<P> Pakistan was intended as a Muslim homeland, while the Union of India remained secular . Muslim - majority British provinces in the north were to become the foundation of Pakistan . The provinces of Baluchistan (91.8% Muslim before partition) and Sindh (72.7%) were granted entirely to Pakistan . However, two provinces did not have an overwhelming majority--Bengal in the north - east (54.4% Muslim) and the Punjab in the north - west (55.7% Muslim). The western part of the Punjab became part of West Pakistan and the eastern part became the Indian state of East Punjab, which was later divided between a smaller Punjab State and two other states . Bengal was also partitioned, into East Bengal (in Pakistan) and West Bengal (in India). Following independence, the North - West Frontier Province (whose borders with Afghanistan had earlier been demarcated by the Durand Line) voted in a referendum to join Pakistan . This controversial referendum was boycotted by the most popular Pukhtun movement in the province at that time . The area is now a province in Pakistan called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa . </P> <P> The Punjab's population distribution was such that there was no line that could neatly divide Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs . Likewise, no line could appease the Muslim League, headed by Jinnah, and the Indian National Congress led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel, and by the British . Moreover, any division based on religious communities was sure to entail "cutting through road and rail communications, irrigation schemes, electric power systems and even individual landholdings ." However, a well - drawn line could minimize the separation of farmers from their fields, and also minimize the numbers of people who might feel forced to relocate . </P> <P> As it turned out, on "the sub-continent as a whole, some 14 million people left their homes and set out by every means possible--by air, train, and road, in cars and lorries, in buses and bullock carts, but most of all on foot--to seek refuge with their own kind ." Many of them were slaughtered by an opposing side, some starved or died of exhaustion, while others were afflicted with "cholera, dysentery, and all those other diseases that afflict undernourished refugees everywhere". Estimates of the number of people who died range between 200,000 (official British estimate at the time) and two million, with the consensus being around one million dead . </P> <P> The idea of partitioning the provinces of Bengal and Punjab had been present since the beginning of the 20th century . Bengal had in fact been partitioned by the then viceroy Lord Curzon in 1905, along with its adjoining regions . The resulting' Eastern Bengal and Assam' province, with its capital at Dhaka, had a Muslim majority and the' West Bengal' province, with its capital at Calcutta, had a Hindu majority . However, this partition of Bengal was reversed in 1911 in an effort to mollify Bengali nationalism . </P>

What is the boundary line between india and pakistan