The Emergence of the Unionist Party in the Colonial Punjab (1923-1946): Politics of Opportunism

Abstract

The colonial Punjab, ‘the flower bed of Indian Army’ remained a backwater for the nationalist movement. The province was considered a ‘security zone’ by the colonial administrators and was never allowed to develop democratic institutions like other Indian provinces. Till the 1919 reform, the Punjab was deprived of a constitutional government and maintained as a non-regulation province. There was no Executive Council or High Court and it did not have any effective representation in the Imperial Council. Immediately after its annexation, the province was placed under the authoritarian form of administration by Lord Dalhousie’s handpicked British officers, which came to be known as the Punjab School of Administration having a paternalistic attitude towards the province.1 The ‘imperial experiment’ that was conducted in the Punjab between 1849-1856, the period of Lord Dalhousie’s governor-generalship, was essentially an experience in authoritarianism and political exclusiveness, which became a trade- mark of colonial policies in Punjab.