British Lawyer Cyril Radcliffe was entrusted with the responsibility of drawing the boundary between India and Pakistan in the east and the west, as the Chairperson of the Bengal Boundary Commission and the Punjab Boundary Commission. Radcliffe was a successful civil servant who had not set foot in India before 8 July 1947, while the date for transfer of power was set as 15 August. British poet W H Auden satirised the proceedings of the commissions and Radcliffe’s role in them as ‘But in 7 weeks it was done, the frontiers decided, A continent for better or worse divided’. With two legal experts per head nominated by the Muslim League and the Congress for each of the boundary commissions, the people entrusted with dividing the territory of British India had little expertise and knowledge about how to execute the boundary award. Nevertheless, the Radcliffe line was revealed on 17 August 1947, 2 days after Pakistan and India declared their independence, Parts of the Nadia district in West Bengal had originally been awarded to East Pakistan, and changed afterwards. While the commissions’ stated objective was to divide the provinces on the basis of the contiguous majority areas of the three religious’ groups (Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs), Radcliffe was accused of prioritising economic concerns. The Radcliffe line also privileged existing administrative boundaries, not natural ones (like rivers or hills). The Partition of British India along the Radcliffe line was witness to large scale forced migration of people on both sides of the border, violence, unrest, displacement and death.