ABSTRACT
Sir Cyril Radcliffe's Boundary Commission's terms of reference were to divide Punjab and Bengal according to contiguous majority areas and other factors, which were unspecified. The Boundary Commission met in Punjab in July and for ten intensive days heard submissions from interested parties. The members of the civil service could opt for Pakistan or India, and as they did so and as the British officers left, so the skills remaining to Pakistan and India were reduced and unbalanced. At Independence, British paramountcy over the Princely States would lapse - thereby meaning that in theory they could go their own way, as independent states or forming their own groups, within or without an understanding with the new India or Pakistan. Maps were published in Pakistan showing the Line of Control extending north-eastwards to the Karakoram pass. In a press communique Nehru repudiated Pakistani claims on Junagadh, and stated that the issue should be resolved by a plebiscite of the State's population.
