India, Aug. 18 -- On August 14 and 15, 1947, as India and Pakistan celebrated independence, Pakistan flags were hoisted in a string of Bengal towns - in Nadia's Krishnanagar, Malda's English Bazar, and in Balurghat, then part of the Dinajpur district. Nobody yet knew where the border ran, but some assumed East Pakistan was the likely outcome.

For the next three days, much of Murshidabad, Nadia, Malda, the old Dinajpur and the Bongaon subdivision of Jessore lived in limbo. When Sir Cyril Radcliffe's award - details about the boundary - was finally read out on All India Radio on the evening of August 17, it turned out most of these areas were with India.

So, on the afternoon of August 18, three days after the rest of the country, the Paki...