Partition The challenges before free India included grappling with the consequences of partition, planning the economy and reforming the education system (which will be dealt with in the following lesson), making a Constitution that reflected the aspirations kindled by the freedom struggle, merger of the Princely states (more than in number and of different sizes), and resolving the diversity on the basis of languages spoken by the people with the needs of a nation- state. Further, a foreign policy that was in tune with the ideals of democracy, sovereignty and fraternity had to be formulated. The partition of India on Hindu–Muslim lines was put forth as a demand by the Muslim League in vague terms ever since its Lahore session (March ). But its architecture and execution began only with Lord Mountbatten’s announcement of his plan on June , and advancing the date of transfer of power to August , .
The time left between the two dates was a mere days. Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a lawyer by training with no exposure to India and its reality, was sent from London to re-draw the map of India. Its execution was left to the dominion governments of India and Pakistan after August , . Radcliffe arrived in India on July , .
He was given charge of presiding over two Boundary Commissions: one for the Punjab and the other for Bengal. Two judges from the Muslim community and two from the Hindu community were included. The commissions were left with five weeks to identify villages as Hindu or Muslim majority on the basis of the census. It is widely accepted that the census of , conducted in the midst of the World War II led to faulty results everywhere.
The commissions were also constrained by factors such as contiguity of villages and by demands of the Sikh community that villages in West Punjab where their shrines were located be taken into India irrespective of the population of Sikhs in those villages. The two commissions submitted the report on August , . Mountbatten’s dispensation, meanwhile, decided to postpone