Partition as a Means of Conflict Resolution: A Case of the Bengal Boundary Commission and the Partition of Bengal, 1947
Introduction
Partition has long been used as a tool of resolving ethnic and communal problems. It got wide acceptance after the Second World War and more particularly during the Cold War regime. The Partition of Germany, Korea, and Vietnam are some of the instances of territorial partition. The Partition of the British Indian Empire followed the same tradition. The partition theorists have argued that physical separation of warring ethnic groups may be the only possible solution to civil war. However this argument has recently been severely criticized by a group of scholars particularly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the resurgence of ethnic violence in different parts of the world. The Partition of Bengal as a part of larger project of the Partition of the British Indian Empire reveals some interesting features and also challenges the basic arguments of the partition theorists.
Recent Debate on Partition as a Means of Conflict Resolution
The leading partition theorists like Chaim Kaufmann , John Mearsheimer and Stephen Van Evera and before them, Donald Horowitzer provided the basic arguments in favour of partition. Most of the advocates of partition advance four basic arguments.
• The first is that partition might be unpalatable, nevertheless it is a humane way of dealing with an ethnic conflict because it attempts to achieve through negotiation what would otherwise be achieved through war; it telescopes the conflict and saves lives.
• The second argument, which draws partially on Wilsonian ideas, is that partition might be the chosen route to self-determination.
• The third is that partition might not fully address the roots of the conflict, but it does at least contain it.
• The fourth, which draws on the third, is that partition provides an exit for great powers.
On the other hand, scholars like Radha Kumar , Nicholas Sambanis and others have developed a theoretical as well as empirical critique of partition. Their main arguments are
• Partition is a limiting solution. Ethnic cooperation may be possible even after civil war. Both ethnic diffusion and third party security guarantees could facilitate such cooperation.
• Partition may also be too severe a solution. Forced population movements cause tremendous human suffering and violate important human rights.
• Endorsing ethnic partition may in fact encourage partition movements in other countries.
• Partitions create undemocratic successor states, likely to repress their minorities as their predecessors did before them.
• Finally, successor states will rarely be ethnically homogeneous. They may therefore incorporate new ethnic antagonism. Moreover, partition does not resolve the underlying problem of ethnic rivalry; so it is possible for civil wars that end in partition to be transformed into interstate war between predecessor and successor states.
Radha Kumar has emphasized the high cost associated with the process---the millions displaced, the hundreds of thousands killed—as well as other important consequences, suggesting that partition, ‘can trigger further fragmentation and conflict’. Stories and images of the millions injured and dead that accompanied the population transfer in post-partition India, Palestine, and Cyprus are enough for many to condemn this method as barbaric and inhumane. Critics charge that this experience should be enough to dismiss the idea that even “organized” population transfer are possible. Further, there is a deeper philosophical opposition to even organized population transfer, arguing that it is contrary to human dignity; indeed, population transfer is a violation of many fundamental human rights. Nicholas Sambanis on the other hand have produced the first empirical study on the viability of partition. His research dismisses pro-partition claims. In his opinion, partition does not sufficiently prevent war recurrence, which suggests, at the very least, that separating ethnic groups does not resolve the problem of violent ethnic antagonism. In the context of the present state of debate we can study the process and consequence of the Bengal Partition and the making of the new Bengal border.
Bengal: The Parting of Ways
By the end of 1946 it became almost evident in political circle that the Partition of the British Empire was unavoidable. The ‘Undivided Sovereign Bengal Plan’ launched by Sarat Basu in cooperation with Abul Hasim and Suhrawandy failed to strike roots in the Bengali minds. The public opinion was shaped heavily by the horrors of communal riots. The Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress demanded immediate partition of the province and launched a concerted movement in favour of it. At the all India level Congress and Muslim League agreed on a ‘peaceful transfer of power’ at the cost of Partition. When Mountbatten announced his Partition Plan, popularly known as 3rd June Plan, neither Muslim League nor Congress opposed it.
The 3rd June Plan provided the basic guidelines of the partition scheme of the sub-continent and the 1941 Census was accepted as the baseline. The authenticity of the 1941 Census was very much dubious. It even failed to satisfy the Census Commissioner, MWM Yeats. He expressed his dissatisfaction in the introductory remarks of the 1941 Census itself . The Census operation was affected by a number of factors. The War, the poor financial condition of the Government as well as the lack of tabulation facilities, buildings and officers hampered the process. Political condition was strenuous. At that time Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign was in full swing and all over North India the census, as a governmental activity, incurred hostility. More over, different communities intentionally manipulated the census enumeration for political purpose. Even a British poet W.H Auden in his poem entitled “Partition” alludes to the faulty 1941 Census numbers used by Radcliffe while drawing the boundary lines!
“He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect the contested areas…”
The Govt. identified some districts of Bengal as Muslim majority districts on the basis of the 1941 Census as an immediate move towards partition. These districts were Chittagong, Noakhali and Tripura of Chittagong Division; Bakerganj, Dacca, Faridpur and Mymensingh of Dacca Division; Jessore, Murshidabad and Nadia of Presidency Division; Bogra, Dinajpur, Malda, Pabna, Rajshahi and Rangpur of Rajshahi Division. The Muslim majority areas were to be included in Pakistan and the Hindu majority areas in India. According to the Plan, the Bengal Legislative Assembly was divided into two parts and they met separately on 20 June 1947 to decide the question of partition. The majority of representatives of the Hindu majority districts voted in favour of the partition of Bengal, while those of the Muslim majority districts voted against it. On the basis of this vote, it was taken that the will of partition had been sufficiently established. The Plan also proposed the formation of a Boundary Commission to draw the final boundary line between the two parts of Bengal.
Drawing the Boundary Line: The Formation of the Bengal Boundary Commission
National borders are political constructs, imagined projections of territorial power. Although they appear on maps in deceptively precise forms, they reflect, at least initially, merely the mental images of politicians, lawyers, and intellectuals. The mapping of the modern borders was a process first perfected in Europe but soon applied all over the world. The border revealed the territorial consolidation of the state as well as the markers of the actual power of that state. It was, in a way, an offspring of the idea of the nation state. The nation state formation in South Asia passed through a tricky process of boundary making. The new borders of India and Pakistan and later Bangladesh were curved out of the unified British Empire.
The Bengal Boundary commission was constituted on 30 June 1947. The members appointed in the Commission were Justice Bijan Kumar Mukherjea, Justice C.C. Biswas, Justice Abu Saleh Mohamad Akram and Justice S.A. Rahaman. Sir Cyril Radcliffe was appointed as the Chairman of the Commission. The Boundary Commission was ‘instructed to demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of Bengal on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will also take into account other factors’. It was also instructed to finalize the report before 15 August. After preliminary meetings, the commission invited the submission of memoranda and representations by interested parties. A large number of memoranda and representations were received. The public sitting of the Commission took place in Calcutta between 16 July and 24 July at a stretch with the exception of 20 July (a Sunday). Arguments were presented to the Commission by numerous parties on both sides. However, the main cases were presented by counsel on behalf of the Indian National Congress, the Bengal Provincial Hindu Mahasabha and the New Bengal Association on the one hand, and on the behalf of the Muslim League on the other. As Radcliffe acted as the Chairman of the Punjab Boundary Commission simultaneously, he did not attend the public sittings in person. After the close of the time of public sittings, the Commission devoted its time for clarification and discussion of the issues involved. The discussion took place in Calcutta.
Problems Faced by Radcliffe
As the Chairman of the Bengal Boundary Commission, Radcliffe faced some serious problems which were mentioned in the Award. These were as follows:
1. To which State was the City of Calcutta to be assigned, or was it possible to adopt any method of dividing the City between the two States?
2. If the City of Calcutta must be assigned as a whole to one or other of the States, what were its indispensable claims to the control of territory, such as all or part of the Nadia river system or Kulti rivers, upon which the life of Calcutta as a city and port depended?
3. Could the attraction of the Ganges-Padma-Madhumati river line displace the strong claims of the heavy concentration of Muslim majorities in the districts of Jessore and Nadia without doing too great a violence to the principles of our terms of reference?
4. Could the district of Khulna usefully be held in a State different from that which held the district of Jessore?
5. Was it right to assign to Eastern Bengal the considerable block of non-Muslim majorities in the district of Malda and Dinajpur?
6. Which State’s claim ought to prevail in respect of the districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri, in which the Muslim population amounted to 2.42 per cent of the whole in case of Darjeeling, and to 23.08 per cent of the whole of Jalpaiguri, but which constituted an area not in any natural sense contiguous to another non-Muslim area of Bengal?
7. To which State should the Chittagong Hill Tracts be assigned, an area in which the Muslim population was only 3 per cent of the whole, but which it was difficult to assign to a State different from that which controlled the district of Chittagong itself?
Radcliffe Award
The Radcliffe Award was published on 17 August 1947 two days after the Independence after much speculation. It drew a dividing line between the two parts of Bengal (See Map 1)
1. To East Bengal (East Pakistan) was assigned the whole of the Chittagong and Dacca Division comprising seven districts; the whole of the Rangpur, Bogra, Rajshahi and Pabna districts of the Rajshahi Division and the whole of the Khulna district of the Presidency Division.
2. To West Bengal was assigned the whole of the Burdwan Division; the districts of Calcutta, the 24 Parganas and Murshidabad of the Presidency Division and the Darjeeling district of the Rajshahi Division.
3. The five districts of undivided Bengal viz. Nadia, Jessore, Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri and Malda were, of course, divided between West Bengal and East Bengal (Pakistan).
4. In Nadia districts, twelve Police Stations, viz. Alamdanga, Bhoiramana, Chandanga, Damurhuda, that part of Daulatpur, east of the river Mathabhanga, Gangani, Jilannagar, Khoksa, Kumarkhali, Kushtia and Mirpur were assigned to East Pakistan. These police stations constituted 1352 square miles in area.
5. Jessore largely remained in East Bengal. Only two police stations of the district viz. Bongaon and Gaighata were added to 24 Parganas district of West Bengal which comprised 319.8 square miles in area.
6. In the case of Dinajpur district, ten police stations were included in West Bengal. They were Banshihari, a part of Balurghat, (west of the main north-south railway line), Hemtabad, Itahar, Kaliaganj, Kosmandi, Kumarganj, Rajganj, Sangarampur and Tapan. The remainder of the district went to East Pakistan.
7. The whole of Jalpaiguri district was included in West Bengal except five police stations and some enclaves, south of Cooch Behar State. These five police stations were Bada, Debiganj, Pachagar, Patgram and Tetulia. They constituted 672 square miles area.
8. In Malda district the following five police stations were assigned to East Pakistan. They were Bholaghat, Gomastapur, Nachol, Nawabganj and Shibganj. They accounted for 596 square miles in area. The remainder of the district came to West Bengal.
9. The whole district of Sylhet was transformed from the province of Assam to the new province of East Pakistan, excepting for the four police stations of Patharkandi, Rataleari, Karimganj and Badanpur. These police stations were inhabited mostly by the Bengali speaking Hindus.
10. Murshidabad district did not lose to East Pakistan any entire police station. However, several maujas (village clusters) of a number of bordering police stations were subject to dispute or in de facto possession of East Bengal.
The Award gave West Bengal an area of 28000 square miles, containing a population of 21.19 million people of which nearly 5.3 million (or 29%) were Muslims. East Bengal got 49000 square miles for a population of 39.11 million, of which 29.1% (11.4 million) were Hindus. West Bengal got 36.36% of the land to accommodate some 35.14% of people, while East Bengal got 63.6% of land to accommodate 64.85% of population.
An Evaluation of the works of the Commission
The Radcliffe Award received severe criticism from almost every corner. People resented certain features of the Award. However, much of the discontents with the Award were specific rather than general: while particular aspects of it were criticized in the strongest terms, the Award as a whole was not challenged. This sort of discontent was voiced chiefly by those who found themselves on the wrong side of the border. The Muslims in Murshidabad and Nabadwip were furious for their inclusion in West Bengal. Five southern thanas of Jalpaiguri protested their inclusion in East Pakistan. So did the Hindus who found themselves in the wrong part of Dinajpur. However, the strongest protest came from Khulna which was a Hindu majority district. “It is fair to say that this sort of criticism of the Radcliffe line was far from being a critique of partition, or even of the Award as a whole. It was the panic-stricken response of people who realized, too late, that they had been shut out of their promised land.”
However there were some general and fundamental problems relating to the Award. Joya Chatterji has pointed out some of them. First of all the Award was surrounded by severe uncertainty. This was chiefly the product of misinformation. Most of the people simply did not have access to the printed document and did not know what it contained. Satinath Bhaduri has portrayed vividly the confusion and uncertainty among the common people regarding the Award in his short story ‘Gananayak (The Champion of the People)’ .Bibhuti Bhushan Mukhopadhyay in his short story ‘Acharya Kripalini Colony’ also portrayed the confusion around the Award particularly in the border regions. In that tensed and confusing situation, land price greatly increased because people residing in the border areas were very eager to secure a safer place for themselves.
Secondly, Radcliffe drafted the border line on the basis of physical or natural markers and pre-existing administrative borders. Parts of it were traced over the boundaries between thanas and districts, other parts followed the course of large rivers and their tributaries. On paper the result was a clear and tidy line. But the picture on the ground was very different. The frontiers between thanas and even between districts were not physically marked out. Actual administrative boundaries could only be established with reference to survey and settlement maps, which were often inaccurate and almost always outdated. Naturally it created so many administrative problems at the micro level. Very often the settlement maps differed from the crime maps used by the local police stations to establish their jurisdiction. Radcliffe accepted the thana as the smallest unit of partition, but he used settlement maps rather than crime maps to mark out the border. Contradictions between the two maps were sought to be exploited by both sides, each insisting on whichever interpretation would give it more territory.
Thirdly, the geographical and natural boundaries did not work much better in providing border posts in Radcliffe’s Award. A number of rivers formed a vital part in Radcliffe’s line. Some of them were fed by the melting Himalayan ice-caps and flowed throughout the year. Others were rain fed, and except for the monsoon months, dried up to a trickle. Moreover, the rivers frequently changed their course. Radcliffe had not given any thought to the possibility of rivers changing course----a serious lapse in a province whose rivers were notoriously wayward. The river chars became a major center of conflict between the two states. These problems could have been avoided, or at least minimized, had Radcliffe and the Boundary Commission done their job with greater care.
The Factors that Sealed the Fate of the Commission
We can identify some of the factors which severely affected the working of the Commission and ultimately sealed the fate of the Commission.
1. The structure and composition of the Commission
Radcliffe was widely respected for his intellectual abilities, but he had never been to India. Paradoxically, this fact made him a more attractive candidate, on the theory that ignorance of India would equal to impartiality. He was appointed as the chairman of both the Boundary Commissions for partitioning Bengal and Punjab. Each commission was composed of four judges, two selected by Congress and two by the League. In the end, this two-versus-two format and the judges’ strong political biases produced deadlock, leaving Radcliffe the responsibility to take all the most difficult decisions himself . “The Boundary Commission is instructed to demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of Bengal on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will also take into account other factors.” These terms, i.e. the ‘other factors’, allowed the Chairman enormous freedom of action. However, after the final boundary decision, known as the Radcliffe Award, had been announced, all sides complained that Radcliffe had not taken the right ‘other factors’ into account. The commission’s membership, composed entirely of legal experts, hampered its boundary-making effort but added a valuable veneer of justice and legitimacy. Its composition of equal numbers of Congress and League nominees paved the way to deadlock but created an appearance of political balance. The presence of these political nominees came at the expense of the use of the necessary geographical experts, but satisfied the demands of Congress, League, and of course the British Government to have their own men on the commission. The absence of outside participants—for example, from the United Nations—also satisfied the British Government’s urgent desire to save face by avoiding the appearance that it required outside help to govern—or stop governing—its own empire.
2. The Time Schedule
The structure and composition of the Commission limited its effectiveness, but the most serious flaw was the extremely tight timetable that the British Government, Congress, and League imposed on it. Radcliffe arrived in India on July 8 and met with Mountbatten and the nationalist leaders soon thereafter. It was at this meeting that Radcliffe learned, apparently for the first time, that the boundary must be completed by August 15. He protested, but Mountbatten, Nehru, and Jinnah stood firm. Despite warnings that the time restriction could spoil the end result, they wanted the line finished by August 15. The Commission’s extremely tight timetable made it impossible to make the necessary geographical surveys and gather other information vital to a systematic boundary making.
Time Schedule of the Bengal Boundary Commission
03 June: Announce of the Mounbatten Plan
30 June: Constitution of the Bengal Boundary Commission with Radcliffe as the chairman
08 July: Radcliffe arrived in Delhi and meet the Indian leaders
16-24 July: Public sittings of the Commission held in Calcutta
13 August: Radcliffe submitted the Report
17 August: The Award was announced publicly
3. Radcliffe’s Ignorance about Boundary Making Process
Radcliffe’s efforts were further hampered by the fact that he was almost completely ignorant of the technical information and procedural requirements necessary to draw an international boundary, though these were well established by 1947 . Moreover, he lacked any advisors versed in even the basics of boundary-making, and only his private secretary, Christopher Beaumont, was familiar with the realities of administration and everyday life in the Punjab. Radcliffe’s South Asian colleagues, all legal experts like himself, were as ignorant as their Chairman of boundary-making requirements.
4. The Undeclared Political Ends of the Commission
Radcliffe was not as unbiased, nor as ignorant, as the Indian leaders assumed. On the contrary, his wartime experience as director-general of the British Ministry of Information, along with his sound Establishment background, left him intimately familiar with the goals and interests of His Majesty’s Government. There is no evidence that Radcliffe was biased against Hindus, Muslims, or Sikhs, but he was certainly biased in favor of preserving British interests. As far as its undeclared political ends were concerned, then, the Radcliffe Commission was well arranged. Unfortunately, the forces that shaped the Commission to fulfill political needs also prevented it from following well-established boundary-making procedures.
Consequences of the Radcliffe’s Awards: ‘Radcliffe’s Ghost’ is still visible in the Subcontinent.
The Partition led to a new set of problems. Radcliffe had drawn an artificial line between India and Pakistan. Not only were the new borders artificial, but also many did not know for sure where they belonged, because the border had not been physically demarcated on the ground. It not only divided a nation but also cut through the middle of several villages; in some cases, while the main house was in one country, the servant quarters or bathrooms were in another. More importantly, it disrupted the traditional way of life and people were cut off from their traditional markets, sources of livelihood, medical facilities, etc. it produced a number of enclaves, large scale trans-border migration, smuggling, terrorism, border disputes, river water disputes and so on.
1. The Enclave Problem
The Radcliffe Award produced a very complex problem i.e. the enclave problem. It left a large number of people virtually stateless. There are 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in India and 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh. Of these disputed enclaves, 65 are along the West Bengal- Bangladesh border (35 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh territory and 31 in reverse.) The problem of enclaves is a legacy of the dissipated life styles of the rulers of two former princely states of Cooch Behar in North Bengal and Rangpur in South Bengal (present day Bangladesh). The Rajas of the two princely states routinely staked pieces of their estates over a game of cards, and thus came to acquire pockets of land in each other’s territory. The lands were pledged on piece of paper known as ‘chits’ and hence, these lands are still called ‘chits’. The ownership of these enclaves devolved upon India and East Pakistan after partition in 1947. Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew the dividing line as the parties involved failed to arrive at any agreed border. He was concerned with not disturbing the ‘railway communications and river systems’ rather than the issue of enclaves. He left the problem unresolved and thus, sowed the seed of a long lasting and complex dispute between the partitioned states of South Asia.
This issue was not resolved till 1971, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, and inherited the problem. The residents of these enclaves were initially free to move to their respective mainland. But increased tension between India and Pakistan led to this movement being restricted, and problems arising in trade and transit. There has been no administration in these enclaves for the last 50 years. Hence, no police, no revenue, no taxation, and no government services are available. Over the years, the Bengali Muslims in the enclaves in India have migrated to other parts of the state (West Bengal), and the Hindus in the Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh have migrated to India. These enclaves have long been at the centre of Indo-east Pakistani and the Indo-Bangladeshi boundary disputes since Cooch Behar acceded to India in 1949.
2. Porous Border: Trans-border migration and terrorism
It is a well-known fact that illegal immigration from erstwhile East Pakistan and present Bangladesh has led to serious social tension in West Bengal and the entire northeastern region. On account of the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, Hindu refugees moved from East Pakistan, without much interruption, to various parts of India, especially to West Bengal, till 1971, when political boundaries in South Asia were redrawn. Even after the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country in 1971, the march of refugees to West Bengal appeared to be ceaseless. In the days of Pakistan, most of the refugees coming to West Bengal were members of the minority communities in East Bengal (East Pakistan), viz. Hindus, Buddhists and Christians. As a consequence, during 1951—1961, Hindu share of population in East Pakistan came down to 3.5% with growth rate of only 1.53%. [i.e. from 22.0% in 1951 to 18.5% in 1961]. Even during 1961—1974 period Hindu population share further declined by 5% to 13.5% in 1974. A large number of Hindu families who crossed over to India during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971 did not return.
After the emergence of sovereign Bangladesh in 1971 the Muslims in West Bengal did not feel any urge to migrate to Bangladesh. On the contrary, a huge number of Muslims started infiltrating primarily in the bordering districts of West Bengal. Consequently, the Muslim population in the border districts as well as in other interior districts of West Bengal increased in geometric progression.
It is observed from the Bangladesh Population Census 2001, Hindu population share has come down to 9.2% only. During the last 50 years since 1951, very lower growth rate indicates massive migration of Hindu population from Bangladesh to India, particularly in the state of West Bengal. On the other hand, a steady growth of Muslim population since 1951 has enhanced their population share to 89.7% in 2001 from 76.9% in 1951. During the last five decades (1951—2001) growth of Muslim population in Bangladesh is 244.68% as against 23.16% growth of Hindu population. Side by side, growth of Muslim population in West Bengal during the same period is 310.93%, showing much higher growth rate than Bangladesh. It clearly indicates massive Muslim infiltration from Bangladesh to West Bengal.
The problem of illegal immigration continued unabated. The porous border and ready availability of shelter encouraged more infiltration from Bangladesh. Local vote bank politics also encouraged such migration. The Bangladesh government, while covertly encouraging such movement, officially denies that there has been any illegal influx of its people to any part of India.
In the post-partition period, the quantum of illegal immigration to Assam has been phenomenal. It became a crucial issue for the Assamese because they feared that the population profile of the Assam Valley would change in favour of immigrant Muslims if the influx continued. In Tripura the migrants have outnumbered the indigenous tribals. It is primarily due to this reason that there is violence and insurgency in the state.
The existing legal structure in 1947 did not envisage any such partition and was not capable of meeting the new challenges which arose due to this decision. It was only in 1955 that the Indian Citizenship Act was passed by Parliament, and it was not till 1967 that a new Act, which took cognizance of illegal immigration into India, was passed.
Initially, the Government of India did not pay much attention to this border, which was thinly policed, mainly by armed police battalions of Assam and West Bengal. This state of affairs was not very satisfactory and in 1965, a central force, the BSF, replaced the state police. However, the BSF was never deployed in sufficient strength and the main problems plaguing this border continue. These chiefly consisted of trans-border trafficking by various underground groups to set up training camps and bases in erstwhile East Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Naga and Mizo insurgents travelled extensively across this border to bring men, material and supplies to wage war against India. Later, other underground outfits of various northeastern insurgent groups also used this porous border to bring in arms and ammunition and send across recruits for arms training. They also used it for drug smuggling. In fact, taking advantage of this thinly policed border, not only local insurgent groups but also Kashmiri and Pan-Islamic terrorist groups have been using it, particularly since the mid-1990s, to send their leaders and trained cadres for carrying out terrorist activities in India. The porous border allowed easy flow of migrants from East Pakistan and later Bangladesh, which are densely populated, to West Bengal, Assam and other northeastern states.
3. Problems of the Sharing of River Water
The boundary line demarcated in 1947 defied all logic of geography and introduced a new dimension in the South Asian region, ‘hydro-politics’ or conflict over water. The Partition of the Sub continent created a severe problem in the management of river water. While in 1960, the Indus water sharing problem was resolved after prolonged negotiation between the two states in mediation of the World Bank, the Ganges river water problem remained unresolved till today.
The Ganges river dispute has been regarded as one of the long lasting and most interesting international water disputes. The river flows down from the Himalayan Nanda Devi range and incorporates the riparian states of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and China. The river flows for over 92% of its course within India, before merging with the Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers in Bangladesh and then flowing out into the Bay of Bengal (indeed the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system is responsible for the existence of Bangladesh itself which is a delta formed from systems silt deposits).
The debate originated in 1951 with the publication of the Indian plan of constructing a barrage at Farakka, 17 kilometers away from the border. The barrage would reportedly divert 40000 cusecs out of a dry season average flow of 50,000 cusecs from the Ganges into the Bhagirathi-Hooghly tributary, to provide silt-free flow into Calcutta Bay, which would improve navigability for the city's port during dry months and keep saltwater from the city's water supply. The Pakistani government officially attracted the attention of the Indian government about the plan. On 8 March 1952, the Indian government replied that the project was only under preliminary investigation. Over the next years, Pakistan occasionally responded to reports of Indian plans for diversion projects of the Ganges, with little Indian response. In 1957, and again in 1958, Pakistan offered a bundle of proposals for the better management of the river water which was crucial for her survival. India virtually turned down all the proposals. Later it was agreed that water resources experts of the two countries would meet to exchange their views.
Thereafter several expert-level meetings between India and Pakistan were held. In the meantime (1961), India announced the initiation of the construction of the Farakka Barrage which was completed in 1970. However, water was not diverted at that time, because the feeder canal to the Bhagirathi-Hooghly system was not yet completed.
Bangladesh came into being in 1971, and by March 1972, the governments of India and Bangladesh agreed to establish the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission, “to develop the waters of the rivers common to the two countries on a cooperative basis.” After long discussion the two sides agreed that a mutually acceptable solution to issues around the Ganges would be reached before operating the Farakka Barrage. On 16 May 1974, the prime ministers of India and Bangladesh met in New Delhi and signed on a joint declaration on the issue. After that the trial operation of the Farakka Barrage started on 16 April 1975. India continued to divert Ganges water after the trial run, without negotiating a suitable agreement with Bangladesh. Bangladesh lodged a formal protest against India with the UNO. As a result the Ganges Water Agreement was signed on 5 November 1977 only for a short term basis. Ultimately in 1996 an agreement was made between the two countries. The 1996 Agreement undoubtedly heralded a new chapter in the Indo-Bangladesh relationship. However, the Agreement had some serious flaws and thus failed to provide a permanent solution to the Ganges water dispute. The artificially created boundary not only produced severe tension in the relationship between the two neighbouting states but also grave environmental problems in the subcontinent.
The changing course of the Ganges has posed a serious threat to the Farakka Barrage itself as well as the future of the people of a large part of Malda and Murshidabad. The uninterrupted encroachment of the river towards its left bank may outflank the barrage and open a new course through the present Kalindi-Mahananda route. The land eroded from the left bank of the Ganges in Malda is more than 200 sq.km, while that in Murshidabad is about 356 sq,km. Millions of rupees are wasted every year in bank protection. The rehabilitation of the erosion-victims is a serious problem to the state government.
5. Border Clashes
The Indo-Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan) border is the longest land border which India has with any of its neighbours. The hastily created border did not bother about the basic norms of boundary making. Naturally it produced a number of problems. The incomplete demarcation, existence of a large number of enclaves and adverse possession made the situation grave in the Bengal borderland. Cyril Radcliffe botched up the job in the east by drawing a straight line through villages and rivers, houses and marketplaces. Neither did the Indian members of the commission at that time, nor did their successors who came to rule the country later, care to undo the damage by rationally demarcating the border. As a result, border conflicts continue to plague India and its neighbour Bangladesh. Initially, the Government of India did not pay much attention to this border, which was thinly policed, mainly by armed police battalions of Assam and West Bengal. This state of affairs was not very satisfactory and in 1965, a central force, the BSF, replaced the state police. However, the BSF was never deployed in sufficient strength and the main problems plaguing this border continue. The result has been the recurrent border clashes between BSF and BDR, each of these being required to protect and defend a 4,000 km border that is porous along certain stretches, parts of which keep on changing according to the unpredictable course of the rivers that run by them, and including a 6.5 km stretch that has not yet been demarcated. Frequent skirmishes are a regular feature in the Bengal borderland nowadays. One observer has rightly pointed out “….Cyril Radcliff’s sloppy surgery which has left behind our subcontinent as a mangled body is still held sacrosanct by the rulers of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Will they ever be exorcise the ghost of colonialism?”
6. Life in the Bengal Border
The Boundary Commission
Paul Muldoon
You remember that village where the border ran
Down the middle of the street,
With the butcher and baker in different states?
Today he remarked how a shower of rain
Had stopped so cleanly across Golightly's lane
It might have been a wall of glass
That had toppled over. He stood there, for ages,
To wonder which side, if any, he should be on.
The life and culture of the people living in the borderlands is getting more and more scholarly attention nowadays. The newly drawn border disrupted the day to day life of the people living in the border areas. “It separated the peasant’s homestead from the plot he had sharecropped in the last session and the peasant-proprietor from his holding. It cut creditors off from debtors; landlords from tenants.” The Partition badly disrupted the channels of communication which had developed through centuries. It separated the markets from the surrounding villages on which they were dependent.
Thus, the people living in the border took up smuggling as their survival strategy. Partition, though an event more than half a century old, is still a grotesque reality in the border zone.
Conclusion
The boundary making process in Bengal and its consequences reveals some very interesting features. Boundary making is a delicate and specialized task which requires sufficient time and technical knowledge to make it a success. That huge task was done in this case in a hurried manner which had no parallel in history. It has already been shown that neither Radcliffe nor his colleagues had any previous experience of boundary making process. The Chairman and all the members of the Commission were lawyers. It was just another legal battle to them. The 2:2 ratio of the Commission created a deadlock and the final decisions were taken by Radcliffe who was totally ignorant about the subcontinent. Joya Chatterji has rightly criticized the use of the surgical metaphor behind the act of partition. Surgery produces pain, but it has a remedial effect. Moreover it is undertaken by a specialist. The Partition was neither done by a specialist nor did it have any remedial effect. It only produced pain and rapture and the people involved are still going through it. A lengthier and more transparent boundary making process might have served as a sort of anesthetic effect in this process. Radcliffe himself was probably aware of what damage he had done to the subcontinent. He honestly confessed to his son: ‘…..Nobody in India will love me for the award about the Punjab and Bengal and there will be roughly 80 million people with a grievance who will begin looking for me’.
However, even the most carefully crafted border is not altogether free from defects. So it is not enough to criticize the working of the Commission on particular grounds. We can reasonably question the very idea of Partition as a viable means of conflict resolution. The Partition did not end the communal problem in the subcontinent. Rather it created so many new problems. The overall strenuous relationship between the three successor states, recurrent border clashes, trans-border migration, smuggling, terrorism, dispute over river water sharing, problems of the minorities ---all these developments indicate that the Partition is too costly a solution of communal problem. The high level politicians conceived it, the lawyers of the Commission drafted it, and the bureaucrats implemented it without bothering about its consequences for the common people. They had to pay the high price of Independence. They were sacrificed for the sake of the formation of the nation states in the subcontinent. The people on both sides of the border, in turn, openly violate the logic of the nation-state in their day to day life. This is the greatest fallacy of the Partition.
Endnotes
Recent Debate on Partition as a Means of Conflict Resolution
The leading partition theorists like Chaim Kaufmann , John Mearsheimer and Stephen Van Evera and before them, Donald Horowitzer provided the basic arguments in favour of partition. Most of the advocates of partition advance four basic arguments.
• The first is that partition might be unpalatable, nevertheless it is a humane way of dealing with an ethnic conflict because it attempts to achieve through negotiation what would otherwise be achieved through war; it telescopes the conflict and saves lives.
• The second argument, which draws partially on Wilsonian ideas, is that partition might be the chosen route to self-determination.
• The third is that partition might not fully address the roots of the conflict, but it does at least contain it.
• The fourth, which draws on the third, is that partition provides an exit for great powers.
On the other hand, scholars like Radha Kumar , Nicholas Sambanis and others have developed a theoretical as well as empirical critique of partition. Their main arguments are
• Partition is a limiting solution. Ethnic cooperation may be possible even after civil war. Both ethnic diffusion and third party security guarantees could facilitate such cooperation.
• Partition may also be too severe a solution. Forced population movements cause tremendous human suffering and violate important human rights.
• Endorsing ethnic partition may in fact encourage partition movements in other countries.
• Partitions create undemocratic successor states, likely to repress their minorities as their predecessors did before them.
• Finally, successor states will rarely be ethnically homogeneous. They may therefore incorporate new ethnic antagonism. Moreover, partition does not resolve the underlying problem of ethnic rivalry; so it is possible for civil wars that end in partition to be transformed into interstate war between predecessor and successor states.
Radha Kumar has emphasized the high cost associated with the process---the millions displaced, the hundreds of thousands killed—as well as other important consequences, suggesting that partition, ‘can trigger further fragmentation and conflict’. Stories and images of the millions injured and dead that accompanied the population transfer in post-partition India, Palestine, and Cyprus are enough for many to condemn this method as barbaric and inhumane. Critics charge that this experience should be enough to dismiss the idea that even “organized” population transfer are possible. Further, there is a deeper philosophical opposition to even organized population transfer, arguing that it is contrary to human dignity; indeed, population transfer is a violation of many fundamental human rights. Nicholas Sambanis on the other hand have produced the first empirical study on the viability of partition. His research dismisses pro-partition claims. In his opinion, partition does not sufficiently prevent war recurrence, which suggests, at the very least, that separating ethnic groups does not resolve the problem of violent ethnic antagonism. In the context of the present state of debate we can study the process and consequence of the Bengal Partition and the making of the new Bengal border.
Bengal: The Parting of Ways
By the end of 1946 it became almost evident in political circle that the Partition of the British Empire was unavoidable. The ‘Undivided Sovereign Bengal Plan’ launched by Sarat Basu in cooperation with Abul Hasim and Suhrawandy failed to strike roots in the Bengali minds. The public opinion was shaped heavily by the horrors of communal riots. The Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress demanded immediate partition of the province and launched a concerted movement in favour of it. At the all India level Congress and Muslim League agreed on a ‘peaceful transfer of power’ at the cost of Partition. When Mountbatten announced his Partition Plan, popularly known as 3rd June Plan, neither Muslim League nor Congress opposed it.
The 3rd June Plan provided the basic guidelines of the partition scheme of the sub-continent and the 1941 Census was accepted as the baseline. The authenticity of the 1941 Census was very much dubious. It even failed to satisfy the Census Commissioner, MWM Yeats. He expressed his dissatisfaction in the introductory remarks of the 1941 Census itself . The Census operation was affected by a number of factors. The War, the poor financial condition of the Government as well as the lack of tabulation facilities, buildings and officers hampered the process. Political condition was strenuous. At that time Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign was in full swing and all over North India the census, as a governmental activity, incurred hostility. More over, different communities intentionally manipulated the census enumeration for political purpose. Even a British poet W.H Auden in his poem entitled “Partition” alludes to the faulty 1941 Census numbers used by Radcliffe while drawing the boundary lines!
“He got down to work, to the task of settling the fate
Of millions. The maps at his disposal were out of date
And the Census Returns almost certainly incorrect,
But there was no time to check them, no time to inspect the contested areas…”
The Govt. identified some districts of Bengal as Muslim majority districts on the basis of the 1941 Census as an immediate move towards partition. These districts were Chittagong, Noakhali and Tripura of Chittagong Division; Bakerganj, Dacca, Faridpur and Mymensingh of Dacca Division; Jessore, Murshidabad and Nadia of Presidency Division; Bogra, Dinajpur, Malda, Pabna, Rajshahi and Rangpur of Rajshahi Division. The Muslim majority areas were to be included in Pakistan and the Hindu majority areas in India. According to the Plan, the Bengal Legislative Assembly was divided into two parts and they met separately on 20 June 1947 to decide the question of partition. The majority of representatives of the Hindu majority districts voted in favour of the partition of Bengal, while those of the Muslim majority districts voted against it. On the basis of this vote, it was taken that the will of partition had been sufficiently established. The Plan also proposed the formation of a Boundary Commission to draw the final boundary line between the two parts of Bengal.
Drawing the Boundary Line: The Formation of the Bengal Boundary Commission
National borders are political constructs, imagined projections of territorial power. Although they appear on maps in deceptively precise forms, they reflect, at least initially, merely the mental images of politicians, lawyers, and intellectuals. The mapping of the modern borders was a process first perfected in Europe but soon applied all over the world. The border revealed the territorial consolidation of the state as well as the markers of the actual power of that state. It was, in a way, an offspring of the idea of the nation state. The nation state formation in South Asia passed through a tricky process of boundary making. The new borders of India and Pakistan and later Bangladesh were curved out of the unified British Empire.
The Bengal Boundary commission was constituted on 30 June 1947. The members appointed in the Commission were Justice Bijan Kumar Mukherjea, Justice C.C. Biswas, Justice Abu Saleh Mohamad Akram and Justice S.A. Rahaman. Sir Cyril Radcliffe was appointed as the Chairman of the Commission. The Boundary Commission was ‘instructed to demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of Bengal on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will also take into account other factors’. It was also instructed to finalize the report before 15 August. After preliminary meetings, the commission invited the submission of memoranda and representations by interested parties. A large number of memoranda and representations were received. The public sitting of the Commission took place in Calcutta between 16 July and 24 July at a stretch with the exception of 20 July (a Sunday). Arguments were presented to the Commission by numerous parties on both sides. However, the main cases were presented by counsel on behalf of the Indian National Congress, the Bengal Provincial Hindu Mahasabha and the New Bengal Association on the one hand, and on the behalf of the Muslim League on the other. As Radcliffe acted as the Chairman of the Punjab Boundary Commission simultaneously, he did not attend the public sittings in person. After the close of the time of public sittings, the Commission devoted its time for clarification and discussion of the issues involved. The discussion took place in Calcutta.
Problems Faced by Radcliffe
As the Chairman of the Bengal Boundary Commission, Radcliffe faced some serious problems which were mentioned in the Award. These were as follows:
1. To which State was the City of Calcutta to be assigned, or was it possible to adopt any method of dividing the City between the two States?
2. If the City of Calcutta must be assigned as a whole to one or other of the States, what were its indispensable claims to the control of territory, such as all or part of the Nadia river system or Kulti rivers, upon which the life of Calcutta as a city and port depended?
3. Could the attraction of the Ganges-Padma-Madhumati river line displace the strong claims of the heavy concentration of Muslim majorities in the districts of Jessore and Nadia without doing too great a violence to the principles of our terms of reference?
4. Could the district of Khulna usefully be held in a State different from that which held the district of Jessore?
5. Was it right to assign to Eastern Bengal the considerable block of non-Muslim majorities in the district of Malda and Dinajpur?
6. Which State’s claim ought to prevail in respect of the districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri, in which the Muslim population amounted to 2.42 per cent of the whole in case of Darjeeling, and to 23.08 per cent of the whole of Jalpaiguri, but which constituted an area not in any natural sense contiguous to another non-Muslim area of Bengal?
7. To which State should the Chittagong Hill Tracts be assigned, an area in which the Muslim population was only 3 per cent of the whole, but which it was difficult to assign to a State different from that which controlled the district of Chittagong itself?
Radcliffe Award
The Radcliffe Award was published on 17 August 1947 two days after the Independence after much speculation. It drew a dividing line between the two parts of Bengal (See Map 1)
1. To East Bengal (East Pakistan) was assigned the whole of the Chittagong and Dacca Division comprising seven districts; the whole of the Rangpur, Bogra, Rajshahi and Pabna districts of the Rajshahi Division and the whole of the Khulna district of the Presidency Division.
2. To West Bengal was assigned the whole of the Burdwan Division; the districts of Calcutta, the 24 Parganas and Murshidabad of the Presidency Division and the Darjeeling district of the Rajshahi Division.
3. The five districts of undivided Bengal viz. Nadia, Jessore, Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri and Malda were, of course, divided between West Bengal and East Bengal (Pakistan).
4. In Nadia districts, twelve Police Stations, viz. Alamdanga, Bhoiramana, Chandanga, Damurhuda, that part of Daulatpur, east of the river Mathabhanga, Gangani, Jilannagar, Khoksa, Kumarkhali, Kushtia and Mirpur were assigned to East Pakistan. These police stations constituted 1352 square miles in area.
5. Jessore largely remained in East Bengal. Only two police stations of the district viz. Bongaon and Gaighata were added to 24 Parganas district of West Bengal which comprised 319.8 square miles in area.
6. In the case of Dinajpur district, ten police stations were included in West Bengal. They were Banshihari, a part of Balurghat, (west of the main north-south railway line), Hemtabad, Itahar, Kaliaganj, Kosmandi, Kumarganj, Rajganj, Sangarampur and Tapan. The remainder of the district went to East Pakistan.
7. The whole of Jalpaiguri district was included in West Bengal except five police stations and some enclaves, south of Cooch Behar State. These five police stations were Bada, Debiganj, Pachagar, Patgram and Tetulia. They constituted 672 square miles area.
8. In Malda district the following five police stations were assigned to East Pakistan. They were Bholaghat, Gomastapur, Nachol, Nawabganj and Shibganj. They accounted for 596 square miles in area. The remainder of the district came to West Bengal.
9. The whole district of Sylhet was transformed from the province of Assam to the new province of East Pakistan, excepting for the four police stations of Patharkandi, Rataleari, Karimganj and Badanpur. These police stations were inhabited mostly by the Bengali speaking Hindus.
10. Murshidabad district did not lose to East Pakistan any entire police station. However, several maujas (village clusters) of a number of bordering police stations were subject to dispute or in de facto possession of East Bengal.
The Award gave West Bengal an area of 28000 square miles, containing a population of 21.19 million people of which nearly 5.3 million (or 29%) were Muslims. East Bengal got 49000 square miles for a population of 39.11 million, of which 29.1% (11.4 million) were Hindus. West Bengal got 36.36% of the land to accommodate some 35.14% of people, while East Bengal got 63.6% of land to accommodate 64.85% of population.
An Evaluation of the works of the Commission
The Radcliffe Award received severe criticism from almost every corner. People resented certain features of the Award. However, much of the discontents with the Award were specific rather than general: while particular aspects of it were criticized in the strongest terms, the Award as a whole was not challenged. This sort of discontent was voiced chiefly by those who found themselves on the wrong side of the border. The Muslims in Murshidabad and Nabadwip were furious for their inclusion in West Bengal. Five southern thanas of Jalpaiguri protested their inclusion in East Pakistan. So did the Hindus who found themselves in the wrong part of Dinajpur. However, the strongest protest came from Khulna which was a Hindu majority district. “It is fair to say that this sort of criticism of the Radcliffe line was far from being a critique of partition, or even of the Award as a whole. It was the panic-stricken response of people who realized, too late, that they had been shut out of their promised land.”
However there were some general and fundamental problems relating to the Award. Joya Chatterji has pointed out some of them. First of all the Award was surrounded by severe uncertainty. This was chiefly the product of misinformation. Most of the people simply did not have access to the printed document and did not know what it contained. Satinath Bhaduri has portrayed vividly the confusion and uncertainty among the common people regarding the Award in his short story ‘Gananayak (The Champion of the People)’ .Bibhuti Bhushan Mukhopadhyay in his short story ‘Acharya Kripalini Colony’ also portrayed the confusion around the Award particularly in the border regions. In that tensed and confusing situation, land price greatly increased because people residing in the border areas were very eager to secure a safer place for themselves.
Secondly, Radcliffe drafted the border line on the basis of physical or natural markers and pre-existing administrative borders. Parts of it were traced over the boundaries between thanas and districts, other parts followed the course of large rivers and their tributaries. On paper the result was a clear and tidy line. But the picture on the ground was very different. The frontiers between thanas and even between districts were not physically marked out. Actual administrative boundaries could only be established with reference to survey and settlement maps, which were often inaccurate and almost always outdated. Naturally it created so many administrative problems at the micro level. Very often the settlement maps differed from the crime maps used by the local police stations to establish their jurisdiction. Radcliffe accepted the thana as the smallest unit of partition, but he used settlement maps rather than crime maps to mark out the border. Contradictions between the two maps were sought to be exploited by both sides, each insisting on whichever interpretation would give it more territory.
Thirdly, the geographical and natural boundaries did not work much better in providing border posts in Radcliffe’s Award. A number of rivers formed a vital part in Radcliffe’s line. Some of them were fed by the melting Himalayan ice-caps and flowed throughout the year. Others were rain fed, and except for the monsoon months, dried up to a trickle. Moreover, the rivers frequently changed their course. Radcliffe had not given any thought to the possibility of rivers changing course----a serious lapse in a province whose rivers were notoriously wayward. The river chars became a major center of conflict between the two states. These problems could have been avoided, or at least minimized, had Radcliffe and the Boundary Commission done their job with greater care.
The Factors that Sealed the Fate of the Commission
We can identify some of the factors which severely affected the working of the Commission and ultimately sealed the fate of the Commission.
1. The structure and composition of the Commission
Radcliffe was widely respected for his intellectual abilities, but he had never been to India. Paradoxically, this fact made him a more attractive candidate, on the theory that ignorance of India would equal to impartiality. He was appointed as the chairman of both the Boundary Commissions for partitioning Bengal and Punjab. Each commission was composed of four judges, two selected by Congress and two by the League. In the end, this two-versus-two format and the judges’ strong political biases produced deadlock, leaving Radcliffe the responsibility to take all the most difficult decisions himself . “The Boundary Commission is instructed to demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of Bengal on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will also take into account other factors.” These terms, i.e. the ‘other factors’, allowed the Chairman enormous freedom of action. However, after the final boundary decision, known as the Radcliffe Award, had been announced, all sides complained that Radcliffe had not taken the right ‘other factors’ into account. The commission’s membership, composed entirely of legal experts, hampered its boundary-making effort but added a valuable veneer of justice and legitimacy. Its composition of equal numbers of Congress and League nominees paved the way to deadlock but created an appearance of political balance. The presence of these political nominees came at the expense of the use of the necessary geographical experts, but satisfied the demands of Congress, League, and of course the British Government to have their own men on the commission. The absence of outside participants—for example, from the United Nations—also satisfied the British Government’s urgent desire to save face by avoiding the appearance that it required outside help to govern—or stop governing—its own empire.
2. The Time Schedule
The structure and composition of the Commission limited its effectiveness, but the most serious flaw was the extremely tight timetable that the British Government, Congress, and League imposed on it. Radcliffe arrived in India on July 8 and met with Mountbatten and the nationalist leaders soon thereafter. It was at this meeting that Radcliffe learned, apparently for the first time, that the boundary must be completed by August 15. He protested, but Mountbatten, Nehru, and Jinnah stood firm. Despite warnings that the time restriction could spoil the end result, they wanted the line finished by August 15. The Commission’s extremely tight timetable made it impossible to make the necessary geographical surveys and gather other information vital to a systematic boundary making.
Time Schedule of the Bengal Boundary Commission
03 June: Announce of the Mounbatten Plan
30 June: Constitution of the Bengal Boundary Commission with Radcliffe as the chairman
08 July: Radcliffe arrived in Delhi and meet the Indian leaders
16-24 July: Public sittings of the Commission held in Calcutta
13 August: Radcliffe submitted the Report
17 August: The Award was announced publicly
3. Radcliffe’s Ignorance about Boundary Making Process
Radcliffe’s efforts were further hampered by the fact that he was almost completely ignorant of the technical information and procedural requirements necessary to draw an international boundary, though these were well established by 1947 . Moreover, he lacked any advisors versed in even the basics of boundary-making, and only his private secretary, Christopher Beaumont, was familiar with the realities of administration and everyday life in the Punjab. Radcliffe’s South Asian colleagues, all legal experts like himself, were as ignorant as their Chairman of boundary-making requirements.
4. The Undeclared Political Ends of the Commission
Radcliffe was not as unbiased, nor as ignorant, as the Indian leaders assumed. On the contrary, his wartime experience as director-general of the British Ministry of Information, along with his sound Establishment background, left him intimately familiar with the goals and interests of His Majesty’s Government. There is no evidence that Radcliffe was biased against Hindus, Muslims, or Sikhs, but he was certainly biased in favor of preserving British interests. As far as its undeclared political ends were concerned, then, the Radcliffe Commission was well arranged. Unfortunately, the forces that shaped the Commission to fulfill political needs also prevented it from following well-established boundary-making procedures.
Consequences of the Radcliffe’s Awards: ‘Radcliffe’s Ghost’ is still visible in the Subcontinent.
The Partition led to a new set of problems. Radcliffe had drawn an artificial line between India and Pakistan. Not only were the new borders artificial, but also many did not know for sure where they belonged, because the border had not been physically demarcated on the ground. It not only divided a nation but also cut through the middle of several villages; in some cases, while the main house was in one country, the servant quarters or bathrooms were in another. More importantly, it disrupted the traditional way of life and people were cut off from their traditional markets, sources of livelihood, medical facilities, etc. it produced a number of enclaves, large scale trans-border migration, smuggling, terrorism, border disputes, river water disputes and so on.
1. The Enclave Problem
The Radcliffe Award produced a very complex problem i.e. the enclave problem. It left a large number of people virtually stateless. There are 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in India and 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh. Of these disputed enclaves, 65 are along the West Bengal- Bangladesh border (35 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh territory and 31 in reverse.) The problem of enclaves is a legacy of the dissipated life styles of the rulers of two former princely states of Cooch Behar in North Bengal and Rangpur in South Bengal (present day Bangladesh). The Rajas of the two princely states routinely staked pieces of their estates over a game of cards, and thus came to acquire pockets of land in each other’s territory. The lands were pledged on piece of paper known as ‘chits’ and hence, these lands are still called ‘chits’. The ownership of these enclaves devolved upon India and East Pakistan after partition in 1947. Sir Cyril Radcliffe drew the dividing line as the parties involved failed to arrive at any agreed border. He was concerned with not disturbing the ‘railway communications and river systems’ rather than the issue of enclaves. He left the problem unresolved and thus, sowed the seed of a long lasting and complex dispute between the partitioned states of South Asia.
This issue was not resolved till 1971, when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, and inherited the problem. The residents of these enclaves were initially free to move to their respective mainland. But increased tension between India and Pakistan led to this movement being restricted, and problems arising in trade and transit. There has been no administration in these enclaves for the last 50 years. Hence, no police, no revenue, no taxation, and no government services are available. Over the years, the Bengali Muslims in the enclaves in India have migrated to other parts of the state (West Bengal), and the Hindus in the Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh have migrated to India. These enclaves have long been at the centre of Indo-east Pakistani and the Indo-Bangladeshi boundary disputes since Cooch Behar acceded to India in 1949.
2. Porous Border: Trans-border migration and terrorism
It is a well-known fact that illegal immigration from erstwhile East Pakistan and present Bangladesh has led to serious social tension in West Bengal and the entire northeastern region. On account of the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, Hindu refugees moved from East Pakistan, without much interruption, to various parts of India, especially to West Bengal, till 1971, when political boundaries in South Asia were redrawn. Even after the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country in 1971, the march of refugees to West Bengal appeared to be ceaseless. In the days of Pakistan, most of the refugees coming to West Bengal were members of the minority communities in East Bengal (East Pakistan), viz. Hindus, Buddhists and Christians. As a consequence, during 1951—1961, Hindu share of population in East Pakistan came down to 3.5% with growth rate of only 1.53%. [i.e. from 22.0% in 1951 to 18.5% in 1961]. Even during 1961—1974 period Hindu population share further declined by 5% to 13.5% in 1974. A large number of Hindu families who crossed over to India during the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971 did not return.
After the emergence of sovereign Bangladesh in 1971 the Muslims in West Bengal did not feel any urge to migrate to Bangladesh. On the contrary, a huge number of Muslims started infiltrating primarily in the bordering districts of West Bengal. Consequently, the Muslim population in the border districts as well as in other interior districts of West Bengal increased in geometric progression.
It is observed from the Bangladesh Population Census 2001, Hindu population share has come down to 9.2% only. During the last 50 years since 1951, very lower growth rate indicates massive migration of Hindu population from Bangladesh to India, particularly in the state of West Bengal. On the other hand, a steady growth of Muslim population since 1951 has enhanced their population share to 89.7% in 2001 from 76.9% in 1951. During the last five decades (1951—2001) growth of Muslim population in Bangladesh is 244.68% as against 23.16% growth of Hindu population. Side by side, growth of Muslim population in West Bengal during the same period is 310.93%, showing much higher growth rate than Bangladesh. It clearly indicates massive Muslim infiltration from Bangladesh to West Bengal.
The problem of illegal immigration continued unabated. The porous border and ready availability of shelter encouraged more infiltration from Bangladesh. Local vote bank politics also encouraged such migration. The Bangladesh government, while covertly encouraging such movement, officially denies that there has been any illegal influx of its people to any part of India.
In the post-partition period, the quantum of illegal immigration to Assam has been phenomenal. It became a crucial issue for the Assamese because they feared that the population profile of the Assam Valley would change in favour of immigrant Muslims if the influx continued. In Tripura the migrants have outnumbered the indigenous tribals. It is primarily due to this reason that there is violence and insurgency in the state.
The existing legal structure in 1947 did not envisage any such partition and was not capable of meeting the new challenges which arose due to this decision. It was only in 1955 that the Indian Citizenship Act was passed by Parliament, and it was not till 1967 that a new Act, which took cognizance of illegal immigration into India, was passed.
Initially, the Government of India did not pay much attention to this border, which was thinly policed, mainly by armed police battalions of Assam and West Bengal. This state of affairs was not very satisfactory and in 1965, a central force, the BSF, replaced the state police. However, the BSF was never deployed in sufficient strength and the main problems plaguing this border continue. These chiefly consisted of trans-border trafficking by various underground groups to set up training camps and bases in erstwhile East Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Naga and Mizo insurgents travelled extensively across this border to bring men, material and supplies to wage war against India. Later, other underground outfits of various northeastern insurgent groups also used this porous border to bring in arms and ammunition and send across recruits for arms training. They also used it for drug smuggling. In fact, taking advantage of this thinly policed border, not only local insurgent groups but also Kashmiri and Pan-Islamic terrorist groups have been using it, particularly since the mid-1990s, to send their leaders and trained cadres for carrying out terrorist activities in India. The porous border allowed easy flow of migrants from East Pakistan and later Bangladesh, which are densely populated, to West Bengal, Assam and other northeastern states.
3. Problems of the Sharing of River Water
The boundary line demarcated in 1947 defied all logic of geography and introduced a new dimension in the South Asian region, ‘hydro-politics’ or conflict over water. The Partition of the Sub continent created a severe problem in the management of river water. While in 1960, the Indus water sharing problem was resolved after prolonged negotiation between the two states in mediation of the World Bank, the Ganges river water problem remained unresolved till today.
The Ganges river dispute has been regarded as one of the long lasting and most interesting international water disputes. The river flows down from the Himalayan Nanda Devi range and incorporates the riparian states of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and China. The river flows for over 92% of its course within India, before merging with the Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers in Bangladesh and then flowing out into the Bay of Bengal (indeed the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system is responsible for the existence of Bangladesh itself which is a delta formed from systems silt deposits).
The debate originated in 1951 with the publication of the Indian plan of constructing a barrage at Farakka, 17 kilometers away from the border. The barrage would reportedly divert 40000 cusecs out of a dry season average flow of 50,000 cusecs from the Ganges into the Bhagirathi-Hooghly tributary, to provide silt-free flow into Calcutta Bay, which would improve navigability for the city's port during dry months and keep saltwater from the city's water supply. The Pakistani government officially attracted the attention of the Indian government about the plan. On 8 March 1952, the Indian government replied that the project was only under preliminary investigation. Over the next years, Pakistan occasionally responded to reports of Indian plans for diversion projects of the Ganges, with little Indian response. In 1957, and again in 1958, Pakistan offered a bundle of proposals for the better management of the river water which was crucial for her survival. India virtually turned down all the proposals. Later it was agreed that water resources experts of the two countries would meet to exchange their views.
Thereafter several expert-level meetings between India and Pakistan were held. In the meantime (1961), India announced the initiation of the construction of the Farakka Barrage which was completed in 1970. However, water was not diverted at that time, because the feeder canal to the Bhagirathi-Hooghly system was not yet completed.
Bangladesh came into being in 1971, and by March 1972, the governments of India and Bangladesh agreed to establish the Indo-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission, “to develop the waters of the rivers common to the two countries on a cooperative basis.” After long discussion the two sides agreed that a mutually acceptable solution to issues around the Ganges would be reached before operating the Farakka Barrage. On 16 May 1974, the prime ministers of India and Bangladesh met in New Delhi and signed on a joint declaration on the issue. After that the trial operation of the Farakka Barrage started on 16 April 1975. India continued to divert Ganges water after the trial run, without negotiating a suitable agreement with Bangladesh. Bangladesh lodged a formal protest against India with the UNO. As a result the Ganges Water Agreement was signed on 5 November 1977 only for a short term basis. Ultimately in 1996 an agreement was made between the two countries. The 1996 Agreement undoubtedly heralded a new chapter in the Indo-Bangladesh relationship. However, the Agreement had some serious flaws and thus failed to provide a permanent solution to the Ganges water dispute. The artificially created boundary not only produced severe tension in the relationship between the two neighbouting states but also grave environmental problems in the subcontinent.
The changing course of the Ganges has posed a serious threat to the Farakka Barrage itself as well as the future of the people of a large part of Malda and Murshidabad. The uninterrupted encroachment of the river towards its left bank may outflank the barrage and open a new course through the present Kalindi-Mahananda route. The land eroded from the left bank of the Ganges in Malda is more than 200 sq.km, while that in Murshidabad is about 356 sq,km. Millions of rupees are wasted every year in bank protection. The rehabilitation of the erosion-victims is a serious problem to the state government.
5. Border Clashes
The Indo-Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan) border is the longest land border which India has with any of its neighbours. The hastily created border did not bother about the basic norms of boundary making. Naturally it produced a number of problems. The incomplete demarcation, existence of a large number of enclaves and adverse possession made the situation grave in the Bengal borderland. Cyril Radcliffe botched up the job in the east by drawing a straight line through villages and rivers, houses and marketplaces. Neither did the Indian members of the commission at that time, nor did their successors who came to rule the country later, care to undo the damage by rationally demarcating the border. As a result, border conflicts continue to plague India and its neighbour Bangladesh. Initially, the Government of India did not pay much attention to this border, which was thinly policed, mainly by armed police battalions of Assam and West Bengal. This state of affairs was not very satisfactory and in 1965, a central force, the BSF, replaced the state police. However, the BSF was never deployed in sufficient strength and the main problems plaguing this border continue. The result has been the recurrent border clashes between BSF and BDR, each of these being required to protect and defend a 4,000 km border that is porous along certain stretches, parts of which keep on changing according to the unpredictable course of the rivers that run by them, and including a 6.5 km stretch that has not yet been demarcated. Frequent skirmishes are a regular feature in the Bengal borderland nowadays. One observer has rightly pointed out “….Cyril Radcliff’s sloppy surgery which has left behind our subcontinent as a mangled body is still held sacrosanct by the rulers of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Will they ever be exorcise the ghost of colonialism?”
6. Life in the Bengal Border
The Boundary Commission
Paul Muldoon
You remember that village where the border ran
Down the middle of the street,
With the butcher and baker in different states?
Today he remarked how a shower of rain
Had stopped so cleanly across Golightly's lane
It might have been a wall of glass
That had toppled over. He stood there, for ages,
To wonder which side, if any, he should be on.
The life and culture of the people living in the borderlands is getting more and more scholarly attention nowadays. The newly drawn border disrupted the day to day life of the people living in the border areas. “It separated the peasant’s homestead from the plot he had sharecropped in the last session and the peasant-proprietor from his holding. It cut creditors off from debtors; landlords from tenants.” The Partition badly disrupted the channels of communication which had developed through centuries. It separated the markets from the surrounding villages on which they were dependent.
Thus, the people living in the border took up smuggling as their survival strategy. Partition, though an event more than half a century old, is still a grotesque reality in the border zone.
Conclusion
The boundary making process in Bengal and its consequences reveals some very interesting features. Boundary making is a delicate and specialized task which requires sufficient time and technical knowledge to make it a success. That huge task was done in this case in a hurried manner which had no parallel in history. It has already been shown that neither Radcliffe nor his colleagues had any previous experience of boundary making process. The Chairman and all the members of the Commission were lawyers. It was just another legal battle to them. The 2:2 ratio of the Commission created a deadlock and the final decisions were taken by Radcliffe who was totally ignorant about the subcontinent. Joya Chatterji has rightly criticized the use of the surgical metaphor behind the act of partition. Surgery produces pain, but it has a remedial effect. Moreover it is undertaken by a specialist. The Partition was neither done by a specialist nor did it have any remedial effect. It only produced pain and rapture and the people involved are still going through it. A lengthier and more transparent boundary making process might have served as a sort of anesthetic effect in this process. Radcliffe himself was probably aware of what damage he had done to the subcontinent. He honestly confessed to his son: ‘…..Nobody in India will love me for the award about the Punjab and Bengal and there will be roughly 80 million people with a grievance who will begin looking for me’.
However, even the most carefully crafted border is not altogether free from defects. So it is not enough to criticize the working of the Commission on particular grounds. We can reasonably question the very idea of Partition as a viable means of conflict resolution. The Partition did not end the communal problem in the subcontinent. Rather it created so many new problems. The overall strenuous relationship between the three successor states, recurrent border clashes, trans-border migration, smuggling, terrorism, dispute over river water sharing, problems of the minorities ---all these developments indicate that the Partition is too costly a solution of communal problem. The high level politicians conceived it, the lawyers of the Commission drafted it, and the bureaucrats implemented it without bothering about its consequences for the common people. They had to pay the high price of Independence. They were sacrificed for the sake of the formation of the nation states in the subcontinent. The people on both sides of the border, in turn, openly violate the logic of the nation-state in their day to day life. This is the greatest fallacy of the Partition.
Endnotes
