This was the idea of the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten. He did not want the ceremony to be affected by allegations and counter-allegations from both the sides. As if it was possible.
The British had long lost the opportunity for a peaceful and orderly transfer of power. With the failure of the 1942 Cripps Mission and then the 1946 three-member cabinet delegation (with Sir Stafford Cripps again playing a key role), the split was inevitable. But how do you divide the subcontinent? Drawing the line was never going to be easy.
The man chosen for the task was Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a man who had traveled no further east than Gibraltar. But it fell on the 48-year-old Inner Temple barrister to perform this impossible task—and that too in just five weeks.
While Radcliffe knew little or nothing about India, he was, after all, the ultimate establishment figure, which is probably why he was selected for the job. He studied at Hallibury (then British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, also attending the same school) and then Oxford. After that he had an illustrious career as a barrister. During the war, he was Director General in the Ministry of Information, responsible for censorship and propaganda. It was Radcliffe who campaigned against Nehru’s sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit when she was on a visit to the United States. Radcliffe also harassed PG Wodehouse ‘when he wrongfully broadcast while in German captivity’, wrote Patrick French.
Therefore, the Establishment Man reached India and started working as a ‘neutral umpire’ in New Delhi on 8 July. He would remain isolated, guarded by a huge Punjabi armed with two pistols. He took his own decisions; There will be no one to impress him. But it was not such a solitary existence for Radcliffe. He dined with British military commander Claude Auchinleck (perhaps Auk was in need of consolation; his wife had fled with her friend), Lord Mountbatten, Sir Ivan Jenkins, the governor of the Punjab, and several other members of British high society.
It is hard to believe that Radcliffe did not discuss the border issue with others who knew much more about India than he did. But more than anything else, Radcliffe had a cheat sheet. In February 1946, while sending to Mountbatten, a contingency plan was drawn up by Archibald Wavell without ever formally sacking Viceroy Attlee. Wavell knew what was coming. And he understood the need for a well thought out boundary line. were helping him Improvement Commissioner VP Menon and Sir Benegal Rao.
So, who did Radcliffe have to go with? Maybe some advice from veterans, Wavell’s maps and old census data. And by this he had to divide a subcontinent into 36 days. Its people, villages, rivers, canals, roads. And to complicate matters, the weather was appallingly hot, and Radcliffe came down with a bout of dysentery.
Seventy-four years later, it might be easier to say, ‘Poor, he was just a lawyer with a brief description; What else could he do?’ But in 1947 everything hinged on this lawyer and his brief description. Will he give Gurdaspur award to India or Pakistan? Will he really give a part of Firozpur to Pakistan so that it can have better control over its water supply?
In fact, he almost gave a part of Firozpur to Pakistan. In the first week of August, during lunch with his commissioners at a club in Shimla, he said that he would give Pakistan’s share of Ferozepur as India was getting Gurdaspur. But that was not to be. When things got out, there was frenzied behind-the-scenes activity that made the ‘neutral umpire’ change his mind – and borderline – in a matter of days.
He handed over all the awards to Mountbatten on 13 August, but Mountbatten ruled that the awards would not be made public until 16 August. Therefore, a free India on 15th August still did not have the correct information about it. borders.
When Liaquat Ali Khan, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Baldev Singh gathered at the Council Chamber of Government House at 5 pm on 16 August, three hours after the awards were sent, no one seemed happy. It will be months before things settle down. for the moment, independence had arrived, and with it the horrors of Partition.
For Radcliffe, it was time to go home. He boarded a flight on 17 August. He never came back. Later, when a reporter asked him if he would ever want to come to India, he said: ‘God forbid. Even if he asked me. I doubt they will shoot me from both sides.
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