The Calcutta Weekly Notes August 11 1947

All kinds of rumours are rampant in Calcutta as to the nature of the decision which Sir Cyril Radcliffe K. C. the Chaiman of the Bengal Boundary Commission will make in course of the next few days for the " benefit " of the people of this ufortunate Province. [...] We hope that the rumour is baseless but we thought it our duty to point out to Sir Cyril that misgivings exist in the minds of the people in Bengal regarding the part which the European merchants are playing in the matter of fixation of boundaries of the two parts of the Province. [...] It is also germane to the subject under discussion to tell Sir Cyril Radcliffe that in 1905 an illustrious countryman of his the late Lord Curzon made a partition of Bengal and declared that such partition was a settled fact." Thq immediate result of the partition was the birth of a revoltionary movement in Bengal which shook the foundations of the British Empire in India. [...] If Sir Cyril does anything which will have the effect only of protecting European merchants' so-called special rights regarless of what happens to the people of the Province then his act may be the signal for the start of a gigantic revolutionary movement which will not only obliterate the Radcliffe line wherever the same may be drawn but will sweep away in its prgress all European trading [...] Of course the rdeeming feature which we certainly do not propose to ignore is that in the India of the future Governors and Presidents (Rashtrapatis) are going to be of very different calibre from dignitaries to whom we have so long been accustomed and if the right kind of men are in the right kind of posts probable abuses of authority will automatically be minimised.