The woman Jinnah loved

LONDON: This is with reference to Khaled Ahmed’s article “The woman Jinnah loved” (May 23).

I would like to thank the writer for his excellent piece on a beautiful and fascinating woman we hear so little about.

As someone who likes to read about Jinnah and Ruttie, however, I would not agree that Dina’s marriage to Mr Wadia (as Jinnah liked to call him) was “a pattern repeating itself”. If one delves into the story, what one finds is that Jinnah did not respect Neville Wadia as a person. Jinnah’s opposition to Dina’s marriage may have had as much to do with the fact that Neville was not Muslim – incidentally, he had converted to Christianity (as did his father) and converted back to Zoroastrianism shortly before his death – as the fact that Jinnah found Neville fickle and untrustworthy.

Jinnah was correct in his assessment. Dina was not happy in her marriage to Wadia, as Neville, according to many reports, was not faithful to Dina. This is in stark contrast to the love story between Ruttie and Jinnah. And though Jinnah and Ruttie may have found it difficult to bridge their generational gap or spend as much time together as Ruttie would have liked, neither ever stopped loving the other or was in the least bit unfaithful.

Both Jinnah and Ruttie were strong personalities, full of principles. Not something one can say about Neville Wadia!

Published in the Express Tribune, May 25th, 2010.