Sir Fazl-i-Husain
Lahore lawyer who founded the Unionist Party in 1923, uniting Muslim, Hindu and Sikh farmers of the Punjab against the moneylender and the communal parties.
Mian Fazl-i-Husain was born in Peshawar in 1877 into an Arain family of Batala, studied at Government College Lahore and at Cambridge, and practised law at Sialkot and Lahore.
In 1923, with Chhotu Ram, he founded the National Unionist Party, a party not of one faith but of the rural Punjab: Muslim, Hindu and Sikh landholders and farmers against the urban moneylender and the communal parties of the cities. As minister for education he opened schools and colleges to rural boys and reserved places for Muslims, who had fallen far behind.
He sat on the Viceroy's council from 1930 to 1935 and died in 1936, leaving the Unionists the strongest party in the province.
