How a British judge divided India and Pakistan in just 5 weeks

Seventy-eight years ago, in August 1947, British India was split into two new sovereign nations — India and Pakistan — marking the end of colonial rule.

But independence did not come with clarity.

Instead, it came with confusion, panic, and heartbreak, as the land was hastily through a boundary whose foundations were drawn up in less than six weeks by a man who had never visited the region before.

The border that would divide one of the most diverse and densely populated regions in the world, affecting millions of lives, came to be known as the Radcliffe Line.

It marked the end of British India and the beginning of two new nations: a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan (which later split into Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1971).

But the hurried nature of this division continue to define the politics in the region nearly eight decades later.

Why was the partition of India rushed?

By the end of World War II, Britain was financially and militarily depleted. The colonial administration in India was becoming increasingly untenable amid growing nationalist unrest.

Large-scale violence during the August 1946 communal riots had raised fears of a civil war.

While the British had initially set a deadline of July 1948 for their withdrawal, the urgency to leave escalated.

The timeline was advanced by a full year, and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of British India, announced in June 1947 that independence would be granted in August of that same year.

Mountbatten’s announcement of partition into two dominions — India and Pakistan — did not come with clarity on where the dividing lines would lie.

The task of determining those borders fell to an English judge who had never studied, written about, or even visited India: Sir Cyril Radcliffe.

Who was Cyril Radcliffe, why was he chosen?

Radcliffe was a barrister with no prior connection to India. On July 8, 1947, he arrived in the country for the first time — just over a month before the date set for independence.

He was assigned to chair two boundary commissions, one each for the provinces of Punjab and Bengal, which were to be divided due to their mixed religious demographics.

The reasoning behind his selection was based on his presumed impartiality.

His lack of familiarity with Indian politics and geography was seen as a virtue, under the logic that someone with no personal or political bias could be trusted with an even-handed decision.

However, his lack of local knowledge quickly became a liability. Radcliffe himself acknowledged the limits of his capabilities and the near-impossible task at hand.

In a 1971 interview with journalist Kuldip Nayar, Radcliffe recalled how close he had come to assigning Lahore to India before being warned that Pakistan would be left without any major urban centre if that were to happen.

He told Nayar, “The time at my disposal was so short that I could not do a better job. However, if I had two to three years, I might have improved on what I did.”

Despite recognising the enormity of the task and his unsuitability, Radcliffe accepted the assignment out of a sense of duty.

By August 12, just five weeks after he began, he submitted his recommendations to Mountbatten.

He departed India the very next day and never returned.

Notably, he refused to accept payment for his work after learning about the communal violence that erupted.

How were the India-Pakistan borders decided?

Radcliffe was instructed to draw the borders based on religious demographics — primarily the distribution of Hindus and Muslims — but was also told to factor in “other considerations.”

These additional variables were never clearly defined but are believed to have included infrastructure, such as irrigation networks and railway systems, as well as economic and administrative viability.

The ambiguity surrounding these considerations meant that Radcliffe had immense discretionary power. He was not only tasked with dividing land but with drawing a line through the hearts of communities, districts, and even families.

His decisions, although aided by local legal advisers — two each from the Congress and the Muslim League — were ultimately final. With Radcliffe holding the deciding vote in each commission, his judgement became the basis for the creation of two nations.

The job was made more difficult by the complex demography of the subcontinent. In provinces like Punjab and Bengal, there was no overwhelming religious majority.

Populations were mixed at various administrative levels — districts, tehsils, towns, and even villages.

The Punjab Boundary Commission saw conflicting claims.

The Muslim League insisted on the inclusion of Lahore, Multan, and Rawalpindi, and laid claim to areas such as Ferozepur, Jullundur, Amritsar, Ambala, and Hoshiarpur based on the principle of contiguous Muslim-majority regions.

The Congress, meanwhile, argued that Hindu and Sikh economic dominance in certain areas like Lahore and Gurdaspur should tilt the decision in India’s favour.

The Akali Dal, representing the Sikhs, also lobbied hard, focusing on control over canal systems vital to agriculture.

In Bengal, the challenge was even greater. The border here was nearly six times longer than in Punjab. Religious and political loyalties were deeply entwined with economic and cultural realities.

The Hindu Mahasabha also added its own voice. Radcliffe was so pressed for time that he could not even attend key public hearings in Lahore, remaining instead in Bengal to complete his assignment.

Ultimately, Punjab was split into East Punjab (India) and West Punjab (Pakistan), while Bengal was divided into West Bengal (India) and East Bengal (Pakistan, later Bangladesh).

The provinces of Sindh and Balochistan, being Muslim-majority, were awarded entirely to Pakistan with minimal contestation.

What happened after the partition?

The consequences of Radcliffe’s lines were immediate and catastrophic. Over 10 million people were displaced in the months that followed, as Hindus and Sikhs fled Pakistan and Muslims moved toward Pakistan from India.

This migration, unlike any before it, was marked by brutal violence, massacres, and sexual violence on a horrifying scale.

Estimates suggest that between 200,000 and one million people were killed during the mass movement. Thousands more died from disease and starvation in refugee camps.

Women were especially vulnerable; tens of thousands were raped, abducted, or mutilated, regardless of religious identity.

Families were torn apart, homes were abandoned, and entire towns were emptied of their original populations.

The postal services, military divisions, currency systems, and civil administrations of what had been a unified colony had to be split almost overnight.

While Punjab saw much of the immediate bloodshed, the consequences of partition in Bengal were drawn out over decades.

Waves of refugees from East Pakistan, and later Bangladesh, continued arriving in West Bengal well into the late 20th century.

By 1981, it was estimated that one in every six people in West Bengal was a refugee, significantly impacting the state’s population density, economy, and political dynamics.

The issues faced by these displaced populations — landlessness, job insecurity, communal tensions—continue to affect the region today.

In many ways, the legacy of Radcliffe’s border-drawing still dictates the demographic and political challenges of the eastern part of India.

In the words of Lord Mountbatten, “For more than hundred years you have lived together… My great hope was that communal differences would not destroy all of this…”

But communal differences did indeed fracture the unity.

The line drawn by the English judge with little knowledge of the subcontinent created a wound that has never fully healed.

What happened to Kashmir?

While the Radcliffe Line dealt primarily with British provinces, princely states — semi-autonomous regions under local rulers — were allowed to choose which nation to join.

Among them, Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region ruled by a Hindu Maharaja, became the most contentious.

The Maharaja’s decision to accede to India after independence was met with outrage in Pakistan.

This triggered the first India-Pakistan war in 1947-48 and sowed the seeds for a dispute that continues more than seven decades later.

Four wars, multiple skirmishes, and enduring political hostility between the two countries all stem from the unresolved status of Kashmir, a region whose fate was influenced by the same hasty decisions that defined partition.

What is Radcliffe’s legacy?

Radcliffe returned to Britain after submitting his report and remained largely silent about the partition for the rest of his life.

He passed away in April 1977, having never revisited India.

He knew the consequences of his work were tragic, and he was reportedly deeply affected by the human cost that followed.

According to a poem written about him and countless historical analyses, Radcliffe’s line has been seen as a tool of fate, determining the identity and destiny of people with clinical indifference.

"…He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect…"

- an excerpt from British-American poet Wystan Hugh Auden’s “Partition”.

His decisions have been the subject of intense historical scrutiny. Many scholars argue that the Radcliffe Line is among the most arbitrary and unscientific international borders ever drawn.

To understand the borders of India and Pakistan is to confront one of the most tragic chapters in the history of the subcontinent.

As generations grow up hearing tales of the freedom struggle, it is equally important to remember the stories of those who lost homes, families, and lives because of a line.

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With inputs from agencies