Editing Radcliffe Line (section)

===Secrecy===
To avoid disputes and delays, the division was done in secret. The final Awards were ready on 9 and 12 August, but not published until two days after the partition.

According to Read and Fisher, there is some circumstantial evidence that Nehru and Patel were secretly informed of the Punjab Award's contents on 9 or 10 August, either through Mountbatten or Radcliffe's Indian assistant secretary.<ref>{{harvnb|Read & Fisher, The Proudest Day|1998|p=490}}</ref> Regardless of how it transpired, the award was changed to put a salient portion of the non-Muslim majority [[Firozpur district]] (consisting of the two Muslim-majority [[tehsil]]s of [[Firozpur]] and [[Zira, Punjab|Zira]]) east of the Sutlej canal within India's domain instead of Pakistan's.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Singh |first=Kirpal |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/select-documents-on-partition-of-punjab-1947/page/n33/mode/2up?view=theater |title=Select Documents on Partition of Punjab – 1947: India and Pakistan: Punjab, Haryana and Himachal-India and Punjab-Pakistan. |publisher=National Book Shop |year=2006 |isbn=9788171164455 |location=New Delhi |pages=xxvi–xxvii |chapter=Introduction |access-date=4 April 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=French |first=Patrick |url=https://archive.org/details/libertyordeath00fren/page/328/mode/2up?view=theater |title=Liberty or Death : India's Journey to Independence and Division |publisher=Flamingo |year=1998 |location=London |pages=328–330 |isbn=9780006550457 |access-date=4 April 2022}}</ref> There were two apparent reasons for the switch: the area housed an army arms depot,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Datta |first=Vishwa Nath |author-link=Vishwa Nath Datta |year=1998 |title=The Punjab Boundary Commission Award (12 August, 1947) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44147058 |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |volume=59 |pages=860 |jstor=44147058 |access-date=4 April 2022 |quote=It seems that Radcliffe had wanted to compensate Pakistan for having given a small portion of Lahore District and most of Gurdaspur to India, but he changed his mind. Firozpur was an important cantonment area, the major military bastion south of the Sutlej, and a junction point where four railway lines and three high ways met to cross the barrage-cum-bridge towards Kasur and Lahore. Perhaps geographical and strategic considerations weighed with Radcliffe. }}</ref> and contained the headwaters of a canal which irrigated the princely state of Bikaner, which would accede to India.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Altaf |first=Muhammad |year=2021 |title=Colonial Hydraulic Infrastructure, Princely States, and the Partition of the Punjab |url=http://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/HistoryPStudies/PDF_Files/08-v34_2_2021.pdf |journal=Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=128–131}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mansergh |first=Nicolas |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/indiatransferofp12nich/page/638/mode/2up?view=theater |title=Constitutional Relations between Britain and India: The Transfer of Power 1942–7 |publisher=Her Majesty's Stationery Office |year=1983 |volume=XII |location=London |pages=638, 645, 662 |chapter=The Maharaja of Bikaner to Rear-Admiral Viscount Mountbatten of Burma: Telegram (10 August 1947) |access-date=4 April 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sadullah |first=Mian Muhammad |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sPYYAQAAIAAJ&q=bikaner |title=The Partition of the Punjab, 1947: A Compilation of Official Documents |publisher=National Documentation Centre |year=1983 |volume=2 |location=Lahore |pages=202–210 |chapter=Arguments of the Bikaner State |access-date=4 April 2022}}</ref>