Harking back: A ‘crusader’ who backed the poor of rural Punjab

There was a time when honesty mattered, and was even given the highest honour. Just over 77 years ago in New Garden Town of Lahore passed away a great Punjabi politician whom the British knighted for his “amazing honesty”. After the communal divide this is a rare quality, if not a missing one.

After the highly emotive visit last week of Sir Ganga Ram’s great great granddaughter Kesha Ram, a US Senator, the other day I met an Indian student in Cambridge who in a highly excited state informed me that she was the great granddaughter of Sir Chhotu Ram, the famous Punjab Revenue Minister who changed the very face of our rural areas. She informed that their family house was in New Garden Town.

One of the political parties that opposed the solution to the problems of the people on communal lines was the National Unionist Party. Never before in the 98-year British rule of the Punjab (undivided then) had the State progressed more rapidly. Most importantly though the leaders of the Unionist Party primarily represented the feudal classes, the rich-poor divide narrowed like never before, or even after. All of this reform was down to one man, and he was Sir Chhotu Ram, the Punjab revenue minister from 1937 to 1945.

Initially Chhotu Ram, born in 1881 in Rohtak, joined the Congress Party, but left it on the realisation that such political moves as the Non-Cooperation Movement of Gandhi invariably ended up neglecting the poor, increasing the rich-poor divide. The rich-poor divide and starving farmers was his greatest concern. The greatest sufferers were poor farmers, who made up the majority of the population. So with Sir Fazle-Hussain and Sir Sikander Hayat Khan he launched the ‘Zamindaran Party, which then changed its name to the Unionist Party. This was composed mostly of Muslim, as well as Hindu and Sikh Jats and the vast majority of the members were ‘zamindars’.

In the 1937 Punjab provincial elections they won 99 seats out of 175 seats, the Muslim League of Jinnah and the Congress of Nehru combined managed just 19 seats, and the two communal parties, the Sikh Khalsa won 13 seats and the Hindu extremist Mahasabha won 12 seats. Chhotu Ram was made the revenue minister and he immediately set into motion a series of reforms, the likes of which have never been seen again.

In the very first act he set aside a substantial amount as scholarship for further studies for five of the brightest five students of every school. This had an immediate impact as more and more people started sending their children to school. Among the most notable beneficiary was the Nobel Prize winner Dr. Abdus Salam. He once said: “Unless a fifth of our income is set aside for education of the poor, we will always face illiteracy”. These words were repeated by Jinnah in his 11th of August, 1947, speech. But then in the 2022 Pakistan Budget, the education allocation was decreased by 1.5 per cent, with the total spending being a mere 1.7pc of our national budget. The words of Chhotu Ram, as also Jinnah, do not seem to make sense any longer.

Then came the Punjab Relief Indebtedness Act 1934, followed by the 1936 Punjab Debtor’s Protection Act, which saved indebted farmers from the cruel moneylenders, mostly the ‘Bannia’ class. The immediate impact of these acts were that crop production dramatically shot up in Punjab and at a ceremony in Lahore the Viceroy declared: “Punjab is truly the breadbasket of the British Empire”.

Along the way the rights of the poor farmer were consolidated with a number of revolutionary legal acts, all of which had a direct bearing on the working conditions of the poor farmer. All these actions saw the influence of Chhotu Ram increase, so much so that when the Second World War broke out he alone managed to recruit over 14,000 Jat soldiers from his home base at Rohtak.

The main target of this amazing revenue minister was the cruel moneylenders of Punjab, and the Muslim Jats named him ‘Rehbar-e-Azam’. He also got passed the Free Rent Mortgage Land Act and also the Loan Forgiveness Act. He got passed a deal whereby the waters of the Sutlej for the first time was used, free of any fee, by poor farmers instead of paying the Raja of Bilaspur.

Seeing that a vast majority of the Unionist Party members were Muslims, Mr. M.A. Jinnah requested that the name of Punjab Unionist Party be renamed as the Punjab Muslim League. Sir Chhotu Ram opposed this bizarre suggestion with the well-known remark: “Your politics might help you personally, but communal politics is very dangerous and will invariably lead to disintegration and chaos and more poverty”. So it followed that the Muslim top members of the Unionists were lured away.

But the focus of this great Punjabi leader was on increasing awareness among the farmers, and to this end in 1916 he started a newspaper called ‘Jat Gazette’ which besides news of rural Punjab also carried articles of researchers and professors of agriculture. This carried all the news about rural Punjab and was widely distributed at a very low cost. Amazingly, this newspaper is still published in Indian Punjab.

The British were most impressed by his work, and the change he had brought about in the rural Punjab that they ruled over. So they decided to honour him for ‘Honesty of Social Work in the Punjab’, and so never again has anyone been honoured for such a contribution.

But by then Sir Chhotu Ram has passed away in January 1945 and the politics of communal hatred quickly started taking over the entire sub-continent. In the 1945 Punjab Legislative elections the Muslim League of Jinnah won 73 of the 175 total seats – a 71 seat increase - the Congress won 51 seats a gain of 33 seats and the Unionists won a mere 19 seats, a loss of 79 seats. As the top Muslim leadership of the Unionist Party had defected, the party completely disintegrated. Communalism had won the day, or was it self-interest.

So in a way with the demise of Chhotu Ram collapsed the Unionist Party. While Ganga Ram with modern farming strengthened the feudal lords, Sir Chhotu Ram saved the poor farmer from exploitation. After 1947 just how much ‘rural social change’ has taken place is for all to see. That is why studying the role of Sir Chhotu Ram is so important for Punjab’s politicians. His slogan was: “With the correct legislation and strong follow-up, poverty can be overcome”.

The residential house of this great leader is in New Garden Town, and after 1947 once the family migrated the Evacuee Trust Board took over. A Muslim former Unionist leader took possession. I suppose it was a ‘communal prize’. The family in Delhi mention it with great affection, just as the family of Sir Ganga Ram so fondly mention their ancestral houses in old and new Lahore.