Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. After an outstanding period of political enterprise between 1924 and 1934, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, Civil Division (KBE) in the 1933 New Year Honours list. he in due course took over leadership of the Unionist Party from Sir Fazli Husein. Khan led his party to victory in the 1937 elections, held under the Government of India Act 1935 and then governed the Punjab as premier in coalition with the Sikh Akali Dal and the Indian National Congress. When Khan was the Unionist Premier, he extended the offer of Parliamentary Secretaryship to Ghazanfar Ali Khan, who became a strong backer of the Unionist Party in the assembly. This government carried out many reforms for the better of the Punjabi Zamindar or agrarian community. When Indian farmers faced a crash of agricultural prices and economic distress in the late 1930s, Khan took further measures to alleviate their misery in the Punjab – similar steps were also taken by A K Fazlul Huq, the premier of Bengal, in working to relieve the Bengali peasantry from crippling debts to private sources, using both legal and administrative measures. Khan opposed the Quit India Movement of 1942, and supported the Allied powers during World War II. Khan believed in co-operating politically with the British for the independence of India and the unity of Punjab. In 1937, soon after winning the general elections, confronted by internal pressure from many of his Muslim parliamentary colleagues and conscious of the need to maintain a balanced, equitable stance in a volatile and much-divided Punjabi political milieu, Khan decided to also negotiate with the Muslim elements under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Khan and Jinnah signed the Jinnah-Sikandar Pact at Lucknow in October 1937, merging the Muslim elements of his powerful Unionist force with the All India Muslim League, as a move towards reconciling the various Muslim elements in the Punjab and elsewhere in India, towards a common, united front for safeguarding their community rights and interests. Within the agreement, Khan announced he was "advising all the Muslim members of the Unionist Party in Punjab to join the League." Later, he was also one of the chief supporters and architects of the Lahore Resolution of March 1940, calling for an autonomous or semi-independent Muslim majority region within the larger Indian confederation. Sikandar Hayat Khan, however, opposed the