Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan
Premier of the Punjab from 1937 to 1942, who led a Unionist government of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.
Sikandar Hayat Khan was born in 1892 into the Khattar family of Wah, near Attock, served in the First World War, and became a banker and administrator before succeeding Fazl-i-Husain as leader of the Unionist Party.
After the elections of 1937 he became Premier of the Punjab at the head of a coalition of the Unionists, Sikh Akalis and Hindu members. In the same year he made the Sikandar–Jinnah pact with the Muslim League, and he had a hand in early drafts of the Lahore Resolution of 1940, though he hoped for a loose federation rather than partition.
He died suddenly in Lahore in December 1942 and was buried beside the Badshahi Mosque. Within five years the Punjab he had tried to hold together was divided.
Connected
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.
Jat leader from Rohtak and co-founder of the Unionist Party, whose debt and land laws freed the peasants of the Punjab from the moneylender.