1937 Sind Provincial Assembly election

Elections to the Legislative Assembly of Sind were held in January and February 1937. These were the first elections in the province after its creation in 1936. The Government of India Act 1935 had allocated sixty assembly seats to Sind, based on which it now formed an assembly of its own.

Background

Under British rule, Sind was a deeply unequal society as reflected in this government survey on literacy

Parameter	Hindu	Muslim
Population	1,015,000	2,831,000
Male literacy in Sindhi	263 out of 1000	44 out of 1000
Female literacy in Sindhi	51 out of 1000	5 out of 1000

Muslims were mostly engaged in agriculture & animal husbandry, while Hindus held monopoly over trade and manufacturing industries, thereby exacerbating wealth inequality along religious lines.
The province of Sind had been created in 1936 by separating the Sind division out of the larger Hindu-majority Bombay Presidency, which had been a long-standing demand of the All India Muslim League, first raised in the 1928 All Parties Conference, owning to the Sindhi Muslim resentment against the economic & political dominance of the Sindhi Hindu minority, but had been vociferously opposed by the Hindu Mahasabha, owning to the Hindu paranoia about going back to an era of persecution under the Muslim majority rule, set in the backdrop of nationwide collapse in Hindu-Muslim unity throughout the 1920s and 1930s over issues like Hindi-Urdu controversy, anti-Hindu pogroms committed by Mappila Muslims in the Malabar uprising, Hindu support to the Arya Samaj's anti cow-slaughter movement leading to conflict over the long-standing Islamic practice of publicly slaughtering cows during Bakrid, Rangila Rasul controversy & murder of Swami Sraddhanand, in addition to the Manzilgarh dispute. The Indian National Congress, while riding on a wave of nationawide mass appeal following Gandhi's Salt Satyagraha, was extremely unpopular in Sindh due to its persistent refusal to recognise the deteriorating intercommunal relations, rejection of separate electorates for Muslims that had been granted by the Government of India Act 1909 in its Nehru Report, neutrality over the issues of Sindhi provincial autonomy and the Communal Award, alongside its insistence on representing both Hindus and Muslims. Congress support in Sindh was largely restricted to the urban Hindu middle-class gentry, while the Hindu Mahasabha enjoyed widespread support from the Hindu rural & mercantile communities. Despite Jinnah's tour of the province, the All India Muslim League had barely any presence in the state, where Muslim political consciousness was largely restricted to the rich & elite groups like feudal families and descendants of Sufi saints, opposed to the Muslim League's communalism due to ideological and personal issues, instead campaigning on the grounds of rural development & co-operative finances. A British government observer summarised the political atmosphere of Sind as follows
The Sind Legislative Assembly, alongside the N. W. F. P. Legislative Assembly, happened to be the only legislative assemblies of British India to not have reserved seats for Dalits, Christians and Anglo-Indians.

Results

Source

Party	Hindu urban	Hindu rural	Hindu women	Muslim urban	Muslim rural	Muslim women	European	Commerce	Landholders	Labour	Total
Indian National Congress	2	3	1	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	7
Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha	1	10	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	-	12
Sind United Party	-	-	-	1	16	-	-	-	-	-	17
Sind Muslim League	-	-	-	1	13	1	-	-	1	-	16
Sind Azad Party	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	1
Independent Hindus	-	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1	3
Independent Muslims	-	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	-	-	1
Unaligned	-	-	-	-	-	-	2	1	-	-	3
Total	3	15	1	2	31	1	2	2	2	1	60

Members elected

While the Sind United Party had emerged as the winner of the election its two most prominent leaders had failed to win the seats they contested. Haroon had contested the Lyari constituency, in northern Karachi. The Lyari seat was won by Allah Baksh Gabol. The Larkana seat, which Bhutto had contested, was won by Sheikh Abdul Majid Lilaram, a newly converted Muslim.

Aftermath

Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah of the Sind Muslim League was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Sind on 28th April 1937 with the support of Hindu Mahasabha, one Sind United Party MLA the lone independent Muslim MLA & Sind Azad Party MLA, alongside Mukhi Gobindram Pritamdas and Mir Bandeh Ali Khan Talpur, a scion of Sind's erstwhile ruling Talpur family as his cabinet ministers. The assembly convened at Karachi, having elected Hindu Mahasabha MLA Bhojsingh Pahlajani as the speaker.
However, by the next year, Sir Abdullah Haroon had manged to ensure merger of Hidayatullah's party with the All India Muslim League, alongside that of the Sind Azad Party. This caused all the Hindu MLAs to rally behind Allah Baksh Soomro, who was sworn in on 23rd April 1938. Haroon, with the help of G. M. Syed orchestrated defection of 10 out of 17 Sind United Party MLA's, but Soomro survived the no-confidence motion by giving ministerial positions to the detectors. Syed Miran Muhammad Shah was elected as the new speaker of the assembly, with Allah Baksh Khudadad Gabol being the deputy speaker.
Soomro served until 18 April 1940 when a no-confidence motion was passed against him by the Indian National Congress and Muslim League due to the deteriotion of law and order following communal riots between Hindus & Muslims over the Manzilgarh dispute. He was briefly brought back to power and served briefly from 27 March 1942 – 14 October 1942, but was dismissed by the Governor due to his support for the Quit India Movement.