Jinnah had returned to Bombay after attending the All India Muslim League session by the first week of January 1929 and resumed his daily visits to his ailing wife. By the end of the month, he had to leave for Delhi for the legislative assembly session commencing on 28 January 1929. Since Jinnah arrived on time to attend the opening session of the legislature, it meant that 27 January could be the last day he saw his wife alive. Sarojini Naidu had left the country for a fairly long tour, on whom Jinnah used to depend when it came to keeping an eye on Ruttie’s health and moods. This time, Jinnah had to leave her in the care of Lady Petit and other members of her immediate family who visited Mrs Jinnah regularly whenever Jinnah informed them that he would be away. To keep himself posted, Jinnah needed to rely on Mr and Mrs Dwarkadas, considering Mrs Jinnah’s comfort level with them.6 Whenever Jinnah left by train for Delhi, his limousine would follow him by road for his use in the capital city. This time, after dropping Jinnah off at the railway station, his driver, Abdul Haye, returned to Mrs Jinnah to bid her farewell and to ask her if she needed anything from Delhi. She gave him a meek smile, beckoning to her mother to give him some money. Haye declined, saying that he would accept it when she would fully recover and join her husband in Delhi. ‘Yes, when I come to Delhi, you have to take me to the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya,’ she said. ‘Why not, my lady! As soon as I reach Delhi, I will go there myself to offer prayers for your health,’ Haye replied and left. He was never to see her again. Just three days after Jinnah left, Dwarkadas informed a delighted Mrs Jinnah that the towering philosopher, J. Krishnamurti, was to visit Bombay. Krishnamurti knew Mrs Jinnah well enough to readily accept an invitation for tea at her residence on 1 February..
It was 20 February, her twenty-ninth birthday. On the morning of her birthday, J.R.D. Tata—the owner of the Taj Mahal Hotel—sent her a cake. Her mother and at least two of her brothers also came to wish her, only to find her lying unconscious on the bed.
At 5 p.m. he arrived with his secretary, Yadunandan Prasad, while Mr and Mrs Dwarkadas reached independently. They stayed for one and a half hours chit-chatting with Mrs Jinnah over snacks. On his part, Krishnamurti invited Mrs Jinnah for dinner the next evening at Annie Besant’s friend and contemporary theosophist Ratansi D. Morarji’s residence, where he was staying. On 2 February, Mrs Jinnah attended the banquet and had a long, pleasant chat with the host and various other guests. On 13 February, she was feeling better enough to be able to go to the cinema to watch an after-dinner show of a film with Mr and Mrs Dwarkadas, with whom she had earlier had dinner at a restaurant.8 Due to the outbreak of riots, however, Bombay was under curfew. Dwarkadas, who was an honorary presidency magistrate, was so busy that he could not visit her for the next two or three days. Between 16 and 17 February, he was on night duty at Byculla. Mrs Jinnah felt lonely and unhappy. On 17 February, she unexpectedly dropped in at Mr and Mrs Dwarkadas’s place for tea and stayed for four hours. During this meeting, she asked them to take care of her cats, in case she died. Mrs Jinnah would often talk about death, so the couple did not get alarmed. They could not have known that it was indeed the last time they would meet her.9
Having dropped her back at her house at 7 p.m., Dwarkadas went to see off Annie Besant at the railway station. Annie Besant also advised Dwarkadas to take care of Mrs Jinnah. On the morning of 18 February, Mrs Jinnah rang up Dwarkadas, asking him to see her again. Dwarkadas promised to come by night. ‘If I am alive!’ she is said to have replied. She again asked Dwarkadas to take care of her cats and not give them away in case she did die. When Dwarkadas checked on her at 11 that night, he was informed that she was asleep.10 By the afternoon of 19 February, Dwarkadas was informed that Mrs Jinnah had fallen unconscious and that her condition was critical. The servants alerted her parents, who rushed her to critical care at the Jamshetji Jeejeebhoy Hospital, incidentally founded by Mrs Jinnah’s maternal grandfather.
The Last Birthday Cake Finally, it was 20 February, her twenty-ninth birthday. On the morning of her birthday, J.R.D. Tata—the owner of the Taj Mahal Hotel—sent her a cake. Her mother and at least two of her brothers also came to wish her, only to find her lying unconscious on the bed. It is difficult to ascertain whether it was a stress-related disorder or a stomach-related one that caused her death. Nehru’s sister, Krishna Hutheesing, mentions in her autobiography that Mrs Jinnah’s cause of death ‘was given out as “peritonitis” [inflammation of peritoneum]’.11 Haji Dossa (2013) says it was something akin to a ‘stomach cancer’.12 Dwarkadas, on the other hand, writes that she was feeling depressed for the past three or four days. It might well have been a combination of both, as the psychological stress might have caused her colitis to flare up. Reportedly, on 19 February, she took an overdose of medicine that caused an abrupt deterioration of her condition. In case she had been feeling lonely or wanted to sleep but could not, chances were that she took the Veranol pills again and again to relax. But the account of her daughter, Dina, suggests that her stomach condition caused her excruciating bouts of pain. If that had kept deteriorating with each passing hour that afternoon, it is plausible that, in her desperation to get some respite, she might have taken morphine instead, which was the best-known painkiller at the time. Her death was caused, ‘almost certainly, by an unintended overdose of medicine’.13 This prognosis is substantiated by the immediate treatment doctors gave her at the JJ Hospital to wash her stomach. Despite all efforts, her life could not be saved. Mrs Jinnah breathed her last that fateful Wednesday evening in 1929.14 Whether she would have survived her illness had she not taken the overdose is a moot point. Future medical historians may be able to comment on this better. Dinshaw Petit II’s Phone Call Unaware of what had happened to his wife, Jinnah was sitting with Diwan Chaman Lal in Delhi’s Western Court when a trunk call was placed to him from Bombay. After attending the call, he asked Lal, ‘Do you know who that was?’, and continued without waiting for his answer that it was his father-in-law, who had spoken to him for the first time since his marriage. Sir Dinshaw, however, only told Jinnah that Ruttie was seriously ill.15 It is possible that the doctors had not confirmed Mrs Jinnah’s death until that time, or maybe, as a father, he failed to muster up the strength to say that his daughter was dead. Jinnah rushed back, taking the Frontier Mail the very next morning for his twenty-four-hour journey to Bombay, aboard what was then called the Great Indian Peninsular Railways, oblivious of his wife’s death. It was during that train journey that Jinnah got to know of his wife’s death through the condolence telegram from none other than Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India. ‘I have just received the sad news of Mrs Jinnah’s death. Please accept very sincere sympathy from Lady Irwin and myself,’ the condolence message read.16 It can hardly be imagined how Jinnah must have felt at the bereavement. The premature death of his wife was the greatest personal loss in his life. Disembarking at the Grant Road train station in Bombay on the morning of 22 February 1929, he was received by his friends Colonel (later Major General) Sahib Singh Sokhey, the well-known military physician, his wife Mrs Maneka Sokhey and Kanji Dwarkadas. They accompanied Jinnah to the morgue of JJ Hospital, where his wife’s body had been packed in ice, awaiting his arrival. The arrangements for Mrs Jinnah’s funeral rites as per Muslim tradition was taken care of by Haji Daudbhai Nasser (a prominent member of the Khoja community, to which Jinnah belonged) and Rajab Alibhai Ibrahim Batliwala (Mariam Peerbhoy’s son-in law) before Jinnah’s arrival. The namaz-e-janazah (funeral prayers) of Mrs Jinnah was held at the Pala Galli mosque on Samuel Road, the same mosque where her nikah had been registered. Allama Hassan Najafi, the cleric who had solemnized the marriage eleven years ago, led the prayers. Several hundred Muslim friends attended the prayers.
Saad S. Khan, Ph.D Director General, National Institute of Management (NIM),