The Quaid and Dina Wadia

Dina Wadia, the only child of our beloved Quaid, passed away recently in New York at the age of 98. She was a fine, cultured, highly intelligent and independent-minded person much like her father the Quaid. Dina was 9 or 10 years old when her mother, Ruttie Jinnah, passed away and while she did accompany her father on some visits to London, she was largely brought up under the care of her maternal grandparents, the Petits of Bombay.

Upon the demise of Ruttie Jinnah in 1929, Fatima Jinnah moved in with the Quaid and looked after his household and extended personal care and company to the Quaid until his demise in 1948. For reasons unknown to the family, Fatima Jinnah and Dina Wadia were not on the best of terms.

There are reports in the print media regarding an estrangement in the relationship between Dina and the Quaid on the occasion of her marriage to Neville Wadia, a Parsi by faith who later became a Christian and prior to his death reverted to the Zoroastrian faith. The Quaid was upset at his daughter’s choice of marrying a non-Muslim and there were serious exchanges between father and daughter as the Quaid had also married Ruttie Petit, a Parsi, but she had converted to Islam. The Quaid’s marriage to Ruttie took place as a Nikah under Muslim law.

Both the Quaid and Dina Wadia were sad and upset when the time came for the Quaid to leave Bombay for Karachi on a permanent basis in early August 1947 and Dina Wadia came to Karachi for the funeral of the Quaid in August 1948. Not much is known of any earlier visits by Dina Wadia to Karachi to meet the Quaid but several letters exchanged between father and daughter have been published and it is clear from these letters that Dina Wadia was extremely fond of her father and wrote very loving and emotional letters to him.



There are some facts which cannot be denied and these facts perhaps tell a tale. The Quaid made his will in 1939 at Bombay in which he made a bequest of Rs100 to be paid each month to his sisters Rehmat Cassimboy Jamal, Mariam Abdenbhoy Peerbhoy, Shirin and to his brother Ahmed during their lifetime while the Quaid directed his executors to set apart Rs200,000 which would earn an income at 6% (approximately) Rs1,000 to be paid to Dina Wadia every month during her life and after her death the corpus of Rs200,000 to be divided equally between her children male or female and in default of issues, the corpus to form part of the Quaid’s residuary estate.

The Quaid made a bequest of all shares, stocks, securities, bank accounts standing in his name to his sister Fatima Jinnah and confirmed that gifts given to her during his lifetime were her absolute property. The Quaid also made a bequest in favour of Fatima Jinnah of his house along with land situated at Mount Pleasant Road, Malabar Hill, Bombay, including of furniture, fixtures, fittings, plates, silver and motor cars in favour of Fatima Jinnah.

Dina’s 1948 visit

Dina Wadia visited Pakistan in 1948 on the demise of the Quaid and in 2004 to witness a cricket match at Lahore after which she came to Karachi and paid her respects to the Quaid at the Mazar and also visited Flagstaff House.

I had the pleasure and honour of meeting Dina Wadia on three occasions. Once in New York with my wife and children and again in 2004 at Flagstaff House, Karachi, and lastly a few years ago during one of my visits to Bombay when she invited me to have breakfast with her at Four Seasons Hotel in Bombay. Our discussions were pleasant and general in nature as she did not desire to go into any specific issues particularly those relevant to politics in Pakistan and the Quaid’s extended family in India and Pakistan. She did, however, tell me that she was particularly fond of Quaid’s sister Marimabai and got along well with her son Akbar Peerbhoy.

Dina Wadia was a very private person who shunned publicity and any excessive contact with people. According to Professor Stanley Wolpert, she agreed to grant him an interview for his book Jinnah of Pakistan but declined to meet him when he arrived in New York from California to interview her. However, she reportedly met Professor Akbar Ahmed who recently wrote an article which was published in this newspaper and also gave an interview which was recorded and forms part of a documentary Mr Jinnah: The Making of Pakistan which was shown by the Jinnah Society at the Flagstaff House in Karachi with the approval of Professor Akbar Ahmed.

Dina Wadia did not challenge the Quaid’s will and the bequest of Jinnah House at Malabar Hill, Bombay, to Fatima Jinnah but the occasion to take up a position contrary to the Quaid’s will arose when she initiated legal proceedings claiming entitlement to Jinnah House at Malabar Hill, Bombay as the sole surviving heir of the Quaid to the total exclusion of all other persons. This was resisted by Muhammad Rajab Ali Ibrahim, grandson of Quaid’s sister Mariambai, in Bombay and Roohina Peerbhoy, a granddaughter of Mariambai, the Quaid’s sister. Possession of Jinnah House continued to remain vested with the government of India as both the property of Quaid and Fatima Jinnah were declared evacuee and enemy property after the 1965 and 1971 wars between India and Pakistan.

Since the filing of three legal proceedings in the High Court of Bombay at Bombay, Muhammad Rajab Ali Ibrahim passed away and so did Dina Wadia while Rohina Peerbhoy withdrew the legal proceedings filed by her in Bombay after the Indian Parliament passed a new law very recently to the effect that descendants of persons whose property was declared Evacuee or Enemy and were taken over by the State could not be inherited by them. Thus Jinnah House Bombay continues to remain with the Government of India and is now in a dilapidated state. In my capacity as a defendant in Rohina Peerbhoy’s suit for administration of the estate of the Quaid and Fatima Jinnah, I made a categorical statement that Jinnah House be converted into a history and cultural Museum which would cover the movement for independence and all political leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League.

Dina Wadia is survived by a son Nusli Wadia and a daughter in India. Her son is a highly successful Industrialist and businessman in India.

The Quaid made his will in 1939. He passed away in 1948. Had he wished, he could have changed his will and made a bequest of Jinnah House in Bombay to Dina Wadia in place of Fatima Jinnah but he did not do this. The Quaid, apart from small bequests to his sisters and brother and daughter, left his estate largely to Fatima Jinnah and educational institutions in India and Pakistan. For reasons best known only to him, the Quaid left his will of 1939 intact from 1939 until his demise in 1948. Fatima Jinnah was always his companion in all social, official and political functions.

It is indeed sad that Dina Wadia could not get back and live in Jinnah House at Bombay while Fatima Jinnah to whom Jinnah House was bequeathed by the Quaid under his will never filed a claim in Bombay for entitlement to Jinnah House. She was provided Mohatta Palace at Karachi by the Government of Pakistan where Fatima Jinnah lived and died in July 1967. The grandchildren of Jinnah’s sister Rehmatbai and Mariambai live in India, Pakistan, the UK and the US. The Quaid’s brother Ahmed Jinnah was married to a Swiss lady and had one child, Fatima, but the last contact with the family in Karachi with her was in the late ’70s but not thereafter.

The demise of Dina Wadia was indeed the end of an era. Some people find it strange that she had no connection with Pakistan, except respect as the Quaid’s daughter, but this is not difficult to understand as she was brought up as an Indian by her maternal grandparents. She was married to Neville Wadia, a Parsi, and lived mainly in New York after her separation from her husband though she visited Bombay regularly.

She neither wanted nor had any close connections with Pakistan and the only family in Pakistan comprised of the Quaid’s sisters’ grand children with whom she had no interaction except in relation to the Quaid’s will, and when asked by the media in 2004 as to when she would visit Pakistan again, she replied that she would do so when her father’s wishes and aspirations for Pakistan become a reality.

Where we stand today is far from achieving Jinnah’s Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2017.

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