Government of India Act 1935 brings provincial autonomy

Who: The British Parliament, which passed the Act. In Punjab the main players were the Unionist Party under Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, the Khalsa National Party of Sir Sundar Singh Majithia and Sir Jogendra Singh, the Shiromani Akali Dal, and the Congress.

What: The Act received royal assent on 2 August 1935. It introduced provincial autonomy, with wholly Indian ministries answerable to elected assemblies, and gave final shape to the communal arrangements set out in the Communal Award. The federation it planned for British India and the princely states never came into operation.

For Punjab, the Act's table of seats set a 175-member Assembly with 84 Muslim, 42 general and 31 Sikh seats, the rest going to women, landholders, labour, commerce and smaller groups. Counting the Sikh women's seat and a special seat, Sikhs expected 33. Punjab voted on 4 January 1937. The Unionists won about 95 seats. Of the Sikh seats, the Khalsa National Party won 14 and the Akali Dal, which fought with the Congress, won 10. The Khalsa National Party and a Hindu group joined the Unionists to form the ministry on 1 April 1937, with Majithia as Revenue Minister. The Akalis sat in opposition with the Congress.

Where: Passed at Westminster and applied across British India. In Punjab it shaped the provincial Assembly and the ministry formed in 1937.

Why it mattered: For Punjab, the Act made the Communal Award's arithmetic the working rule of politics until 1947. Sikhs entered the 1937 elections with about 19 per cent of the seats against 13 per cent of the population, and then divided. The Khalsa National Party, whose creed called for abolishing the Award, joined the Unionist government, while the Akali Dal stayed in opposition. In 1942 the Sikandar-Baldev Singh Pact brought Baldev Singh into the Unionist cabinet. The Act's emergency power mattered at the end too: when Punjab's ministry fell in 1947 the Governor took charge under section 93 of the Act. The Press Information Bureau calls the Act the major source of the present Constitution of India.