Mian Fazl-i-Husain

Sir Mian Fazl-i-Husain was the leading Punjabi Muslim politician of the 1920s and early 1930s and the organiser of the rural coalition that became the Unionist Party. He was born at Peshawar on 14 June 1877 into a Bhatti Rajput family from Gurdaspur. He took a BA at Government College, Lahore, studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1901, and practised at Sialkot and then at the Punjab High Court in Lahore.

Key moments

• 1905 to 1920: joined the Indian National Congress in 1905, was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council in 1916, and left Congress in 1920 over its non-cooperation movement.
• 1921: appointed minister for education, health and local government.
• 1923: the rural bloc he led was formally organised as the Unionist Party. It drew support from rural Hindus and Sikhs as well as Muslims. In the same year he extended separate electorates to local bodies and educational institutions, and Wikipedia credits him as the main engineer of employment quotas for Muslims in the civil service.
• January 1926: left the Assembly to become Revenue Member. The Hindu Jat leader Chhotu Ram succeeded him as Unionist president.
• 1930 to 1935: member of the Viceroy's Executive Council in Delhi. Wikipedia says he played an important part in organising the Round Table Conferences and in influencing the Muslim delegates.
• August 1932: the Communal Award fixed Punjab's 175 seats at about 90 for Muslims (51.4 per cent), 48 for Hindus and 33 for Sikhs (18.9 per cent, against a population share of 13 per cent). Eight prominent Sikh leaders called it a repudiation of promises made to their community (Encyclopaedia of Sikhism).
• 9 July 1936: died at Lahore. He had challenged Jinnah's claim to speak alone for Muslims.

What he is remembered for. As the architect of the Unionist coalition of landowning Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, whose ministries governed the province from 1937 until March 1947, and as the minister who extended separate electorates to local bodies and engineered employment quotas for Muslims. Sikh leaders objected to the seat figures of the 1932 Award.