Daily Times

Mr Jinnah’s only daughter Dina Jinnah, whose married name was Dina Wadia, passed away in New York on 2nd November 2017 at the age of 98. Thus ends our direct connection with the man who we hold up as our founding father. Yet for 69 years since the passing of the Quaid-e-Azam as we call him, Dina made no attempt to use her special heritage to extract any advantages from the government of Pakistan. It was not that she was indifferent — her famous picture with Iqbal Akhund in Pakistan’s New York mission tells a different story. Here was a woman who raised both the Pakistani and Indian flag from her balcony in Bombay on 15 August 1947, which was incidentally her own 28th birthday. In many ways she was the first and the last of that special breed that could call themselves both Pakistani and Indian.

Her father Mohammad Ali Jinnah had began his politics firmly as an Indian nationalist, telling his associates proudly that he was an Indian first second and last. In an interview recorded as part of ‘Jinnah and the making of Pakistan’, a documentary edited by Akbar S Ahmad, Dina made a startling comment — ‘my father never wanted partition’. Jinnah’s idea of Pakistan was more of a bargaining counter or an autonomous region within a united India — a dream he almost realized with the Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946. Jinnah’s objective had been to bring Muslims of South Asia on one platform to get a better and fairer deal in a United India from the Caste Hindu Majority which had since the 1920s begun to flirt with the idea of a partition of India. Jinnah’s two nation theory was a defensive countermove — a kind of a plan B nationalism with which Jinnah could tell the Congress and its leaders to behave themselves or we would leave. The collapse of the Cabinet Mission Plan foreclosed all roads to a unified future. Still the future relationship between Pakistan and India was never imagined as mutually hostile nuclear powers that the two became. This was not the vision Jinnah had. This is not the vision Dina Jinnah celebrated on 15 August 1947 when she raised the flags of both dominions. Like her father, she believed that the Pakistan idea was about the principle and not necessarily separation.

A recent book from India — Mr and Mrs Jinnah- by Sheela Reddy has shed important light on the extraordinary love-story of Dina’s parents. The circumstances of their marriage caused a massive scandal in Bombay’s high society where an 18 year old Parsi girl, the daughter of one of the richest Parsi knights of the day, had chosen — or in her own words ‘abducted’ – Mr. Jinnah the most eligible and sought after bachelor politician, the architect of the Lucknow Pact and widely hailed as the best ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity. In 1919 their union was blessed with a child who grew up to take her own grandmother’s name.

With the passing of his only child, the Jinnah saga comes to an end, tragic though it must be to note that Ruttie is buried in Bombay, Jinnah in Karachi and their only child in New York. Life is full of twists, turns and surprises. Rest in peace Dina Jinnah. You lived a full and vibrant life. That Pakistan failed to own you is Pakistan’s loss

Ruttie died — possibly of overdose — in 1929 but Dina accompanied her father to England where he set up his practice at the Privy Council from 1930-1934. We are offered glimpses of an extremely close and affectionate relationship. Dina had taken to calling Jinnah ‘Greywolf’ because of the book on Ataturk Jinnah had been much obsessed with. The pictures from their Hampstead residence show Dina standing next to her father, aunt and their two dogs, a Doberman and an West Highland terrier. There was a certain level of frankness that Dina enjoyed which others did not with the Quaid-e-Azam, cajoling him to take her to the park ‘greywolf’.

The rift between the father and daughter came over Dina’s decision to marry Neville Wadia who she had met through her grandmother in Bombay. Contrary to the many myths that have been built up around this, Jinnah did not disown his daughter. He was obviously not happy even though Jinnah had himself fought for the right of all Indians to marry other Indians regardless of religion to the civil marriage act. Other than the fact that this put him in an awkward position, though he was not the only famous leader — Gandhi had a nervous breakdown when his son converted to Islam, Nehru was ill at ease at Indira’s decision to marry Feroze who was hurriedly given an acceptable Hindu last name, Bacha Khan had broken off all ties with his niece for marrying a Christian. Jinnah’s position was extremely unique though because he was under attack already by religious groups such as Majlis-e-Ahrar and Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind for leading an un-Islamic life and marrying a ‘kafira Ruttie. Yet contrary to the tall claims made by Pakistan’s latter day ideologues, Jinnah made no attempt to stop the wedding between his daughter and Neville Wadia whom he thoroughly disapproved off and not for religious reasons mind you. If Jinnah had wanted to stop the marriage, he may have attempted to get a stay order just as his father in law had done but instead Jinnah despite his disapproval allowed Dina to go her own way and even sent her flowers addressed to ‘Mrs Wadia’ on her wedding day.

As Jinnah had suspected, the marriage between Dina and Neville soon fell apart. But again contrary to the myths woven around Jinnah and his relationship with his daughter, the father and daughter remained extremely close. Begum Shahnawaz recalled that Jinnah carried his grandchildren’s pictures with him, often showing them off to friends. Neither his daughter nor his grandchildren were Muslims mind you. That fact did not make him disown them as our Pakistan Studies books have been lying for years. In her essay ‘a daughter’s memory, she writes of Jinnah visiting them bringing them presents. Dina’s children Nusli and Diana did spend many an afternoon at Jinnah’s house.

When the news of Dina Jinnah’s passing came through a couple of days ago, some Pakistanis came up with yet another awful claim — that Jinnah had refused Dina from coming to his death bed and even refused her a visa. First of all there was no visa between Pakistan and India in 1948. Secondly there is absolutely no such truth. Dina did come to Jinnah’s funeral and her pictures are part of the record. What is much more damning is what she said in 2004 ie that she wishes Pakistan can be one day what Jinnah wanted it to be. It is not. This theocratic Islamic Republic is the farthest thing from the modernist progressive vision Jinnah had for Pakistan.

Her death this week also made ‘infructuous’ the case about Jinnah’s house in Bombay High Court. Through her lawyer Fali S Nariman, Dina had argued that customary Hindu law applied to Jinnah’s estate as he was a Khoja Ithna Ashari. Arrayed against her were not just the Indian government but also a whole host of relatives from Bombay’s Peerbhoy clan who claimed interest in that estate from a tenuous link through Fatima Jinnah who Jinnah had gifted the house in his 1939 will. In the same will Jinnah had left a sizable sum of money to his daughter as well as moneys to Bombay University, Peshawar University, Aligarh and other institutions of learning. With the passing of his only child, the Jinnah saga comes to an end, tragic though it must be to note that Ruttie is buried in Bombay, Jinnah in Karachi and their only child in New York. Life is full of twists, turns and surprises. Rest in peace Dina Jinnah. You lived a full and vibrant life. That Pakistan failed to own you is Pakistan’s loss.

The writer is a practising lawyer. He blogs at http://globallegalforum.blogspot.com and his twitter handle is @therealylh

Published in Daily Times, November 6^th 2017.