Talk:Radcliffe Line

Pakistani view on Award of Gurdaspur to India

To editor Kautilya3: Already on the talk page of Kashmir Issue. Before trying to add/remove anything, please discuss it there. Regards -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samm19 (talk • contribs)

The content of this article should be discussed on this talk page.

I have added a failed verification tag, which you removed without discussion. The tag means that the content is not supported by the source. To contest it, you need to provide a quotation from the source that supports the content. Failing that the content will be removed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:56, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

To editor Kautilya3:,

• "for purposes of administration ad interim" from another source, and 'Gurdaspur had already been "assigned" (words used by the author) to Pakistan'. Not 'repeating' anything here. Samm19 (talk) 21:14, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
• well, that newspaper story actually has the picture of "The incumbency board at the office of the District Magistrate" carrying name of Mushtaq Ahmed Cheema; the Pakistani Deputy Commissioner of Gurdaspur. I quoted an Indian newspaper for a reason. Family of Mushtaq Ahmed Cheema lives in Pakistan. A Pakistani link for you: [1]
• Now, will you please revert the edit you made ? Samm19 (talk) 21:25, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
• let me repeat myself, "for purposes of administration ad interim" from another source, and 'Gurdaspur had already been "assigned" (words used by the author) to Pakistan'. Not 'repeating' anything here.
• And sources are given. Please don't remove it again Samm19 (talk) 21:28, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Summary of my edits: Removed all non-Pakistani views from the section labelled Pakistani views, and attributed all non-scholarly opinions to the respective authors. You have re-inserted the non-Pakistani sources, which labelled under Assessments. I also removed some editorialising. But all this content is still hugely WP:UNDUE and very WP:POV, and I still need to check it against the sources. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:51, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

I don't know what's wrong with you and why are you trying to vandalize, but nonetheless, I appreciate your efforts. I am learning a lot from You. Regards Samm19 (talk) 22:13, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Please don't make personal attacks against editors. You can be blocked for doing so. Thanks for saying you are learning from me. You can actually learn more by reading the Wikipedia policy pages posted on your talk page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:20, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

To editor Kautilya3: I haven't made any personal attack against any editor, what are you talking about ? I just asked you to stop vandalizing, because, unfortunately, that's exactly what you are doing now. Don't remove properly referenced content from reliable sources, without discussing it here, just because you don't like it. Did I ask too much ?

To editor Kautilya3: And in case I missed it, thank you for attributing those opinions to Sir Zafarullah Khan. Only if you knew that the man you tried to 'belittle' by declaring his opinions to be 'non-scholarly' had actually been an internationally acclaimed jurist, one of the most influential and skilled diplomats of his time, author of several books, and the first Asian and the only Pakistani to preside over the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice... Have a nice day, mate Samm19 (talk) 04:26, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

New addition – 'Moth-eaten Pakistan'

I am copying below a new section that got added today for possible discussion. In my view, this is WP:UNDUE. It is really part of the "Background", which has already been covered in the subsection called "Final negotiations". The purpose is only to explain why the Boundary Commissions became necessary. We cannot possibly cover all the negotations that happened. They are practically endless. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:08, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

removed content

'Moth-eaten' Pakistan Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab and Bengal clamoured for the division of these two provinces, arguing that if India could be divided along religious lines then so should these provinces because the Muslim majorities in both provinces were small. V.P Menon decided with Sardar Patel to only give Muslims a moth-eaten Pakistan. Nehru then discussed partitioning Punjab and Bengal with Wavell. He told Menon that the partition of Punjab and Bengal would bring the more fertile parts of these two provinces into the Indian Union so that a truncated Pakistan would not be worth having. Nehru told Gandhi that such a Pakistan would not be accepted by Jinnah because it would be economically unviable. Sir Cripps remarked the Pakistan they are likely to get would be very different from what they wanted and it may not be worth their while. On March 8, 1947 the Congress passed a resolution to partition Punjab. In Mountbatten's meetings with Jinnah between April 5 and 11 April he diverted Jinnah's attention to the partition of Punjab and Bengal. Jinnah protested that this would mean a 'moth-eaten Pakistan' but Mountbatten insisted on his refusal of a full Pakistan and only giving half of Punjab and Bengal to the new country. The British officers had been afraid of Jinnah's refusal to partition Punjab and Bengal, although they were not afraid of the Congress and Sikhs. Their 'secret reports' informed them that Hindus and Sikhs were in favour of partition but Muslims were against it and would not accept it unless Jinnah instructed them to do so. When Mountbatten asked Liaquat Ali Khan if they were going to accept the partition of the two provinces, Liaquat Ali Khan replied 'we shall never agree to it, but you may make us bow to inevitable'. Mountbatten informed his staff that the League appeared to accept the Partition plan. When V.P Menon said there would be trouble if the League is not accept it now that Nehru and Patel had done so, Mountbatten told him he had already threatened Jinnah with a transfer of power to the Interim Government if he did not agree. Jinnah then approached Eric Mieville to tell Mountbatten that the partition of Punjab and Bengal would be a great mistake. The Muslim League again reiterated its demand for a full Pakistan although said it would accept a truncated Pakistan if this was forced upon them. When Churchill asked Mountbatten if Jinnah had accepted a Dominion status as Nehru had, Mountbatten told him he had not done so. Churchill then instructed Mountbatten to threaten Jinnah by taking away all British officers to make it clear to him that Pakistan would not be able to survive without British help. Churchill's message shook Jinnah and made it clear to him that England would not support him. Mountbatten then proposed to threaten Jinnah by drawing a line less favourable to Muslims and more favourable to Sikhs. However, Lord Ismay prevailed that he should use 'hurt feelings' rather than threats to persuade Jinnah for partition. They ultimately succeeded in what scholar Sialkoti states was threatening Jinnah with a partition line less favourable to Muslims if he did not agree to the partition of Punjab and Bengal. Mountbatten had claimed that in making his demand of partitioning Punjab and Bengal he was merely using the same principles as Jinnah cited to justify partitioning India, in other words ensuring the safety of Hindu minorities in Punjab and Bengal by separating them from Pakistan. Scholar Akbar Ahmed argues that this reasoning reduces the principle of partition to absurdity since according to this logic Muslim estates in the United Province should also have been separated and given to Pakistan. Akbar Ahmed writes that the province was the basic unit of administration in India whereas Mountbatten insisted on a district-level partition. Jinnah insisted that the partition of provinces would be disastrous, but Mountbatten remained 'deaf' according to Ahmed. On the 2nd of June, Jinnah approached Mountbatten again and asked him to reconsider and not split the provinces to which Mountbatten replied by threatening "You will lose Pakistan probably for good". References

I added this section last week and I tag it is DUE. 'Moth-eaten' Pakistan is a significant term in the scholarly literature about Partition and Radcliffe line and deserves its own section. There is no limit to adding relevant details on Wikipedia.Like everything else except God the negotiations were finite.

I have a concern that the 'Prior ideas of Partition' section in UNDUE and I will erase or move that content soon.

The Congress insistence on Partition in spite of the League's protests resulted in the formation of the Radcliffe Commission and Line in the first place. Also relevant in the article's background is why the Radcliffe Commission and Line became necessary and how it was achieved. The Congress demanded the partition of Punjab and Bengal to make Pakistan economically unviable and unattractive to the ML as is how Jinnah and the Muslim League wade threatened into accepting the Partition and thus the Radcliffe Line. Dilpa kaur (talk) 13:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Dilpa kaur, Welcome to Wikipedia. Please note that WP:Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and Wikipedia articles have to be written in WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. Your idea that "there is no limit to adding relevant details" is not viable and not in accordance with Wikipedia policies.

Firstly, you have to note that the section you have added is part of the Background. It is not part of the Radcliffe boundary commissions or their work. The purpose of the background section is to explain how the idea of partitioning Punjab and Bengal came into being and why the boundary commissions became necessary. It is not its purpose to give a detailed coverage of all the negotiations. Secondly, my discussion also deliberately stays from the claims and counterclaims of the Congress and the Muslim League, the disputants, and uses the assessments of the British administrators or third parties like Ambedkar, Panikkar etc. That is because they have heard all the debates between the contending parties and made up their minds about what is feasible. In the end, it is their assessments that carried the day. In particular, Ambedkar's tract Thoughts on Pakistan, which was produced within four months of the Lahore Resolution, was extremely influential. I will look for more material that summarises the Congress and Muslim League positions, but the Sialkoti article is probably not the best place to look for it.

Finally, I should say that your write-up is highly sensationalised. The very title 'Moth-eaten Pakistan', a political slogan, is a prime example. You have absolutely no basis to claim that it is a "significant term in scholarly literature". Even the very source you cite doesn't have a section titled that. Also, statements like V.P.Menon conspired with Patel to give a moth-eaten Pakistan have no place on Wikipedia. This is more like propaganda, not information. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:08, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I should add that you appear not to have read what has been written. The Cabinet Mission offered Jinnah a larger Pakistan that could be in the Indian Union or a smaller Pakistan that could be independent. This is the assessment they have reached after listening to all the parties. When the Muslim League eventually rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan, for whatever reason, the effect is that they have settled for a smaller Pakistan. Rhetoric cannot undo the inexorable political realities. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 21:15, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

There's a scholarly consensus that Cabinet Mission Plan failed due to Congress and not the League. This scholarly consensus is represented in the tertiary high level histories such as Barbara D. Metcalf; Thomas R. Metcalf (2002). A Concise History of India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 212–. ISBN 978-0-521-63974-3..

Jinnah neither rejected a smaller Pakistan nor a larger Pakistan within the Indian Union All Jinnah wanted was a viable Pakistan. The Congress could not have that. They and Mountbatten practically bullied the League into accepting Partition by threatening that Muslims would not be allowed a Pakistan at all. Also the British administrators were not neutral but were part of the Congress' bullying tactics in the League. For example it was Mountbatten who threatened Jinnah into accepting the Partition after all.

I certainly have a basis for saying what I said about moth-eaten Pakistan. I can provide heaps of sources but the Sialkoti source should be fine for now. Had the Congress not schemed for giving a moth-eaten and economically unviable Pakistan to the League there would not have been a Radcliffe Comnission set up in the first place. It was set up to divide Punjab and Bengal.

The statement about Patel and Menon scheming are in the same Sialkoti source which you have used quite liberally to write the other sections. Its factual information and not propaganda. It's also made clear with extensive footnotes that this was the Congress reason for demanding Partition and Nehru said the same explicitly. Sialkoti cited 'Selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru' and quoted Nehru saying that partitioning Punjab and Bengal would make Pakistan unviable by. bringing the richer and fertile parts of the two provinces into India so a truncated Pakistan would not be worth having. We cannot cherry pick information from sources. Excluding information based on likes and dislikes while using other information from that same source is cherry picking and POV pushing and violates NPOV requirement which demands that different scholarly perspectives should be fairly and proportionately represented without taking any sides, unless of course there is a scholarly consensus. If you have a scholarly level source which contradicts this fact about the Congressi scheme to weaken Pakistan through partitioning Punjab and Bengal then and only then can you have any point. Otherwise your comment is pure personal POV which will not be allowed to belong on Wikipedia.Dilpa kaur (talk) 13:24, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't think any party fully accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan. The Interim Government was dysfunctional. Viceroy Wavell formulated a "break down plan" and asked for the British government's permission for it. Throughout these developments, the Muslim League was fully aware that the Cabinet Mission had told them in unequivocal terms that an independent Pakistan would mean a smaller Pakistan. These are verifiable facts and don't depend on any scholarly consensus, which I don't think exists.

As for the Congress position, it is entirely public, documented in various resolutions and leaders' statements. Congress did not want partition of any kind but, if it became inevitable, they were willing to concede 'genuine Muslim majority areas'. This was made clear in Jinnah-Gandhi talks way before any of the incidents of this article began. The Congress knew that this would mean a weaker Pakistan and they hoped that Muslim League would back down in the face of it. All the British officials also hoped the same. But the Muslim League did not back down. I don't see where there is any "scheming" in any of this. If you believe that the Congress used smaller Pakistan merely as a negotiating ploy and a larger Pakistan was indeed acceptable to them behind the scenes, please produce evidence for it.

Independent of the Congress position, Nehru had his own, viz., the desire for a strong centre. Whether this was feasible in the framework of the Cabinet Mission Plan could have been explored in my opinion, if there was trust on all sides. But trust was totally lacking. It is the lack of trust that generates all this talk of "scheming". Frankly, I don't think it is our business to deal with it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:58, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Comment Can we still include Dilpa's edits in the article but somewhat re-worded so it would be more acceptable for Kautilya? That would seem more compromising--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 18:10, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Not really. The problem is not just wording but the WP:WEIGHT. It is the background to the Radcliffe commissions and I believe that the background section is already as long as it can possibly be. There are also other articles, Partition of India, Cabinet Mission Plan etc., where this could be considered, but once again it is focusing far too much on negotiations and too little on actual substance. So, sadly, even though I quite like the write-up, I don't think this is Wikipedia material. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:37, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Partition of India is a very extensive article as it is. Putting more stuff there would just over fill it. Why would so much material about the Radcliff Line end up in an article that is not about it? This is the best place to have it in.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 20:21, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Also these comments appear to be pure speculation. What about the scholarly commentary to cover it. "I think" certainly looks like speculation to me. It might even be original research for all I know. We should do our job and summarize the scholarly consensus for this issue.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 04:09, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

So since the high level scholarly sources, where the consensus position is outlined, tell us that the Cabinet Mission failed because of Nehru not being in favor decentralisation, then that is what should be written.

And since the Sialkoti source which you yourself used offers a commentary on the moth-eaten Pakistan as do other scholarly sources, we also include that.

I think all this material is definitely part of the background if Punjab and Bengal' s partition since they explain why partition became necessary-because Hindus/Sikhs demanded it and Congress wanted Pakistan to become weak- and how the Partition came to be agreed to - by Moutbatten threatening Jinnah that if he did not agree to partition there would be no Pakistan at all.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 06:10, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

• Kautilya, Going through your editing history you have been telling a user that you wish to make a section on this page for 'Sikh concerns'. 'Moth-eaten Pakistan' certainly deserves a section by the same logic. Also familiarise yourself with WP:CENSORSHIP and WP:NPOV. Dilpa kaur (talk) 07:11, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the Sikh issues come up frequently during the boundary-making process. So, some background to explain why they were important would be necessary. Your addition, on the other hand, is elaborating the issues already covered in the original Final negotiations section. It is not new information. Moreover, it takes no cognisance of the fact that the Hindus and Sikhs of Punjab did not want to be part of an independent Pakistan. So, what the players said to each other is of little consequence. They were basically trying to deliver what the people wanted. On the whole, your contribution does not add any value to the article. I am pinging senior editors RegentsPark and Vanamonde93 to give their views. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:44, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Final negotiations is not about the boundary making "process" (which has its own section) but about the negotiations which led to the creation of the Conmission, which is why it's in the "Background" section. And 'moth-eaten' Pakistan also comes up very frequently during the final negotiations, in fact the Congress' plan of truncating the future Pakistan and the League's resistance to it was central to the final negotiations. Your reason that what the players did is of 'little consequence' is a weak argument because the actions of players shape the historical events. And that's what belongs in history articles. The way the Partition was agreed to by the Muslim League (by being threatened) also fully belongs in the final negotiations. In fact, without this information, our article and this section is incomplete because the reader does not know the way the negotiations leading to the Radcliffe Commission transpired and 'succeeded'. Hindus and Sikhs not wanting to join Pakistan is no more relevant here than Muslims in Punjab and Bengal not wanting to be in India because they were in the majority in both provinces. Muslims too had 'concerns'. I suppose one could ask about the non-Muslim districts within Punjab but as Akbar Ahmed tells us, what then of Muslim estates in United Provinces? The basic unit of administration in India was the province. So having a 'Sikh concerns' section without a parallel one for Muslims is not right. Dilpa kaur (talk) 14:39, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I don't mind adding the fact that Mountbatten threatened Muslim League if that does prove to be the case upon further investigation. But I am opposed to doubling the size of the Final negotiations section as you have done.

Secondly, you draw a parallel between 'Sikh concerns' and 'Muslim concerns'. But you haven't discussed any 'Muslim concerns' in your contribution other than their desire for real estate. Is that all they were concerned about? If so, why does that need 3,000 words? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:30, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

@Dilpa kaur: Thank you for adding a new section on the Sikh concerns, which we can discuss and review in due course. But, please note that you do not have my agreement for your 3,000 word bloat of the Final negotiations section. Wikipedia is written by WP:CONSENSUS and you cannot bulldoze your way through it, by repeatedly reinstating contested content. If you wish to make further edits to the article, you need to remove the contested content first. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:39, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

I am looking forward to your review :) I also wish that you work with me in expanding this section. It's still lacking in details.

In reply to your other concern I still do not understand your objections to the things I have added. Please explain with deeper clarity what you are contesting. I have used the same reliable l source you have used and I have used it to explain how the final negotiations in the background to the Radcliffe Line happened, how they ended and so on. If you have a reliable source which contradicts this information about the threatening to make the Muslim League agree to Partition then please show us and the community here will examine it.

As for your other comment that Muslims were concerned about real estate then so was everyone else. Muslims at least, did not ask for the division of Hindu majority provinces. In comparison, Hindus sought the division of Muslim majority provinces, which is why I have added Akbar Ahmed's comment on this like you have added Ambdedkar's comments about how the Muslims allegedly did not understand their own demand of partition. 223.180.172.49 (talk) 12:15, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

My objection has always been that it is WP:UNDUE. It is too long and too detailed for a Background section. But there is something more below.

Akbar Ahmed is no authority on the subject. He is an anthropologist and a civil servant, not a historian or political scientist. I found a dozen reviews of his book, which all uniformly trashed it. But here is an important comment:

The author is certainly right to question the propriety of the close relationship between the Mountbattens and Nehru, but his conclusion--frequently asserted--that the bias of the Viceroy led to a conspiracy against Pakistan, the bloodshed of partition and the ensuing poor relations between the two successor states needs to be argued through in more detail if it is to be convincing.

For instance, the reaosn why Pakistan--as granted--did not contain the undivided provinces of Punjab and Bengal, as Jinnah would have liked, was not only because Mountbatten, under pressure from the Congress, determined that it should not, but also because the Hindus and Sikhs of Punjab and the Hindus of Bengal were opposed to it. Akbar Ahmed correctly points up Jinnah's concern for minorities, most memorably enunciated in his address to the Constituent Assembly, but the Muslim League had done little during the 1940s to reassure the minorities that they would be welcome in Pakistan and the prospect of its emergence unerstandably put them into a panic.

I have reproduced it here because your own contributions suffer from exactly the same problems. The Viceroy bullied Jinnah. Yeah, so what? He was giving the Muslims what they wanted, an independent Pakistan. He was giving the Sikhs and Hindus of the provinces what they wanted, separation from Pakistan. What tactics he used to get there matter little. Your analysis is focused on the players and the play, but not the goals of the play. The big picture is lacking. For that reason, almost nothing that you have put into the Background section belongs there. It is just meaningless vitriole. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:39, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

And you claim that so was every one else is a cheap shot. It is not evidenced. It was the Muslim League that talked of a 'moth-eaten Pakistan'. Congress never complained that it was getting a 'moth-eaten India'. The Congress position had always been that any province that genuinely wanted to get away from the Union would be allowed to go. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:56, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Cabinet Mission Plan

Regarding the acceptance of the CMP, scholars are entitled to their opinions and make judgements, whereas we are committed to WP:NPOV. One cannot cite a single source and claim that it is scholarly consensus. Most scholars hedge the results in various ways. For example, Hodson's The Great Divide says (p.161):

The position when the Cabinet Mission departed was that the ML had accepted the main plan (the statement of 16th May) without qualifications, though with the express intention of continuing to work within it for secession and Pakistan; the Congress had nominally accepted the plan, but with reservations or interpretations which could have nullified its central provision of grouping provinces to form a three-tier system;...

... the CMP ... had in June 1946 been accepted by the Muslim League, and rejected, in effect though not in precise form, by the Congress; whereas when Lord Mountbatten negotiated with the leaders in March and April 1947 it was the League which totally repudiated the CMP, the Congress which would have revived it if they possibly could. The reasons for that change may be apparent from the story of the intervening months. They do not encourage the widely-held view that a last chance of securing a peaceful transfer of power to a united India was missed by the accident of a few political mishaps and personal mistakes in the summer of 1946, particularly the schizophrenic policy of the Congress and the unwise utterances of Pandit Nehru.

I can also produce quotations for the issue of "distrust" if you wish. But you need to be aware of WP:CHEESE in asking for sources for everything. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:43, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Hodson's outdated work from decades ago, failing WP:THIRDPARTY to boot, can not override the major accepted tertiary history works such as Metcalf or Michael Mann. Not all sources and scholars are equal. Fowler&fowler has explained this on other talkpages I believe.

This is also not a matter of 'distrust'. It's a well known fact, there are even direct quotes of Nehru, in the Sialkoti article you have used, which show that the Congress was scheming for partition so that Pakistan would be economically weak. One example is Nehru saying to Gandhi "it is unlikely that Jinnah and the Muslim League will agree to this truncated Pakistan which can never succeed economically or otherwise".--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 04:21, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I am afraid this is an instance of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Hodson's book has received rave reviews by experts. Here is one for example:

H.V. Hodson's book could be simply reviewed in one sentence--it is by far the best book yet written on th eevents leading up to the partition of India. The style is crystal clear,the facts are well-marshalled and the judments are balanced, though some of them relate to matters about which there is room for difference of opinion.

You are shooting down a well-respected scholar-commentator while pushing a Pakistani scholar arguing for Pakistani positions. (It is nevertheless a good article, presenting a wealth of information, which is why I have used it as a source. That is not to say that we have to report every view expressed by the author despite evidence to the contrary.)

Since you have claimed that it is an out of date source, here is a contemporary one:

The dispute over the grouping provision, combined with Congress's enthusiastic embrace of the system by which the Assembly's representatives were to be elected, reinforced the League's suspicions about the true intentions of Congress.[54] The League was concerned that the Congress would use its dominance in the Assembly to adopt a constitution which would suppress the rights of the Muslim minority. These concerns were reinforced by the fact that Congress conditioned its agreement to the Mission's plan on acceptance of its own interpretation of the grouping provisions.

From Jinnah's perspective, this conditional approval was effectively a rejection of the entire plan. Consequently, at the end of July, the Muslim League resolved to withdraw its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission's proposals.[57] On August 16, 1946 the League held a Direct Action Day to press its demands for an independent Pakistan....

-- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:52, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. For this Cabinet Mission plan I am not using a Pakistani scholar, even though nationalities do not matter on Wikipedia, but I am reminding you that authors of the high level histories Metcalf and Mann, neither of who are Pakistani, inform us that the Mission failed because of the Congress. And in contested pages the best approach according to our senior editor Fowler&fowler is to summarise the higher level histories. Lerner also seems to agree with Metcalf and Mann despite approaching it in a more distanced way with a slight hesitancy to lay explicit blame on the Congress. But I do not see anything in Lerner about Nehru saying that they were not bound by their words in the Cabinet Mission, the way Mann has taken that into account. Nor can we use Lerner's hesitancy when we have explicit statements to the contrary from Metcalf and Mann. When superior sources are saying something, we give preference to that. My main argument is that not all sources are equal, as Fowler&fowler has taught us. Of course where scholars differ on a matter we include all scholarly opinions as per WP:NPOV. But there is no visible major disagreement here between Lerner and Metcalf/Mann. Lerner has just used their words more "cautiously" while explaining why the League felt concerned over the Congress' behavior. That's not a real scholarly disagreement we need to fuss over.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 03:42, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

I am glad to hear that you are not pushing the Pakistani scholar. So let us leave that aside. I go by Wikipedia policies, not any particular editors' interpretations of them. There is no scholarly consensus on blaming a particular party for the breakdown of the Cabinet Mission Plan. Both the parties gave it half-hearted acceptance, but eventually it was the Muslim League that withdrew its acceptance and launched a 'Direct Action'. So I object to putting the blame on Congress by cherry-picking sources. Moreover, I am afraid both you and the other editor are WP:COATRACKing by adding controversial extraneous material in an article that is supposed to be about Radcliffe Line. There is a separate article on the Cabinet Mission Plan. That is where you can go and add your views. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:56, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Scholarly comments

I have removed this passage from the body:

Professor Lawrence Ziring, considered an authority on Pakistan's political development, writes that the Gurdaspur district of the Punjab, a Muslim-dominant area, had been demarcated for India and not Pakistan in order to provide New Delhi with direct land access to Kashmir. Jinnah's effort to prevent this geopolitical strategizing proved futile, and indeed the granting of Gurdaspur to India by Britain signaled India's intention to occupy the mountain kingdom with British acquiescence.

References

I have been able to verify that Lawrence Ziring is a political scientist, and he is considered an authority on Pakistani politics. However, he is not a historian, and nothing indicates that his expertise extended to the developments in New Delhi before the creation of Pakistan. What is more problematice is that the statement attributed to him is entirely speculative. There is absolutely no evidence given either in the cited article or in his full length book, where again a similarly unsupported statement appears:

In Punjab, it was the Muslim majority districts of Gurdaspur and Batala that were given to eastern Punjab and thus awarded to India. The latter determination, however, had little to do with Sikh demands but had much more to do with providing India a road link to Jammu and Kashmir.

On the other hand, our article provides considerable evidence of Sikh concerns regarding the Gurdaspur district, the fact that it was only marginally Muslim-majority, even that fact being contested, and that its allocation to India had been proposed even by viceroy Wavell before the final partition plan came into being.

Basically, these statements appear to me to be basically commentaries on Pakistani politics, and have no historical validity. If anybody can provide some better evidenced statements from Ziring, we might consider those. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 22:53, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

References

• So to clarify, this has been removed because (a) it contains factual analysis which is unverifiable and (b) Pakistani politics are not relevant to the article? Dysklyver 14:32, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

(a) mostly. I have no problem with Pakistani politics, provided it is evidenced and properly attributed. The two sections were added by user Samm19 [2] and suffer from intense POV problems. I was debating them with the user when he got topic-banned. I am just getting around to cleaning it up. This is the first of the installments. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:05, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussing new edits

While some of the recent edits[3] are fine the rest involve removal of integral content. The matter of dividing the Punjab and Bengal provinces is central to the Radcliffe line. No work on Partition and the Radcliffe line is complete without covering the controversy around the division of Punjab and Bengal against the League's wishes. Indeed the Congress demand for district/tehsil level division of these two provinces is the reason for the Radcliffe line being drawn. That said there are some sentences on the Gurdaspur district which are overweight for just one small district. We need to discuss their removal. Dilpa kaur (talk) 02:29, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, Dilpa. I have objected to all the new content added by NadirAli and you right from the beginning. The "Background" section cannot be much longer than it is. The Final negotations section had become multiple screenfuls. This is not the way to do things. It is not the purpose of this article to revisit the entire Partition debate, only those aspects that concern the Radcliffe Line. When I reviewed the content a couple of days ago, I noticed that NadirAli has added even more unwarranted content in May, while I was mostly inactive. This is simply ridiculous.

Nothing about the Gurdaspur district can be overweight. It is at the very centre of the Radcliffe Line debate. In fact, more needs to be said. Check the RS: Lucy Chester, Shereen Ilahi etc. Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 14:54, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

As I have said, as the extensive sourcing shows the central background of Radcliffe Line is the controversy over Punjab and Bengal's unity, as demanded by the League, and the division demand put forth by the Congress. There is no context for the Radcliffe Line without the controversy behind its existence, given attention to by the numerous sources. Your argument about content size also contradicts your position that the small Gurdaspur district needs extra weight. Dilpa kaur (talk) 11:30, 31 July 2018 (UTC).

Status-quo?

@Dilpa kaur:, the record shows that you added the problematic bloat on 26 October 2017, while we were already in the midst of a dispute above. And, you broke off the conversation on 30 October. You cannot claim that all this material now represents "status quo". It was already undone by another editor on 28 October, and you reinstated it. Since you made the bold edits, and failed to reach a WP:CONSENSUS, you can't claim STATUSQUO. We still don't have a CONSENSUS. If you persist with retaining the content without CONSENSUS, I will need to report it to the admins. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:56, 31 July 2018 (UTC)