The 1947 Partition of Bengal: How Radcliffe's Line Split a People

In 1947, as British India hurtled toward independence, a hastily-convened boundary commission drew a line across Bengal that would leave millions displaced and tens of thousands dead. Cyril Radcliffe, a British lawyer who had never set foot in India, was given just five weeks to divide the region. This episode walks through the chaotic weeks leading up to the Radcliffe Line's announcement, the last-minute wrangling between the Congress and Muslim League, and the impossible task of carving a Muslim-majority East Pakistan from a Bengali-speaking region where Hindus and Muslims were interwoven for centuries. We look at the specific districts where the line cut through villages, separating families overnight, and the role of key figures like Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Sarat Chandra Bose, and Mountbatten. We also confront the enduring controversy: was the Bengal partition inevitable, or did a last-ditch proposal for a united, independent Bengal fail because of stubbornness or bad faith? Finally, we consider the legacy of that line in today's Bangladesh-India border, still one of the most fraught in the world.

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