Hukam Singh was a lawyer from Montgomery in the canal colonies who came across in 1947 and became a member of the Constituent Assembly.
He was one of the two Sikh members who declined to sign the Constitution in 1949, on the ground that Sikh concerns had not been addressed, which is a fact cited constantly in Punjab and rarely mentioned outside it.
He nonetheless served in Parliament, became Deputy Speaker and then Speaker of the Lok Sabha from 1962 to 1967, and afterward Governor of Rajasthan.
In 1966 he chaired the parliamentary committee whose recommendations led to the creation of the Punjabi Suba.
A man who refused to sign the Constitution presided over the house that made it work, and then chaired the committee that reorganised his own state.
That combination is not a contradiction and it is a fair description of how Sikh politics operated inside the Indian system for two generations.
He was Speaker of the Lok Sabha from 1962 to 1967 and later a state governor, and he chaired the parliamentary committee whose report led to the reorganisation of Punjab in 1966.
He had been a leading Akali figure and sat in the Constituent Assembly, where he was one of the two Sikh members who declined to sign the constitution.
His career runs the whole arc: Akali politics, the Constituent Assembly, the Congress, the Speaker's chair, and the committee that redrew the state.