Being a matter of "common knowledge" and being "true" are two different things.
Jinnah's last Will and Testament is sufficient to dispel the "common myth" that Jinnah disowned his daughter following her marriage to a Non-Muslim. But again, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
Personally I don't have time for liberal nonsense. However Dina Wadia never got the property rights of Jinnah in Pakistan.
Now shoo libertine!
Something that is common knowledge is true.
The relationship also became very formal between father and daughter.
Being a matter of "common knowledge" and being "true" are two different things.
Jinnah's last Will and Testament is sufficient to dispel the "common myth" that Jinnah disowned his daughter following her marriage to a Non-Muslim. But again, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
Dina Wadia is not mentioned in the Will, libertine! lol.
Being a matter of "common knowledge" and being "true" are two different things.
Jinnah's last Will and Testament is sufficient to dispel the "common myth" that Jinnah disowned his daughter following her marriage to a Non-Muslim. But again, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
The death of Dina Wadia on 2nd November 2017 came as a sad shock to the entire nation of Pakistan. She was the only child of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. When people think of Dina Wadia, it is not her legacy or her bold choices that comes to mind. It is, in fact, the estrangement from her father and the cause behind it that many people still talk about. Dina Wadia was born in London moments after the midnight of August 14th, on the morning of 15th August 1919, to Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his wife, Rattan Bai Petit, later known as Maryam Jinnah.
As a premature baby, her birth came as a surprise to Jinnah and his wife who were at the cinema watching a movie at the time. Dina was known to have features similar to her mother. Her smile being the most similar to her mothers’. Dina was raised as a Muslim, as her mother, born a Parsi, renounced her faith and accepted Islam when she married Jinnah. After the death of his wife, Jinnah found comfort in his daughter. Her aunt Fatima Jinnah came to live with Jinnah after Maryam’s death and Jinnah asked his sister to teach Dina about Islam.
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Dina Jinnah often stated that she never had a good relationship with her aunt, Fatima, and blames her for not having a healthy relationship with her father as a child. Even though Jinnah adored his daughter, the father-daughter relationship was strained due to him being busy with work and politics and Dina being away at school. Dina’s education took place between Mumbai and London during which she rarely got to spend time with her father. However, Jinnah pampered his daughter and was a doting father throughout her childhood, especially after his wife’s death. Due to Jinnah’s fondness towards the biography of Kemal Atatürk by H.C. Armstrong, Dina nicknamed him
Grey Wolf after the title of the book.
WHEN PEOPLE THINK OF DINA WADIA, IT IS NOT HER LEGACY OR HER BOLD CHOICES THAT COMES TO MIND. IT IS, IN FACT, THE ESTRANGEMENT FROM HER FATHER MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH.
Although Dina and her father shared a strained but loving relationship during her childhood, it wasn’t until Dina expressed her desire to marry a non-Muslim man that their relationship finally shattered. Dina’s wish to marry Neville Wadia, a Parsi, was denied by her father on the basis of him not being a Muslim to which Dina replied that her mother, his wife, was also a Parsi. Jinnah countered that even if that were true, in order for her to marry him, she had to convert to Islam, which Neville Wadia didn’t.
Although Jinnah tried everything in his power to dissuade Dina, she eventually married him against her fathers’ wishes.
The marriage resulted in Jinnah disowning his only child; although no legal notice of her disownment was issued. Both Jinnah and Dina’s relationship suffered due to this marriage and although they did share many letters after her marriage,
their relationship became very formal and they only met at social gatherings where Jinnah would address his only daughter as ‘Mrs. Wadia’.
It is believed that Jinnah invited Dina to join him in Pakistan after independence but due to her husband and in-laws residing in Mumbai, she refused his offer and decided to stay in Mumbai after the partition of the subcontinent. This deeply hurt Jinnah and even though Dina tried to visit her father several times after the partition, a grief-stricken Jinnah wouldn’t allow her a visa to visit him in Pakistan.
Dina’s marriage to Neville ended in 1943, just 5 years later. Although they never divorced, they remained separated for the rest of their lives. They had 2 children, a boy, Nusli, and a girl, Diana, both of whom were raised with no bounds to religion.
SHE FIERCELY FOUGHT FOR WHAT SHE BELIEVED BELONGED TO HER. DINA WAS A WOMAN RENOUNCED BY HER OWN FAMILY FOR THE CHOICES SHE MADE.
In all of her life, Dina has only visited Pakistan twice, the first of which was on 9th September 1948 for her father’s funeral. She was invited by Liaqat Ali Khan and a plane was chartered from Karachi to Mumbai for her. She was seen mourning next to her aunt Fatima Jinnah at her father’s funeral and left immediately after it.
Her second visit happened decades later in March 2004 to watch a cricket match between Pakistan and India in Lahore. During this stay, Dina, along with her son, Nusli, and her grandsons, Ness and Jahangir, visited the mausoleum of her father. It is believed that she asked for several copies of the photographs that were in the antiquities room of the mausoleum; one of her father, one of her mother and one where Dina was standing with her aunt and father. She also went to the tomb of Fatima Jinnah to pay respects to her aunt. She also visited Flagstaff House and her father’s home, Wazir Mansion.
Dina, the only child of Jinnah was unable to inherit any property of her father in Pakistan because according to Muslim law, she broke the Islamic law by marrying a non-Muslim and thus was ineligible to claim any property in Pakistan as hers. Jinnah built himself a house during the formation of Pakistan in Mumbai and named it South Court which was designed by a British architect, Claude Batley. In 2007, Dina demanded that the house in Mumbai be handed to her, claiming that
Hindu Law should be applicable to her father as he was a Khoja, Shia. She fiercely fought for what she believed belonged to her.
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Dina was a woman renounced by her own family for the choices she made. Not only that, she often faced humiliation in India for being Jinnah’s Daughter. While on the other side of the border, in Pakistan,
she was considered a traitor by many for choosing to stay in India instead. She lived her entire life torn between two countries and the people she loved and finally died in New York at her home at the age of 98 on November 2nd, 2017 due to pneumonia. Dina is survived by her children, Nusli and Diana, and her grandsons, Ness and Jahangir Wadia.
Reference
Dina Wadia: Not Just Pakistan's Daughter | Feminism In India
'Fearless' Dina Wadia, Mohammad Ali Jinnah's only daughter and Nusli's mother, passes away at 98 in New York
Dina Wadia, the daughter of Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, passed away at her home in New York on Thursday
FP StaffNovember 03, 2017 07:52:24 IST
Dina Wadia, the daughter of Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, passed away at her home in New York on Thursday, a spokesperson of Wadia group said. She was 98.
Dina, who had married Bombay-based Parsi businessman Neville Wadia over her father's objection and stayed back in India after Partition, is survived by her daughter Diana N Wadia, son Nusli N Wadia, her grandsons Ness and Jeh Wadia and two great-grandchildren Jah and Ella Wadia.
According to
The Times of India report, the London-born Dina spent a major part of her life in Mumbai but had been living in the US for the past few decades. The report added that Jinnah was furious was when he was told by his daughter that she wanted to marry Neville Wadia, Parsi businessman.
File photo of Dina Wadia. Image courtesy. News18 Hindi
Journalist Sheela Reddy in her recent book,
Mr And Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India, says that Jinnah saw Dina's marriage to a Parsi Christian as a serious political embarrassment, said
The Telegraph report.
Jinnah, according to a report in
Dawn, loved Dina deeply, but their relationship had become strained after Dina fell in love with and married Neville at the age of 17.
"He tried to dissuade her (Dina) but finding her adamant,
Jinnah threatened to disown her. Instead of relenting, she moved into her grandmother's home, determined to go ahead with the marriage," Reddy noted in her book.
"There are millions of Muslim boys in India," Jinnah reportedly told Dina, and she could marry anyone she chose. To which, the adamant Dina, according to
The Times of India replied, "Father, there were millions of Muslim girls in India. Why did you not marry one of them?" Jinnah himself had married a Parsi girl, Rattanbai "Ruttie" Petit, who died in 1929.
Dina was the only child of Jinnah and his second wife Ruttie who was also known as Maryam Jinnah, says
The Free Press Journal report. Dina's paternal grandparents were from Gujarat, who moved to Karachi for business in the mid-1870s, where her father, Jinnah, was born, added the report.
After the death of Ruttie, Jinnah, according to
The Indian Express, became increasingly orthodox. However, he later permitted Dina’s grandmother, Dinbai Petit, to have a major say in the upbringing of his daughter and even permitted the child to take her grandmother’s name.
The report added that Dina didn't visit Pakistan until her father's funeral in Karachi in September 1948. In 2004, Dina visited Jinnah's tomb in Karachi. In the visitors' book, she then wrote, "May his dream for Pakistan come true."
After the death of her mother, Dina was raised by Jinnah's sister, Fatima Jinnah. Dina at an interview had shared that she never shared a healthy relation with her aunt, according to a
DNA report.
After Jinnah returned to Mumbai from England to take charge of the Muslim League, according to
IANS, he built himself a palatial mansion South Court (Jinnah House) in Mumbai, which became his residence during the politically momentous decade preceding the creation of Pakistan.
The house, designed by Claude Batley, a British architect, was built in 1936 and is located at Malabar Hill. In 1948, it was leased to the British Deputy High Commission which occupied it till 1982.
During his visit to India, then president Pervez Musharraf had renewed Pakistan's claim to the house which he had suggested to then Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee should be given to Pakistan so that it could be turned into a consulate.
However, Dina who lived in New York City, wrote to the Indian prime minister demanding that the house on the Malabar Hill, be handed over to her.
With inputs from agencies
