The 1947 Partition of Bengal: How River Boundaries Split Bengal

In this episode of The History of Bangladesh, Lucas and Luna explore how the 1947 partition of Bengal was shaped by its rivers. The Radcliffe Line, drawn in just five weeks by Cyril Radcliffe, who had never been to India, carved through the delta along the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna. They discuss how the boundary severed the jute industry from its mills, split the railway network, and divided Muslim-majority districts from Hindu-majority ones. The episode also covers the role of Sir George Spence and B.N. Rau in the boundary commission, the last-minute adjustments that created the 'chicken neck' of India, and how the rivers themselves became borders—sometimes changing course and leaving villages on the wrong side. The conversation touches on the human cost: millions of refugees crossing the Padma, the dislocation of religious communities, and how Bengal's geography—its waterways, its cyclones, its agriculture—made partition uniquely chaotic. No other partition in South Asia was as entangled with the landscape itself.

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