Radcliffe Award

Radcliffe Award was the outcome of an official plan announced by Lord mountbatten on
3 June 1947 regarding the partition of India into two separate sovereign states - India
and Pakistan. Sir (Later Viscount) Cyril John Radcliffe (1899-1977) who had, by the late
1930s, earned reputation in the Chancery Bar and, during the World War II, served
Britain's Ministry of Information, was called upon to chair the Boundary Commissions in
India. Radcliffe's appointment as the Chairman of the Boundary Commissions,
however, did not generate much controversy though he had neither the background in
Indian administration, nor did he have any prior experience of adjudicating disputes of
this sort.
According to the June 3 plan, the bengal legislative assembly was to divide itself into
two parts, one comprising of the representatives of the Muslim majority districts and the
other of the Hindu majority ones. On 20 June, these two provisionally partitioned units
met to vote on the issue of partition. The majority of the representatives of the Hindu
majority districts voted in favour of the partition of Bengal while those of the Muslim
majority districts voted against it. On the basis of this vote the rationale for partition into
East Bengal and West Bengal was found. Significantly, it was only after this vote that
the Boundary Commission was set up to determine the final border between East
Bengal and West Bengal.
Radcliffe had to counter some pressures while making his award. He had to appear
even handed to all sides, while keeping in mind the imperatives of British policy for the
future of the subcontinent. According to East Bengal Land Records and Survey (1951),
out of the total area of 257478 sq km of the old province of Bengal, the newly created
province of East Bengal got an area of 130383.19 sq km from undivided Bengal and
12393.15 sq km from Assam (major portion of the district of Sylhet). East Bengal
contained a population of 39.11 million, of which 11.4 million were Hindus. On the other
hand West Bengal got an area nearly about 72520 sq.km with 21.19 million people, of
which nearly 5.3 million were Muslims. In fact, Radcliffe accepted some of the cardinal
principles of the Congress. Firstly, that the two parts respectively were to contain as
large a population as possible of the total Muslim and non-Muslim population of Bengal.
Secondly, the Boundary Commission also accepted the Congress arguments that the
ratio of Muslims to non-Muslims in one zone should be nearly equal to the ratio of non-
Muslims to Muslims in the other. Thus Radcliffe's award created two states in which the
ratio of the majority to the minority population was almost exactly the same.
Interestingly Radcliffe also accepted some other suggestions of the Congress. In fact,
he accepted the Congress' argument about the importance of Murshidabad and Nadia
river system for the survival of the Hughli and gave the whole of Murshidabad to West
Bengal. Moreover, he also decided that Khulna would go to East Bengal, except for
those parts that fell to the west of the River Mathabhanga. At the same time, he
decided that the tea producing districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri would go to West
Bengal, with the exception of the five Muslim majority thanas (police stations) of the
Boda-Debiganj-Panchagarh area.
However, Radcliffe did not totally overlook the arguments placed before it by
the muslim league. In fact, basing itself on the principle of contiguity, he gave the thana
of Boalia in Rajshahi and a portion of Nadia to East Bengal. But despite these
decisions, Radcliffe's package resembled the Congress' proposals on partition.
The Radcliffe award led to discontent both among Hindus and Muslims. While the
Muslims in Murshidabad and Navadwip were furious to find themselves in West Bengal,
Hindus in five southern thanas of Jalpaiguri expressed bitterness against their inclusion
in East Bengal. Indeed, the award generated much controversy since it remained
surrounded by uncertainties. At the same time, misinformation made it difficult to
implement the award. In a sense, though Radcliffe divided Bengal with a precision
almost like that of surgeon, the hastily and ignorantly drawn border still remains to be
properly defined. [Raj Sekhar Basu]
Bibliography Submal Dutt, With Nehru in the Foreign Office, Calcutta, 1977; Jaya
Chatterjee, 'The Fashioning of a Frontier: The Radcliffe Line and Bengal's Border
Landscape, 1947-1952', Modern Asian Studies, Vol 33, Part 1, February 1999.

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Radcliffe Award was the outcome of an official plan announced by Lord mountbatten on

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