Evidence1947 – 1948

Partition and the Radcliffe Line

Name: Partition and the Radcliffe Line
Start: 1947
End: 1948
Location: Attari-Wagah crossing, Punjab

Attari-Wagah crossing, Punjab

International border at Wagah - evening flag lowering ceremony. Kamran Ali, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Radcliffe award, published two days after independence, splits Punjab and Bengal; about 14.5 million people cross the new lines.

Cyril Radcliffe's awards were ready before 15 August but published only on the 17th. Working from the censuses, Bharadwaj, Khwaja and Mian estimate 14.5 million arrivals against 17.9 million departures, leaving some 3.4 million unaccounted for; estimates of the dead run from about 200,000 to two million.

One of the largest forced migrations in history, and the reason this site's modern boundary layer needs a 1947 slice and a 1971 slice, not one.

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