Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a British barrister with no prior experience of India, was tasked with drawing the India-Pakistan boundary in 1947. He arrived in India on July 8, with less than six weeks before the British withdrawal, and relied on submissions to the Boundary Commissions rather than personally surveying the areas.

His decisions were guided primarily by contiguous majority areas and existing administrative divisions. The Radcliffe Award was announced only after August 15, with the stated aim of avoiding a dampening of Independence Day celebrations, while historians have argued that the delay also helped shield Britain from responsibility for the violence that followed.

While Radcliffe took most key decisions himself, evidence points to communication between his office and Mountbatten’s government.