Partition: W. H. Auden

Auden’s 1966 poem “Partition” is a caustic criticism of the five weeks Cyril Radcliffe spent in the subcontinent drawing up the borders between India and Pakistan. British barrister Sir Cyril Radcliffe arrived in British India for the first time on July 8, 1947. He had exactly five weeks to draw the borders between an independent India and the newly created Pakistan. Partition along the Radcliffe Line ended in violence that killed one million people and displaced 12 million.