LAHORE: Dina Wadia, the daughter of Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, breathed her last in New York on Thursday at the age of 98.
Dina was the only child of Jinnah and his second wife Rattanbai Petit. She was born on 15th August, 1919.
Dina Wadia is survived by her son and Wadia group chairman Nusli N. Wadia, daughter Diana N. Wadia, and great grandsons Ness and Jeh Wadia.
According to historian Stanely Wolpert, “She made a dramatic entry into the world, announcing her arrival when her parents were enjoying a movie at a local theatre in London.”
“Oddly enough, precisely 28 years to the day and hour before the birth of Jinnah’s other offspring, Pakistan,” he wrote in his book Jinnah of Pakistan.
After her marriage with a Parsi businessman, Dina stayed in India and subsequently moved to the United States.
She last visited Pakistan in 2004 during a cricket series between Pakistan and India on the invitation of former president General (retd.) Pervez Musharraf.
“This has been very sad and wonderful for me. May his [Jinnah’s] dream for Pakistan come true,” she wrote in the visitor’s book at the Quaid-e-Azam mausoleum in Karachi.
Wadia had never visited Pakistan since her father’s funeral in September 1948.
Published in Daily Times, November 3rd 2017.