Episode Details

Muhammad Ali Jinnah created Pakistan — the world's first nation founded explicitly as a homeland for Muslims — while dying of tuberculosis he kept secret from everyone, including his doctors. He negotiated the partition of British India, became Pakistan's first governor-general, and died thirteen months after independence, leaving a nation without the one leader who might have held it together through its chaotic infancy.

This episode traces Jinnah from his Karachi merchant family through his career as a secular lawyer, the transformation into the champion of Muslim separatism, the partition negotiations, and the death that left Pakistan orphaned at birth.

• Jinnah's secular, Westernized legal career and his early opposition to Hindu-Muslim separation
• The transformation from Indian nationalist to Muslim League leader demanding a separate state
• The partition negotiations, the violence that accompanied independence, and the refugee crisis
• The secret tuberculosis, the thirteen months as governor-general, and the death that left Pakistan leaderless