17 Facts About Radcliffe Commission

Radcliffe Commission's calculations showed a Muslim majority in 16 western districts of Punjab and non-Muslim majority in 13 eastern districts.

Radcliffe Commission thought the Muslims could have no objection to redrawing provincial boundaries.

Radcliffe Commission justified the exclusion of the Amritsar district because of its sacredness to the Sikhs and that of Gurdaspur district because it had to go with Amritsar for 'geographical reasons'.

Radcliffe Commission espoused the doctrine of self-reliance, opposed the partition of India and called for independence on the grounds that no single religious community should control Punjab.

Radcliffe Commission "bitterly complained" that the Viceroy was ruining his Pakistan by cutting Punjab and Bengal in half as this would mean a 'moth-eaten Pakistan'.

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Radcliffe Commission proposed that a British judge of the High Court be appointed as the chairman of the commission.

Radcliffe Commission soon met with his fellow college alumnus Mountbatten and travelled to Lahore and Calcutta to meet with commission members, chiefly Nehru from the Congress and Jinnah, president of the Muslim League.

The Punjab Border Radcliffe Commission was to draw a border through the middle of an area home to the Sikh community.

The Bengal Border Radcliffe Commission representatives were chiefly concerned with the question of who would get Calcutta.

Radcliffe Commission justified the casual division with the truism that no matter what he did, people would suffer.

Radcliffe Commission departed on Independence Day itself, before even the boundary awards were distributed.

Radcliffe Commission explained that the reason for deviating from the notional award in the case of Gurdaspur was that the headwaters of the canals that irrigated the Amritsar district lay in the Gurdaspur district and it was important to keep them under one administration.

Pakistan maintains that the Radcliffe Commission Award was altered by Mountbatten; Gurdaspur was handed over to India and thus was manipulated the accession of Kashmir to India.

Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, who represented the Muslim League in July 1947 before the Radcliffe Boundary Commission, stated that the boundary commission was a farce.

Zafruallh Khan states that Radcliffe Commission used district, tehsil, thana, and even village boundaries to divide Punjab in such a way that the boundary line was drawn much to the prejudice of Pakistan.

Andrew Roberts believes that Mountbatten cheated over India-Pak frontier and states that if gerrymandering took place in the case of Ferozepur, it is not too hard to believe that Mountbatten pressurized Radcliffe Commission to ensure that Gurdaspur wound up in India to give India road access to Kashmir.

Radcliffe Commission had little difficulty in getting Radcliffe to change his boundaries to allot the Muslim-majority district of Gurdaspur to India instead of Pakistan, thus giving India the only road access from Delhi to Kashmir.