Sikandar Hayat Khan (Punjabi politician)



Khan Bahadur Captain Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, KBE, MBE (Mil.) (5 June 1892 – 25/26 December 1942), also written Sikandar Hyat-Khan or Sikandar Hyat Khan, was a statesman from the Punjab. He held the office of Prime Minister of the Punjab among other positions.

Quotes

 * Sir Sikander, usually so calm and suave , after listening for a few minutes turned upon me , his eyes blazing with indignation and took me to task with these words: 'Surely you can see that Pakistan would be an invitation to them to cut the throat of every Hindu bania.'
 * attributed. Divide and Quit - Volume 10 - Page 20 Penderel Moon · 1962 quoted in Kamra A. J. (2000). The prolonged partition and its pogroms : testimonies on violence against Hindus in East Bengal 1946-64. pp. 42

Quotes about Khan

 * As a matter of fact, that astute politician, the late Sir Sikandar Hyat Khan, Premier of the Punjab from 1937 to the end of 1942, suggested in vain to his Muslim League colleagues not to press for a formal division of India into independent states, but to ask only for the creation of Hindu and Muslim zones within an Indian Federation with a weak centre, as that would give the Muslims all the advantages of Pakistan without the liabilities, financial and political, of having an independent State, which would be deprived of the rich economic backing of the more productive parts of India. He and his Unionist Party succeeded to a great extent in making the Punjab very much a Muslim province.  Protests of Hindu and Sikh politicians and legislators were of no avail.  Sir Sikandar died in the December of 1942, and his death removed from the field of Muslim politics perhaps the only, if any, figure who could have successfully helped to modify at least some of the extreme theories of Mr. Jinnah.  His successor, Sir Khizar Hyat Khan, although a capable man and one who got ample support from Hindus and Sikhs as against the rabid Punjab Muslim League, became as time passed, altogether helpless to resist the onslaught of the League on his party and the Hindu and Sikh minorities of the Punjab.
 * Talib, S. G. S. (1950). Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus inthe Punjab, 1947. Amritsar: Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee.
 * ', 1950, '