After the implementation of the Government of India Act of 1935 in the British Crown ruled Indian Union, the provision of ‘dyarchy’ or dual government which was already brought into action by the previous GoI Act 1919 was now evolved into a more ‘federal system’, i.e both the Centre and the Province were now considered as separate units, each having a separate list of jurisdictions.
Elections for the Provincial level were over by early 1937. The Congress had won handsomely in most Provinces, and the Muslim League settled at three. Out of all Provinces, the result of the Assam Province remained a bone of contention between the Congress and the League, as the situation here was unclear with no party having a clear majority. The reason for this was basically the newly introduced Separate Electorates and Reserved Constituencies for the Hindu and Muslim population. The inclusion of the Sylhet district into the Province further made the electoral equations more complex, as its Muslim voters were a solid vote bank for the League.
Under the leadership of Gopinath Bordoloi, the Assam Congress won 35 seats out of the total 108 seats in the Legislature. The League, however, won only seven. Muhammad Sadulla’s ‘Assam Union Muslim League’ and other minor Muslim parties later merged under the umbrella of the Muslim League, but only to raise the accumulated seat count to 35, and thus, yielded nothing but equated their seat share with Congress’ seat count in the Provincial House.
This was a time when the then Germany became fully Nazi-ised under the rule of Hitler, with concentration camps being constructed in the German countryside. The Empire of Japan was into the second Sino-Japan War with the Chinese Republic. Joseph Stalin gave birth to the Great Purge in the Soviet, with gulags operating from the remote countryside. China was witnessing the Nanjing Massacre, and Britain was recovering from the economic depression that it faced about a decade ago. In the west, Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in as the President of the States. And on the South-Eastern part of Asia, a British Colonial Province that went by the name of Assam had a blurry political future, with no party being able to come up with a post-election coalition at such a crucial time.
The then retiring Governor of the Assam Province Michael Keane’s immediate concern was to restrain Bordoloi from forming any coalition with the tribes and the Christian factions. Therefore, he offered Sadulla the premiership of Assam, but Sadulla – the ‘not-so-successful lawyer’ practising in Kolkata, was reluctant to accept it. After an average career as a practising lawyer, Sadulla was now about to get into judgeship at the High Court there. His erstwhile bleak law career was now getting some recognition, and jumping into a political career at this juncture over a chasm of uncertainty was a difficult dilemma for Muhammad Sadulla. Sir Robert Reid, who succeeded Keane as the Governor, summoned Sadulla for the second time. Coincidentally, Sadulla wasn’t offered his proposed judgeship that year, and therefore, he returned to Assam to meet Reid, the Governor, at his residence.
Keane and Reid, as successive Governors, ruled the Assam Province for a stretch of three months during the uncertain period. This buffer period gave Sadulla ample time and scope to formulate negotiations and to come up with a coalition; an then, to finally take office.
Here, an interesting episode took place. Sadulla was aided by a ‘special provision’ of the Assam Province. A tiny faction of the European population, of whom were around 3000 in Assam, were to be represented by nine seats in the Legislature. 9:3000 was the seat:population ratio in this case, which stands in contrast to the ratio of 4:100000 in case of the tea worker labour force. The Europeans voted religiously in favour of Sadulla. With a margin of one single extra vote, Sadulla managed to pass the floor-test, and finally, his ship succeeded in overcoming the storm of electoral uncertainty that was looming across the geopolitical scenario in Assam.
The first Sadulla ministry was sworn in on All Fools Day, 1st April 1937. A Congress legislator reacted by snapping that ‘the country has been befooled.’