THE RADCLIFFE LINE
#75years ago a British lawyer named Cyril Radcliffe was asked by Louis Mountbatten, the former viceroy of India, to divide British-ruled India into the new independent nations of India, Pakistan & East Pakistan (Bangladesh). He had five weeks to do this.
The lines Radcliffe drew across India sparked a tragedy that still poisons ties between India and Pakistan today.
Approximately twelve million people crossed the Radcliffe line to find a new home with an estimated one million killed by sectarianism and religious violence.
This division led to one of the largest mass migrations in human history. Over one million people died as a result of communal clashes between Muslims, Sikhs & Hindus on India’s western & eastern borders.
The Radcliffe line was referred to as the “bloody line“ of partition.
Rape, mass murder, arson, and even disease were widespread. It is believed that over fifteen million people were displaced as desperate refugees tried to make it to safety on either side of the Radcliffe line.
📸 by Margaret Bourke-White: August 1947. LIFF Magazine.
📸1 by Margaret Bourke-White : Travelling to Pakistan. A Muslim refugee camp in Purana Qila in Delhi.
📸2 by @PartitionMuseum: A Sikh and Hindu refugee camp in Purana Qila Delhi.
The partition of India is the most bloody and brutal period of the subcontinent’s history.
People clambered on to whatever means of transport was available to them. While many travelled by train, ox-drawn carts and bicycles, many others simply walked.
Train carriages would quickly reach capacity. The rooftops were crammed with families fleeing the rising unrest.
Several trains were stopped en-route due to riots & communal clashes. Hundreds of men, women & children were being slaughtered.
Trains soaked in the blood of people seeking a free independant life soon arrived on either side of the borders, full with dead bodies instead.
These tensions had been fuelled by British Colonisers.
Radcliffe burnt all of his notes before leaving India. In the UK, he was hailed a hero and awarded the Knight grand cross by the order of the British Empire.
Radcliffe was fully aware however, of what Indians, and in particular Panjabis and Bengali’s thought of his actions.
“There will be 80 million people with a grievance looking for me. I do not want them to find me.” - Cyril Radcliffe
Before the partition of India, it was home to approximately four hundred million people.
After partition, Radcliffe never returned to India or Pakistan.
#IndiaAt75 #indiaIndependenceday
The divided nations were now free from British colonial rule but the human cost of independence was not without immense suffering, trauma, displacement and the loss of so many lives.
#PartitionHorrorRemembranceDay #Partition1947 #IndiaAt75
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