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ON 3 JUNE 1947, Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, meets various political leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, in Delhi to inform them about the final plan for the partition of India. After all the attendees agreed to the plan, it was announced by the colonial government later that evening.

Mountbatten, who had assumed charge on 21 February, was tasked with overseeing India’s transition from colonial rule. This included a resolution to the Muslim League’s demand of a separate homeland for India’s largest minority community. The partition plan provided for the creation of two temporary dominions—India and Pakistan—until each of them adopted its own constitution. The dominions could make their own laws, and the colonial armed forces would be divided between them. The provinces of Punjab and Bengal, which had slim Muslim majorities, were to be divided, with Pakistan also including Sindh and Balochistan, while the hundreds of principalities in the subcontinent could choose which dominion to join.

Based on the proposal, the British government passed the Indian Independence Act on 18 July, less than a month before the scheduled partition date of 15 August. Mountbatten appointed boundary commissions to recommend how Punjab and Bengal were to be split. Cyril Radcliffe, a British lawyer who had never been to India, chaired the commissions, while the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League appointed two members to each. The borders of the two countries were not published until two days after Independence.

The hastily drawn Radcliffe Line caused chaos, as nearly 15 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs crossed the borders over the coming months in one of the largest displacements in human history. Many refugees embarked on their journey on foot, with columns often stretching for several kilometres. Communal violence accompanied the migration, with some accounts estimating the number of deaths at nearly 2 million.