Implications of the Radcliff Award:

It was decided to follow the principle of religious majorities which means that areas where the Muslims were in majority would make up the territory of Pakistan. The remaining was to stay with India.

The principle of religious majorities had entailed with it so many difficult positions:

1. There were two areas of concentration with Muslim majority, In the West and East part of India. Hence, it was decided that the new country. Pakistan will comprise two territories, West and East Pakistan.

2. Not all the Muslims were in favour joining Pakistan. Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, the undisputed leader of the North West Frontier Province, staunchly opposed the two nation theory. But as Khudai khidmatgar of Abdul Ghaffar Khan boycotted the Plebiscite due to provision of limited franchise rights in that, the lone contender in the fray, the Muslim League, won the vote by default and in the end NWFP was made to merge with Pakistan.

3. Two Muslims majority concentrated provinces of British India, Punjab and Bengal had very large areas with non-Muslims population in the majority. Eventually it was decided that these two provinces would be bifurcated according to the religious majority at the district or even lower level. The partition of these two provinces caused the prolonged trauma of Partition.

4. The last difficult position was of "minorities" on both the sides of the border. Minorities then on either side lived in fear and fled from their homes to save their lives from brutal violence unleashed during partition.