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Revision as of 07:18, 11 March 2006
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The border line between newly created India and Pakistan in 1947 was called the Radcliffe Line. It was roughly based on the proposals of Lord Wavell and was drawn by Viscount Cyril Radcliffe. Radcliffe had never visited India and didn't know anybody in India before his arrival. Thus, because of his unbiased views, he was considered one of the best people to do the job. At the same time, due to his utter ignorance of ground realities in the areas he was to divide, there were instances where the border was drawn right through villages leaving some portion of a village in India and some in Pakistan. There were even instances where the dividing line split up a single house into two with some rooms in one country and others in the other. Radcliffe's justification for such a casual division was that no matter what he did, people would suffer so there was no point in being careful where exactly the border lay. This is why he made no attempt, for example, to ensure that the border skirted villages and was drawn through the areas between thickly populated areas instead of right through them. Since the division was done in secret, there was no opportunity for Indians to review it. Radcliffe has been accused, many say rightly, of being completely unconcerned about the sufferings of brown Indians, which was quite in keeping with the other actions of Britain as a white colonial power.
At a higher level, there were also some disputes regarding the Radcliffe Line, the two major ones being Chittagong Hill Tracts and Gurdaspur District. Chittagong Hill Tracts had a higher non-Muslim population, but was given to Pakistan while Gurdaspur, with a Muslim majority was given to India. The rational of giving Chittagong Hill Tracts to Pakistan was to provide some buffer to Chittagong (in Bangladesh) a major city and port. In the initial proposal of Radcliffe, Gurdaspur District was to be in Pakistan, but it was changed later at the request of Lord Mountbatten. The reasons mentioned were that, if the kingdom of Kashmir wanted to integrate with the Indian Union, it would be inaccessible to India. At the same time it would provide buffer to the Sikh holy city of Amritsar which otherwise would be surrounded by Muslim territory.
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