Editing Radcliffe Line (section)

===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}}