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The Radcliffe Line became the border between India and Pakistan in 1947. The partition of the British Indian Empire required that the territories to be assigned to the two new countries, generally had to have a population matching the majority. Pakistan was set up as a Muslim state while India was predominantly Hindu.
The border had already been roughly drawn up by Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India, but the final version was set out by Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Radcliffe had never visited India and didn't know anybody in India before his arrival. Thus, he was considered to be unbiased. However, he was ignorant of realities on the ground and this caused avoidable gaffes in the division. For example, there were instances where the border was drawn leaving some parts of a village in India and some in Pakistan. There were even instances where the dividing line passed through a single house 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. He also had to work in a very short time period so there was little point in being careful where exactly the border lay. He made no real attempt to ensure that the border skirted villages or was drawn between thickly populated areas instead of right through them. Radcliffe has been accused of being completely unconcerned about the sufferings of the Indians. The division was done in secret, and the British government allowed no Indians to review it, since disputes were bound to have arisen then and it would delay the Partition.
There were two major disputes regarding the Radcliffe Line, the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Gurdaspur District. Chittagong Hill Tracts had a majority non-Muslim population of 97% most of them Buddhists, but was given to Pakistan while most of Gurdaspur district(with a muslim population of 50.6%) except the sub-division of Shakargarh, was given to India. The rationale of giving Chittagong Hill Tracts to Pakistan was to provide some buffer area to Chittagong (now in Bangladesh) a major city and port and also it was argued that its only approach was through Chittagong. Gurdaspur District had a slight Muslim majority, because Ahmadiyya community were counted as Muslims even though they had been declared non-Muslims by Muslim clergy (there was large concentration of Ahmediyas in that area because their spiritual centre Qadian is located in Gurdaspur district). The proportion of Muslim to non-Muslim population in the district as a whole was 50.6 and 49.4 respectively with Shakargarh and Gurdaspur tehsils with a slight Muslim majority of 1% each while Batala tehsil had a Muslim majority of 53% and Pathankot tehsil had an overwhelming majority of non-Muslims at 67%. In the end only Shakargarh tehsil which was separated from the rest of the district by the Ravi river was awarded to Pakistan leaving the rest of the district with a slight majority of non-Muslims, but it was speculated that at the insistence of Lord Mountbatten it was awarded as such to East Punjab, so that if the kingdom of Kashmir wanted to integrate with the Indian Union, it would be accessible to India. In any case Pathankot tehsil would have gone to India and it had a direct rail road link with the adjoining areas of Hoshiarpur and Kangra districts of East Punjab. Another point was that Batala and Gurdaspur would provide buffer to the Sikh holy city of Amritsar which otherwise would be surrounded by Muslim territory of Pakistan. The last point that was argued before the boundary commission by Mountbatten and others was that if the area east of the Ravi river was considered as one block consisting of Amritsar and most of Gurdaspur district(excluding Shakargarh), it would have a slight non-Muslim majority. Also, by doing so majority of Sikh population (58%) would fall in East Punjab, by doing the opposite a slight majority will be left in Pakistan which would exponentially increase the number of Sikh refugees. This was an attempt to pacify the Sikhs for they lost major tracts of lands in West Punjab. An attempt was made by Radcliffe to transfer Ferozepore and Zira tehsils to Pakistan instead. This was opposed by the Maharaja of Bikaner because Harike headworks on the confluence of Satluj and Beas rivers, from where a canal, the only source of water for his desert state originated, was in Ferozepore. It was only after he threatened Mountbatten, that he would accede his state to Pakistan if Ferozepur was awarded to West Punjab, that the award was changed at the last minute and all of Ferozepur district was awarded to India.
Another disputed decision made by Radcliffe was division of Malda district of Bengal, the district overall had a slight muslim majority, but was divided and most of it including Malda town went to India. The district remained under East Pakistan administration for 3-4 days after 15th August, 1947.It was only when the award was made public, the Pakistan flag was replaced by the Indian one in Malda.
Also, entire Khulna district with a Hindu majority of 52% was given to East Pakistan in lieu of much smaller Murshidabad which went to India.
Sylhet district of Assam joined Pakistan with a Plebiscite but hindu majority Karimganj sub-division was given to India as it had overwhelmingly voted against joining Pakistan.