How Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who had never visited India, was asked to draw its borders

Britain was determined to transfer power quickly. Two boundary commissions were established, one for Punjab and one for Bengal, both to be chaired by Radcliffe, a British barrister. On June 26, British officials formally announced his appointment. “[Lord Louis] Mountbatten went on to laud Radcliffe’s abilities, affirming that he was ‘a man of high integrity, legal reputation, and wide experience’,” writes Chester.

A bulldozer towing a sledge delivers bread to the snowbound village in Britain, 1947 (Wikipedia)

Radcliffe had never visited India. Yet, in many ways, that was seen as his greatest asset. The assumption was that his unfamiliarity would make him impartial.

Aware of the international scrutiny surrounding India’s decolonisation, British officials agreed to involve South Asian nationalist leaders in key decisions. Each boundary commission comprised four South Asian judges—two nominated by Congress and two by the Muslim League. For the Punjab commission, it was agreed that one of Congress’s nominees would be a Sikh. All four judges were well versed in criminal law, with no requirement that they possess geographical expertise or knowledge of the complex precedents surrounding Partition.

In an interview with indianexpress.com, Chester says the short answer to why Radcliffe was chosen was that he was a highly respected lawyer. “The longer answer is that a huge proportion of the major nationalist leaders were lawyers: people trained in the law, immersed in respect for the law, and looking to legal structures for solutions to major problems. As a result, it seemed natural to people like [Jawaharlal] Nehru and [Vallabhai] Patel to use a legal approach to resolve boundary-related questions.”

Radcliffe’s deliberations

As Radcliffe prepared to travel to India, the British government accelerated its withdrawal. On July 4, it introduced the Indian Independence Bill, making Radcliffe’s decision binding on both India and Pakistan.

Radcliffe arrived on July 8—less than six weeks before the August 15 deadline for Britain’s withdrawal—and immediately set to work. Congress and the Muslim League presented their cases in both Bengal and Punjab, while smaller and less influential groups were allowed to make their case only in writing.

Ironically, “Radcliffe did not attend any of its public sittings in person, he merely examined the papers presented to the Commission by all parties. He made no effort to survey the areas he had been asked to carve up,” writes professor Joya Chatterji in her 1999 journal article, ‘The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal’s Border Landscape, 1947-52’.

In the final phase of the boundary-making process, Radcliffe retreated to Delhi to work on the line alone. Chester notes that he destroyed almost all papers relating to his private deliberations. “Among the few surviving documents is a sketch map of the line…,” she says.

A refugee special train at Ambala Station during partition of India (Wikimedia Commons)

As Radcliffe neared his final decision, his primary consideration was the separation of ‘contiguous majority areas’. This led him to divide Lahore and Amritsar, Punjab’s two principal urban centres. Radcliffe also awarded India two areas with small Muslim majorities, in Ferozepur and Gurdaspur districts, in order to keep the canal system that irrigated Amritsar, whose headwaters lay in Gurdaspur, under a single administration.

“Although he attempted to limit the inevitable disruption to Punjabi infrastructure, particularly the irrigation system, these efforts were largely unsuccessful,” Chester writes in her book.

Interviews with Radcliffe’s personal secretary, Christopher Beaumont, confirm that demographic considerations were also a priority. He, however, gave little weight to ‘natural’ boundaries, despite demands from political leaders on all sides. Instead, he relied on existing administrative divisions. Religious shrines, too, were a relatively minor consideration.

Chester notes that one reason for retaining existing administrative divisions was to reinforce the imprint of colonial rule. “Although Radcliffe did not state explicitly his reasons for making this choice, the delineation of a completely new boundary, one that did not follow existing colonial divisions, might have been perceived as a rejection of British rule,” she observes.

The Radcliffe award

Many South Asians pleaded for the decision to be announced ahead of the British withdrawal. “Radcliffe was ready with the award on 9 August itself. However, Mountbatten now changed his mind, and chose to make the award public only after the 15th. His explanation for the delay was strange, to say the least: ‘Without question, the earlier it was published, the more the British would have to bear responsibility for the disturbances which would undoubtedly result’,” notes historian Ramachandra Guha in his book India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (2022). The official reason recorded, interestingly, was that boundary news would ruin the joy of Independence Day celebrations.

Chester says in her interview, “I would argue that Mountbatten’s main goal in delaying the announcement was to ensure that any violence that resulted would happen after the official transfer of power, on the theory that violence after August 15 would no longer be the responsibility of the British.”

Mountbatten meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru (left) and Muhammad Ali Jinnah (right), 1947 (Wikipedia)

When the award was finally announced on August 17, the border forces in place were inadequate to prevent the massacres.

The defining feature of the Radcliffe Line was its division of Amritsar, which went to India, from Lahore, which went to Pakistan. The two most controversial elements involved parts of Gurdaspur and Ferozepur districts. “There have been rumours,” Chester says in the interview, “that Radcliffe made last-stage changes to give India a land-bridge to Kashmir, but there’s no evidence for this allegation…”.

The language used to describe the decision also changed significantly. Chester notes, “Before 15 August, it was known as the ‘boundary commission award’. After its release…the decision began to be cited as the ‘Radcliffe award’. It is this phrase that is commonly used to this day, reflecting not only attempts by the Indian and Pakistani governments to distance themselves from the decisions, but also the idea that the line was a British creation.”

The mastermind

The Radcliffe Line cut through Punjab’s well-developed irrigation system. Its impact was equally disruptive at the local level. In some cases, the line even divided homes in two. The problems with the border in everyday operation, scholars argue, were multi-fold.

Radcliffe was fully cognisant of the consequences of his work. Upon submitting his award, he wanted to leave South Asia. “Of his plans for the following morning Radcliffe wrote,” cites Chester, “‘I station myself firmly on the Delhi airport until an aeroplane from England comes along. Nobody in India will love me for my award about the Punjab and Bengal and there will be roughly 80 million people with a grievance who will begin looking for me. I do not want them to find me.’”

Cyril Radcliffe (Wikipedia)

After returning to England, he spoke very little about his experiences in India.

Many did not believe Radcliffe had acted entirely alone. Chester says, “Historian Patrick French makes an astute observation, in his 1997 book Liberty or Death, that Radcliffe was a barrister following his brief, and Mountbatten was his client (as was the British Government more broadly). So although Mountbatten insisted that Radcliffe was working completely independent of the viceroy, the evidence shows that there was communication between Radcliffe and his secretary on the one hand and Mountbatten and other elements of the Government of India on the other hand.”

She believes that princely states and other parties also tried to get information and requests to Radcliffe. “In the end, I would say that probably Radcliffe made most of the key decisions himself, but that he did consider and act on Mountbatten’s late-stage advice to remove a finger of land south of Amritsar that an earlier draft award (known as the “sketch map”) had allotted to Pakistan,” she adds.

While  Mountbatten may not have influenced the fine print of the award, he undoubtedly inspired some of its broader features. “For one thing, it was Mountbatten’s idea that Radcliffe should chair both Commissions with the idea that a single chairman would keep the larger picture in mind,” writes Chatterji.

‘Legal façade to a political process’

“I think most people assume that the Radcliffe Boundary Commission was working to define a boundary that would be the best solution for a) the two new states of India and Pakistan and b) the people who would be affected by it.  But it wasn’t doing that – it was primarily working to help Britain get rid of its South Asian expenses and unwanted responsibilities as quickly as possible. I think Radcliffe did the best he could to define a workable boundary within those parameters, but relieving Britain of its responsibilities was his main task,” says Chester. His participation, she notes, “mostly lent a legal façade to a political process.”

Concluding the interview, Chester says, “During discussions over forming the Radcliffe Boundary Commission, Muhammad Ali Jinnah said that ‘he had wanted, if possible, to avoid lawyers. There was always trouble when two or more lawyers got together.’ I think he was joking in part because he was by far the most distinguished lawyer in a room full of nationalist leaders who were lawyers. But I also think he was raising a valid point…that the pseudo-legalistic approach of the Radcliffe Boundary Commission might not work out well in the end.”