On June 3, 1947, the Partition Plan was announced which required the Punjab and Bengal assemblies to vote on whether they wanted to keep their provinces united or partitioned. Both the assemblies voted in favour of partitioning their provinces. Every year, Islamic Republic of Pakistan celebrates its Independence Day on 14th August and India on 15th August, so the common myth among people is that firstly, the partition of Hindustan took place and then both the countries got freedom.
- The man who set the boundary lines for India and Pakistan was Cyril John Radcliffe, the British lawyer and Law Lord.
- Radcliffe was given the daunting task of the chairmanship of the two boundary committees of drawing the borders for the new nations of Pakistan and India, in a way that would leave as many Hindus and Sikhs in India and Muslims in Pakistan as possible.
- On Aug 17, 1947, the Radcliffe Line was formally declared as the boundary between India and Pakistan, two days following the Partition of India.
- British government had given the responsibility of dividing Punjab and Bengal province between the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan to Sir John Radcliffe. He was commissioned to equitably divide 4,50,000 km sq of territory with 88 million people.
- The estimated loss of life during the partition is 3 million.
- Radcliffe had no complete information about the geography of India. On the basis of maps, castes and religions, Radcliffe divided the two nations.
- Prior to partition, Radcliffe had never been to India. On July 8, 1947, when he reached India, he was told that what task he has to accomplish. British government gave him only 5 weeks to complete the daunting task. Radcliffe had finalised new maps between Aug 9 to Aug 14, but it was delayed due to some controversy.
- The two tehsils of Punjab’s Gurdaspur were included in Pakistan part, as majority of people were Muslims. In fact, in Pakistan,those Ahmadi populations are never considered as Muslims in Pakistan. On the day of partition, people of Bengal’s Muslim- dominated districts- Murshidabad and Malda- had put Pakistani flags on their houses, but they later came to know that were part of India. Chittagong, with only 2 percent Muslim population went to Pakistan (now Bangladesh)
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