Fazl-i-Hussain

Husain was born in Peshawar to a Bhatti Rajput family of Punjabi origins hailing from Gurdaspur in 1877. His Rajput ancestors moved to Punjab from Bikaner and Jaisalmer in modern-day Rajasthan around the year 1500, having converted to Islam and entered the civil administration and the military forces of the Mughal Empire from Babur onward. His father Mian Husain Bakhsh was at the time serving as Extra Assistant Commissioner in Peshawar. At the age of sixteen he entered Government College, Lahore and graduated with a BA in 1897. In 1896, he married Muhammad Nisa, great-granddaughter of Ilahi Bakhsh, the renowned general of the Sikh Khalsa Army. He studied Oriental languages and law at Cambridge and was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1901. Husain was elected President of the Cambridge Majlis in January 1901 and assisted in writing a telegram of condolence to Edward VII upon the death of Queen Victoria Husain returned to the Punjab in 1901 and set up a law practice in Sialkot. In 1905 he began practising at the Punjab High Court in Lahore until 1920. == Political career ==

Husain joined the Indian National Congress in 1905 and in 1916 he was elected election to the Punjab Legislative Council in the seat reserved for the University of the Punjab. He immediately regarded Punjab as being in a state of political apathy and sought to engage Punjabis with the affairs of the government and align the interests of the Punjabi electorate with that of the wider Congress agenda. He felt that non-cooperation threatened schools and colleges, and noting the backwardness of educational progress in Punjab, he initially sought to have them excluded from the movement before becoming convinced that Mahatma Gandhi's scheme of setting up national schools and colleges was impracticable and reckless. At the outset of the first Council in 1921, having risen to become one of the pre-eminent politicians in the province, he was one of two ministers appointed by the Governor of Punjab, the other being Lala Harikishan Lal, and served as the minister for education, health, and local government. In January 1924, he was re-elected to the Council and remained as a minister until January 1926 when he left the Punjab Assembly upon being appointed Revenue Member. Chhotu Ram, a Hindu Jat, was named as his successor as president of the Unionist party In 1930, he was promoted to the Viceroy's Executive Council in Delhi where he remained until 1935. He played an important part in organizing the Round Table Conferences and influencing the views of the present Muslim delegates. The Punjabi view of the "Muslim interest" formulated by Husain was a success. The implementation of the Communal Award and Government of India Act 1935, allowed the majority Muslims in Punjab and Bengal to retain their separate electorates yet also granted them more seats than any other community in their respective assemblies. Whilst this allowed Muslim politicians in Punjab to increase their autonomy it brought them into conflict with Muslims in Hindu majority provinces, who would now look to Jinnah and the Muslim League for support. In 1932, he led the Indian delegation to the Indo-South African Conference and was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India in 1932. On returning to Lahore from Delhi in 1935, Husain sought to prepare the Unionist Party for the forthcoming provincial elections. == Death ==

He fell ill on 1 July 1936, and died at Lahore nine days later. He was buried at the family graveyard in Batala. ==Family==

One of his daughters, Asghari, married Manzur Qadir. This was her second marriage. She was initially married to a Hoti nawab Mardan. She gave birth to a daughter from the first marriage and after the death of the daughter she got divorced and afterwards married to Manzur Qadir. His paternal half-brother Mian Muhammad Afzal Husain served as the Vice Chancellor of the University of the Punjab, Lahore for two terms, one term before (1938–44) and one term after (1954–65) the partition of British India into Pakistan and India. ==Sources==