India, Jan. 30 -- The bullet fired on the evening of January 30, 1948 did not merely end the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It struck a nation already wounded - politically free, yet morally bruised and spiritually exhausted. India had emerged from nearly two centuries of imperial domination only months earlier, but freedom had arrived soaked in blood. Partition displaced more than ten million people; hundreds of thousands were killed or maimed. Women were widowed and violated, children orphaned, families torn apart and scattered like sand slipping through an open palm. The proud were reduced to paupers, entire populations forced into refugee camps and tents, many clustered around Delhi, carrying their lives in bundles and their grie...