DeQoded: Indo-Pak Radcliffe Line, Result of Inexperience & Apathy

The Radcliffe line was chalked out by a man short of experience and time.

Since 1947, both India and Pakistan celebrate their Independence Day on 15th and 14th August respectively, reliving memories of their shared history of the struggle for freedom against the British Raj. However, while independence came to both on those dates in 1947, they remained connected because of an undefined border till 17 August 1947 – the day that the Radcliffe Border Commission report became public.

The Radcliffe Border Commission, named after the man who led the team, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, was tasked with chalking out the borders of the newly independent countries. But, the process of defining these borders wasn’t exactly simple.

Sir Radcliffe’s Inexperience

The problem was compounded by the fact that Sir Radcliffe, a lawyer, had no experience of drawing borders or demarcating boundaries. He also had no experience with India, having never even visited the country before. While, many may see this as lacking a critical component required for the job, the British felt that it provided a degree of impartiality to Radcliffe.

He arrived in India on July 8, 1947 – less than two months before the Commission met, deliberated and decided upon, and published the report that was to decide the fate of the two countries.

The Process

Sir Radcliffe chaired two commissions: One for the border with East Pakistan (now, Bangladesh) and the other for the Indo-Pak border in the west. Each commission consisted of four judges, two from the Muslim League and two from the secular, but predominantly Hindu, Congress party.

Radcliffe attempted to follow existing subdivisions and the course of a few rivers to establish the international border. The idea was to primarily look at the religious demography of the regions to help in the demarcation, but there were “other factors” that were also taken into account – a vague term for ambiguous variables. The most difficult part of mapping the border was splitting up Punjab and Bengal which had less distinct geo-religious demarcations.

The Legacy

It seems clear that even the British knew that the final Radcliffe Commission report was not going to go down well. This was why they chose to postpone the announcement of the Radcliffe Award by two days. That way, India and Pakistan were both independent and Britain was free of the responsibility for whatever took place after.

The announcement of the line was followed by large-scale violence. Estimates of the dead vary from 200,000 to 1 million people. An estimated 14 million people were displaced during the Partition and the subsequent mass migration, which was the largest in history.

The Radcliffe line served one purpose very well: It gave both India and Pakistan a third party on whom to blame the violence.

To this day, the Radcliffe line remains problematic.

The border running through the Thar Desert, which divides India’s states of Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat from Pakistan’s Sindh and Punjab provinces, is the least disputed.

The area around Kashmir, however, is far more contentious because of the well-known story of the undecided Hindu ruler of the Muslim-dominated princely state. His indecision led to a pro-Pakistan rebellion, which led him to accede to India post-haste.

And the rest is history.