indian state visit to Washington, 1961. Left to right: Jacqueline Kennedy, Jawahar, Indira Gandhi, John F. Kennedy.

‘Theirs had been a harmony of difference, cemented by their mutual admiration for the Mahatma, on the one hand, and the very human Edwina, on the other’: Dickie is the first British visitor to Jawahar’s lying in state, 1964. With Dickie is Jawahar’s sister, Nan Pandit.