How and when was the Radcliffe Line declared?

Such maps guided Radcliffe 

Whenever the Independence of India and creation of Pakistan is discussed, you may have heard of the Radcliffe Award. 

What is the Radcliffe Award?

The demarcation line that was published on 17 August 1947 upon the Partition of India is called the Radcliff line simply because the man who was given the mission to carry out the Partition was named Sir Cyril Radcliffe. 

His 'Award' or demarcation on the western side of India's border still serves as the Indo-Pakistani border and on the eastern side, it serves as the India-Bangladesh border.

It would surprise you a great deal to know that when India was declared Independent, thus creating the two states of Pakistan and India on 15 Agust 1947, the line of Partition - the Radcliffe line was not yet officially declared. 

Yes, the boundary had been finalised on 12 August 1947 but was published on two days after Partition, that is 17 August 1947.

The Basis for Radcliffe Line:

The Muslim League wanted the Muslim-majority provinces of British India to form their own country. The Indian National Congress dominated by Hindus resisted partition until March 8, 1947. The colonial rulers had by this time decided that they were departing and communal violence had begun across many states.

Ultimately, Nehru who was to be the first Prime Minister of Free India agreed to the idea of Partition. The basic thought was also to have a smaller, centrally governed homogenous state.

The British government's India offices had over the years been taking censuses. The 1911 census showed Muslims accounted for nearly 25% of undivided India's population. These Indian Muslims were actually native who had converted to Islam ever since India gradually was overrun since the 12th century onwards by Islamic dynasties from Persia and Central Asia.

Lord Louis Mountbatten, a cousin of the King of England, arrived as the Last Viceroy of India on March 24, 1947. He held long talks with the leaders of all major parties, key among them being the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress. 

The task of demarcating the boundary between India and what was to later become Pakistan was assigned to a British lawyer named Sir Cyril Radcliffe. The man was sent in peak summer to India. For the most part of the one month plus that he had at disposal to draw the lines, he was in the Viceroy's Lodge at Shimla. The table he worked at still survives.

Radcliffe cannot be blamed for not doing a bad job as he had been parachuted into India and this being his first trip to the land of The Jewel in the Crown, he had no clue of the intricacies of the demographics of India.

Given just over a month to execute the job, all he had on hand were some census reports and some maps. He and his team demarcated the border on the basis of religious demography. They also gave weightage to factors such as strategic roads and irrigation patterns. 

Ultimately no one was fully happy:

Both countries won some, lost some. For example, the Muslim majority district of Murshidabad in Bengal was given to India in order to keep the water route from Calcutta to the Ganga in India. That the East Pakistan side late was liberated and became another country named Bangladesh is another matter. 

Had Gurdaspur been given to Pakistan due to its Muslim majority, India's linkage to J&K would have lost a ready access road that proved its vitality when India rushed in to take over the erstwhile kingdom at the king's behest. Similarly, Sikhs were angry about their erstwhile Sikh heritage capital Lahore of Maharaja Ranjit Singh going to Pakistan. All of Sindh, including Hindu majority border villages near Gujarat, was given to Pakistan. Some places the line went between a house.

When the Radcliffe line was made official and publically announced on 17 August 1947, the communal riots were at their peak.