Editing Radcliffe Line (section)

==Background==
===Events leading up to the Radcliffe Boundary Commissions===
[[File:How India be split up (1947).jpg|thumb|Map illustrating the overall framework of partition. [[Daily Herald (United Kingdom)|''Daily Herald'']] newspaper, 4 June 1947.]]
On 18 July 1947, the [[Indian Independence Act 1947]] of the Parliament of the United Kingdom stipulated that British rule in India would come to an end just one month later, on 15 August 1947. The Act also stipulated the partition of the [[Presidencies and provinces of British India]] into two new sovereign [[dominion]]s: India and Pakistan.

Pakistan was intended as a Muslim homeland, while India remained [[secular]]. Muslim-majority British provinces in the northwest were to become the foundation of Pakistan. The provinces of [[Balochistan (Pakistan)|Baluchistan]] (91.8% Muslim before partition) and [[Sindh]] (72.7%) and [[North-West Frontier Province]] became entirely Pakistani territory. However, two provinces did not have an overwhelming Muslim majority—[[Punjab Province (British India)|Punjab]] in the northwest (55.7% Muslim) and [[Bengal Presidency|Bengal]] in the northeast (54.4% Muslim).<ref>Smitha, Independence section, para. 7.</ref> After elaborate discussions, these two provinces ended up being partitioned between India and Pakistan.

The Punjab's population distribution was such that there was no line that could neatly divide the [[Hindus]], [[Muslims]], and [[Sikhs]]. Likewise, no line could appease both the [[All-India Muslim League|Muslim League]], headed by [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah|Jinnah]], and the [[Indian National Congress|Congress]] led by [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] and [[Vallabhbhai Patel]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}} Moreover, any division based on religious communities was sure to entail "cutting through road and rail communications, irrigation schemes, electric power systems and even individual landholdings."<ref name="Read, p.483">{{Cite book |last1=Read |first1=Anthony |url=https://archive.org/details/proudestdayindia0000read/page/482/mode/2up?view=theater |title=The Proudest Day: India's Long Road to Independence |last2=Fisher |first2=David |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=1998 |isbn=9780393045949 |location=New York |pages=483 |quote=After briefly visiting Lahore and Calcutta to meet the members of the two commissions, Radcliffe settled into the Controller's House on the edge of the viceregal estate, avoiding contact with the viceroy as far as possible, to minimize any suspicions of influence and impropriety.}}</ref>

===Prior ideas of partition===
The idea of partitioning the provinces of Bengal and Punjab had been present since the beginning of the 20th century. Bengal had in fact been [[Partition of Bengal (1905)|partitioned]] by the then viceroy [[Lord Curzon]] in 1905, along with its adjoining regions. The resulting 'Eastern Bengal and Assam' province, with its capital at [[Dhaka]], had a Muslim majority and the 'West Bengal' province, with its capital at [[Calcutta]], had a Hindu majority. However, this partition of Bengal was reversed in 1911 in an effort to mollify [[Bengali nationalism]].{{sfn|Tan|Kudaisya|2000|p=162–163}}

Proposals for partitioning Punjab had been made starting in 1908. Its proponents included the Hindu leader [[Bhai Parmanand]], Congress leader [[Lala Lajpat Rai]], industrialist [[G. D. Birla]], and various Sikh leaders. After the 1940 [[Lahore resolution]] of the Muslim League demanding Pakistan, [[B. R. Ambedkar]] wrote a 400-page tract titled ''Thoughts on Pakistan.''<ref>{{citation |last=Ambedkar |first=Bhimrao Ramji |title=Thoughts on Pakistan |year=1941 |publisher=Thacker and company |location=Bombay |orig-year=first published 1940 |url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.50130/2015.50130.Pakistan-Or-Partition-Of-India |ref={{sfnref|Ambedkar, Thoughts on Pakistan |1941}}}}</ref> In the tract, he discussed the boundaries of Muslim and non-Muslim regions of Punjab and Bengal. His calculations showed a Muslim majority in 16 western districts of Punjab and non-Muslim majority in 13 eastern districts. In Bengal, he showed non-Muslim majority in 15 districts. He thought the Muslims could have no objection to redrawing provincial boundaries. If they did, "they [did] not understand the nature of their own demand".{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|p=73–76}}<ref>{{harvnb|Dhulipala, Creating a New Medina|2015 |pp=124,&nbsp;134,&nbsp;142–144,&nbsp;149}}: "''Thoughts on Pakistan'' 'rocked Indian politics for a decade'."</ref>

[[File:Punjab-religion-2.jpg|thumb|right|Districts of Punjab with Muslim (green) and non-Muslim (pink) majorities, as per 1941 census]]
After the breakdown of the 1945 [[Simla Conference]] of viceroy [[Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell|Lord Wavell]], the idea of Pakistan began to be contemplated seriously. Sir [[Evan Meredith Jenkins|Evan Jenkins]], the private secretary of the viceroy (later the governor of Punjab), wrote a memorandum titled "Pakistan and the Punjab", where he discussed the issues surrounding the partition of Punjab. [[K. M. Panikkar]], then prime minister of the [[Bikaner State]], sent a memorandum to the viceroy titled "Next Step in India", wherein he recommended that the principle of 'Muslim homeland' be conceded but territorial adjustments made to the two provinces to meet the claims of the Hindus and Sikhs. Based on these discussions, the viceroy sent a note on the "Pakistan theory" to the [[Secretary of State for India]] .{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|p=82}} The viceroy informed the Secretary of State that Jinnah envisaged the ''full provinces'' of Bengal and Punjab going to Pakistan with only minor adjustments, whereas Congress was expecting ''almost half'' of these provinces to remain in India. This essentially framed the problem of partition.{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|p=84–85}}

The Secretary of State responded by directing Lord Wavell to send 'actual proposals for defining genuine Muslim areas'. The task fell on [[V. P. Menon]], the Reforms Commissioner, and his colleague Sir [[B. N. Rau]] in the Reforms Office. They prepared a note called "Demarcation of Pakistan Areas", where they included the three western divisions of Punjab ([[Punjab Province (British India)#Administrative divisions|Rawalpindi, Multan and Lahore]]) in Pakistan, leaving two eastern divisions of Punjab in India ([[Punjab Province (British India)#Administrative divisions|Jullundur and Delhi]]). However, they noted that this allocation would leave 2.2 million Sikhs in the Pakistan area and about 1.5 million in India. Excluding the [[Amritsar district|Amritsar]] and [[Gurdaspur district|Gurdaspur]] districts of the Lahore Division from Pakistan would put a majority of Sikhs in India. (Amritsar had a non-Muslim majority and Gurdaspur a marginal Muslim majority.) To compensate for the exclusion of the Gurdaspur district, they included the entire [[West Dinajpur district|Dinajpur district]] in the eastern zone of Pakistan, which similarly had a marginal Muslim majority. After receiving comments from John Thorne, member of the Executive Council in charge of Home affairs, Wavell forwarded the proposal to the Secretary of State. He justified the exclusion of the Amritsar district because of its sacredness to the Sikhs and that of Gurdaspur district because it had to go with Amritsar for 'geographical reasons'.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sarila |first1=Narendra Singh |title=The Shadow of the Great Game : The Untold Story of India's Partition |date=2006 |publisher=Caroll and Graf Publishers |location=New York |page=195 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/shadowofgreatg00sari/page/194/mode/2up?view=theater |access-date=17 March 2022 |chapter=Wavell Plays the Great game|isbn=9780786719129 }}</ref>{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|p=85–86}}{{sfn|Datta, The Punjab Boundary Commission Award|1998|p=858}}{{efn|{{harvtxt|Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict|2003|p=35}}: Wavell, however, had made a more significant political judgement in his plan, submitted to the secretary of state, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, in February 1946: 'Gurdaspur must go with Amritsar for geographical reasons and Amritsar being sacred city of Sikhs must stay out of Pakistan... Fact that much of Lahore district is irrigated from upper Bari Doab canal with headworks in Gurdaspur district is awkward but there is no solution that avoids all such difficulties.'}} The Secretary of State commended the proposal and forwarded it to the India and Burma Committee, saying, "I do not think that any better division than the one the Viceroy proposes is likely to be found".{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|p=86}}

===Sikh concerns===
{{Cleanup section|date=July 2018|reason=Relevance to the topic of the article is not clear}}
The Sikh leader [[Master Tara Singh]] could see that any division of Punjab would leave the Sikhs divided between Pakistan and India. He espoused the doctrine of self-reliance, [[opposition to the partition of India|opposed the partition of India]] and called for independence on the grounds that no single religious community should control Punjab.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shaw |first1=Jeffrey M. |last2=Demy |first2=Timothy J. |title=War and Religion: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict [3 volumes] |date=2017 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=9781610695176 |page=371 |language=en|quote=Upon the assurances of the Congress Party that Sikh interests would be respected as an independent India, Sikh leadership agreed to support the Congress Party and its vision of a united India rather than seeking a separate state. When Partition was announced by the British in 1946, Sikhs were considered a Hindu sect for Partition purposes. They violently opposed the creation of Pakistan since historically Sikh territories and cities were included in the new Muslim homeland.}}</ref> Other Sikhs argued that just as Muslims feared Hindu domination the Sikhs also feared Muslim domination. Sikhs warned the British government that the morale of Sikh troops in the British Army would be affected if Pakistan was forced on them. [[Gyani Kartar Singh Komal|Giani Kartar Singh]] drafted a scheme of a separate Sikh state if India was to be divided.<ref>''Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850'', Ayesha Jalal, pp. 433–434</ref>

During the Partition developments, Jinnah offered Sikhs to live in Pakistan with safeguards for their rights. Sikhs refused because they opposed the concept of Pakistan and also because they did not want to become a small minority within a Muslim majority.<ref name="KudaisyaYong2004">{{cite book |last1=Kudaisya |first1=Gyanesh |last2=Yong |first2=Tan Tai |title=The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia |date=2004 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-44048-1 |page=100 |language=en |quote=No sooner was it made public than the Sikhs launched a virulent campaign against the Lahore Resolution. Pakistan was portrayed as a possible return to an unhappy past when Sikhs were persecuted and Muslims the persecutor. Public speeches by various Sikh political leaders on the subject of Pakistan invariably raised images of atrocities committed by Muslims on Sikhs and of the martyrdom of their ''gurus'' and heroes. Reactions to the Lahore Resolution were uniformly negative and Sikh leaders of all political persuasions made it clear that Pakistan would be 'wholeheartedly resisted'. The Shiromani Akali Dal, the party with a substantial following amongst the rural Sikhs, organized several well-attended conferences in Lahore to condemn the Muslim League. Master Tara Singh, leader of the Akali Dal, declared that his party would fight Pakistan 'tooth and nail'. Not be outdone, other Sikh political organizations, rival to the Akali Dal, namely the Central Khalsa Young Men Union and the moderate and loyalist Chief Khalsa Dewan, declared in equally strong language their unequivocal opposition to the Pakistan scheme.}}</ref> Vir Singh Bhatti distributed pamphlets for the creation of a separate Sikh state "Khalistan".<ref>''War and Religion: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict'' [3 Volumes], Jeffrey M Shaw, Timothy J Demmy, p. 375</ref> Master Tara Singh wanted the right for an independent Khalistan to federate with either Hindustan or Pakistan. However, the Sikh state being proposed was for an area where neither religion was in absolute majority.<ref name="Punjab page 176">''The Sikhs of the Punjab'', Volumes 2–3, J S Grewal, p. 176</ref> Negotiations for the independent Sikh state had commenced at the end of World War II and the British initially agreed but the Sikhs withdrew this demand after pressure from Indian nationalists.<ref name="Ethnic Group page 292">''Ethnic Group's of South Asia and the Pacific: An Encyclopedia'', James Minahan, p. 292</ref> The proposals of the Cabinet Mission Plan had seriously jolted the Sikhs because while both the Congress and League could be satisfied the Sikhs saw nothing in it for themselves. as they would be subjected to a Muslim majority. Master Tara Singh protested this to Pethic-Lawrence on 5 May. By early September the Sikh leaders accepted both the long term and interim proposals despite their earlier rejection.<ref name="Punjab page 176" /> The Sikhs attached themselves to the Indian state with the promise of religious and cultural autonomy.<ref name="Ethnic Group page 292" />

===Final negotiations===
[[File:Punjab-Districts 1911.png|thumb|right|Pre-partition Punjab province]]
In March 1946, the British government sent a [[1946 Cabinet Mission to India|Cabinet Mission]] to India to find a solution to resolve the conflicting demands of Congress and the Muslim League. Congress agreed to allow Pakistan to be formed with 'genuine Muslim areas'. The Sikh leaders asked for a Sikh state with [[Ambala Division|Ambala]], [[Jalandhar Division|Jalandher]], [[Lahore Division|Lahore]] Divisions with some districts from the [[Multan Division]], which, however, did not meet the Cabinet delegates' agreement. In discussions with Jinnah, the Cabinet Mission offered either a 'smaller Pakistan' with all the Muslim-majority districts ''except Gurdaspur'' or a 'larger Pakistan' under the sovereignty of the Indian Union.{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|pp=87–89}} The Cabinet Mission came close to success with its proposal for an Indian Union under a federal scheme, but it fell apart in the end because of Nehru's opposition to a heavily decentralised India.<ref>{{citation |last1=Metcalf |first1=Barbara D. |last2=Metcalf |first2=Thomas R. |title=A Concise History of Modern India |edition=Third |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c7UgAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA216 |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-53705-6 |pages=216–217 |access-date=29 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180730140644/https://books.google.com/books?id=c7UgAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA216 |archive-date=30 July 2018 |url-status=live  }}: "... the Congress leadership, above all Jawaharlal Nehru, [...] increasingly came to the conclusion that, under the Cabinet mission proposals, the centre would be too weak to achieve the goals of the Congress ..."</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Jalal |first=Ayesha |title=The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D63KMRN1SJ8C |year=1994 |orig-year=first published 1985 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-45850-4 |pages=209–210}}: "Just when Jinnah was beginning to turn in the direction that he both wanted and needed to go, his own followers pressed him to stick rigidly to his earlier unbending stance which he had adopted while he was preparing for the time of bargaining in earnest."</ref>

In March 1947, [[Lord Mountbatten]] arrived in India as the next viceroy, with an explicit mandate to achieve the transfer of power before June 1948. Over ten days, Mountbatten obtained the agreement of Congress to the Pakistan demand except for the 13 eastern districts of Punjab (including Amritsar and Gurdaspur).{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|pp=94–95}} However, Jinnah held out. Through a series of six meetings with Mountbatten, he continued to maintain that his demand was for six full provinces. He "bitterly complained" that the Viceroy was ruining his Pakistan by cutting Punjab and Bengal in half as this would mean a 'moth-eaten Pakistan'.{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|pp=95–96}}<ref>{{cite book |first=T. G. |last=Fraser |title=Partition In Ireland India And Palestine: Theory And Practice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a-yuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA123 |date=1984 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |isbn=978-1-349-17610-6 |page=123 |access-date=7 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180730140643/https://books.google.com/books?id=a-yuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA123 |archive-date=30 July 2018 |url-status=live  }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Moore |first1=Robin James |title=Mountbatten, India, and the Commonwealth |journal=Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=4–53 |quote=Though Mountbatten thought the concept of Pakistan 'sheer madness', he became reconciled to it in the course of six interviews with Jinnah from 5 to 10 April. Jinnah, whom he described as a 'psychopathic case', remained obdurate in the face of his insistence that Pakistan involved the partition of Bengal and the Punjab.}}</ref>

The Gurdaspur district remained a key contentious issue for the non-Muslims. Their members of the Punjab legislature made representations to Mountbatten's chief of staff [[Lord Ismay]] as well as the Governor telling them that Gurdaspur was a "non-Muslim district". They contended that even if it had a marginal Muslim majority of 51%, which they believed to be erroneous, the Muslims paid only 35% of the land revenue in the district.{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|pp=98–99}}

In April, the Governor of Punjab [[Evan Meredith Jenkins|Evan Jenkins]] wrote a note to Mountbatten proposing that Punjab be divided along Muslim and non-Muslim majority districts and proposed that a Boundary Commission be set up consisting of two Muslim and two non-Muslim members recommended by the Punjab Legislative Assembly. He also proposed that a British judge of the High Court be appointed as the chairman of the commission.{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|pp=97–98}} Jinnah and the Muslim League continued to oppose the idea of partitioning the provinces, and the Sikhs were disturbed about the possibility of getting only 12 districts (without Gurdaspur). In this context, the Partition Plan of 3 June was announced with a notional partition showing 17 districts of Punjab in Pakistan and 12 districts in India, along with the establishment of a Boundary Commission to decide the final boundary. In Sialkoti's view, this was done mainly to placate the Sikhs.{{sfn|Sialkoti, Punjab Boundary Line Issue|2014|pp=108–109}}