Editing Radcliffe Line (section)

==== Gurdaspur District ====
{{See also|Gurdaspur district#Religion}}
[[File: Population of Muslims and Non-Muslims in Gurdaspur District, 1891-1941.svg|thumb|Populations of Muslim and Non-Muslims in Gurdaspur District, based on Census Data. In the 1881 Census, Non-Muslims were in majority, at 52.49%. The proportion of the Muslim population increased in the following decades, turning them into a majority by the 1930s.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Singh |first1=Kirpal |title=Select Documents on Partition of Punjab – 1947: India and Pakistan: Punjab, Haryana and Himachal-India and Punjab-Pakistan |date=2005 |publisher=National Book Shop |location=Delhi |isbn=9788171164455 |page=212 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/select-documents-on-partition-of-punjab-1947/page/212/mode/2up?view=theater |access-date=17 March 2022 |chapter=Memorandum Submitted to the Punjab Boundary Commission by the Indian National Congress}}</ref>|251x251px]]
The Gurdaspur district was divided geographically by the [[Ravi River]], with the [[Shakargarh Tehsil|Shakargarh tehsil]] on its west bank, and [[Pathankot district|Pathankot]], [[Gurdaspur district|Gurdaspur and Batala tehsils]] on its east bank. The Shakargarh tehsil, the biggest in size, was awarded to Pakistan. (It was subsequently merged into the [[Narowal District|Narowal district]] of [[West Punjab]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://pportal.punjab.gov.pk/portal/portal/media-type/html/group/323;jsessionid=0a00000230d7fa0dd249920547b9befeba50fa09d3af.e34Ma3iPcheLci0Lc3iPah8RbN0Te6fznA5Pp7ftolbGmkTy/page/default.psml?nav=home |title=Narowal – Punjab Portal |access-date=28 June 2011 |archive-date=1 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001201945/http://pportal.punjab.gov.pk/portal/portal/media-type/html/group/323;jsessionid=0a00000230d7fa0dd249920547b9befeba50fa09d3af.e34Ma3iPcheLci0Lc3iPah8RbN0Te6fznA5Pp7ftolbGmkTy/page/default.psml?nav=home |url-status=dead }}</ref>) The three eastern tehsils were awarded to India. (Pathankot was eventually made a separate district in [[East Punjab (state)|East Punjab]].) The division of the district was followed by a population transfer between the two nations, with Muslims leaving for Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs arriving from there.

The entire district of Gurdaspur had a bare majority of 50.2% Muslims.{{sfn|Tan|Kudaisya|2000|p=91}} (In the `notional' award attached to the Indian Independence Act, all of Gurdaspur district was marked as Pakistan with a 51.14% Muslim majority.{{sfn|Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict|2003|p=35}} In the 1901 census, the population of Gurdaspur district was 49% Muslim, 40% Hindu, and 10% Sikh.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/pager.html?objectid=DS405.1.I34_V12_401.gif |title=Gurdāspur District – Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 12, p. 395 |access-date=25 April 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080408210547/http://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/pager.html?objectid=DS405.1.I34_V12_401.gif |archive-date=8 April 2008 |url-status=live  }}</ref>) The Pathankot tehsil was predominantly Hindu while the other three tehsils were Muslim majority.{{sfn|Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict|2003|p=38}} In the event, only Shakargarh was awarded to Pakistan.

Radcliffe explained that the reason for deviating from the notional award in the case of Gurdaspur was that the [[Marala Headworks|headwaters]] of the [[Upper Bari Doab Canal|canals]] that irrigated the Amritsar district lay in the Gurdaspur district and it was important to keep them under one administration.{{sfn|Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict|2003|p=35}} Radcliffe might have sided with Lord Wavell's reasoning from February 1946 that Gurdaspur had to go with the Amritsar district, and the latter could not be in Pakistan due to its Sikh religious shrines.{{sfn|Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict|2003|p=35}}{{sfn|Ahmed, Pakistan: The Garrison State|2013|loc=pp. 65–66: "The final border was almost a ditto copy of Viceroy Lord Wavell's top secret Demarcation Plan of February 1946, which was an auxiliary to the Demarcation Plan of February 1946..."}} In addition, the railway line from Amritsar to Pathankot passed through the Batala and Gurdaspur tehsils.{{sfn|Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict|2003|pp=33–34}} He further claimed that to compensate for the exclusion of the Gurdaspur district, they included the entire [[Dinajpur District, Bangladesh|Dinajpur district]] in the eastern zone of Pakistan, which similarly had a marginal Muslim majority.

Pakistanis have alleged that the award of the three tehsils to India was a manipulation of the Award by Lord Mountbatten in an effort to provide a land route for India to [[Jammu and Kashmir (princely state)|Jammu and Kashmir]].{{sfn|Tan|Kudaisya|2000|p=91}} However, Shereen Ilahi points out that the land route to Kashmir was entirely within the Hindu-majority Pathankot tehsil. The award of the Batala and Gurdaspur tehsils to India did not affect the Kashmir land route.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ilahi |first1=Shereen |title=The Radcliffe Boundary Commission and the Fate of Kashmir |journal=India Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |year=2003 |pages=77–102 |issn=1473-6489 |doi=10.1080/714002326|s2cid=153890196 }}</ref>